Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Wampum?

\Wam"pum\, n. [North American Indian wampum, wompam, from the Mass. w['o]mpi, Del. w[=a]pe, white.] Beads made of shells, used by the North American Indians as money, and also wrought into belts, etc., as an ornament. Round his waist his belt of wampum. --Longfellow. Girded with his wampum braid. --Whittier. Note: These beads were of two kinds, one white, and the other black or dark purple. The term wampum is properly applied only to the white; the dark purple ones are called suckanhock. See {Seawan}. ``It [wampum] consisted of cylindrical pieces of the shells of testaceous fishes, a quarter of an inch long, and in diameter less than a pipestem, drilled . . . so as to be strung upon a thread. The beads of a white color, rated at half the value of the black or violet, passed each as the equivalent of a farthing in transactions between the natives and the planters.'' --Palfrey.