It was necessary for the whites in the very early times to have this Indian money ready when they wished to purchase furs or other supplies of their wild neighbors. The beads had a certain value according to the number of strings. This value never changed.
It is told by the people who wrote back to England in those early days that the Indians could not be made to understand why they should pay more wampum for anything when it was scarce than when it was plentiful. They were used to having one price for things they wished to buy and never having the price changed. For this reason the early settlers were able to buy many valuable things at a very small price.
The chiefs of the Iroquois, while mourning a chief’s death, wore strings of black wampum. Other strings of different lengths or colors meant various things to the owners and those about them. The wearing of wampum in any quantity meant wealth and position.
It is told of the famous Chief Logan that he saved a captive white by rushing through the circle of Indians [[19]]who were tormenting him, and throwing a string of wampum about the captive’s neck. From that minute he belonged to Chief Logan.
Wampum has been made by machinery since 1670 and sold to the Indians. Old belts and strings of beads, so slowly made by hand, are very valuable. The white and colored glass beads now used are worth but little compared with the wampum of early days.
Arranged from Powell’s Report to the Bureau of Ethnology. [[20]]
INDIAN TRAITS
lmost unconsciously, even as our own eyes and other senses are trained to help us in city or country life, the Indians are adding to their education in the things which will make life and labor easier to them. Their reading of weather signs is very accurate, and possibly their rain-makers are simply experts in these signs.