Existing comment:
Wampum
probably 1700s
beads made from shells
American Indians prized wampum for its trade value and as a ritual gift, probably long before they began trading fur pelts to Europeans for the shell-beads in the 1500s. Though Europeans initially viewed wampum as a low-cost means of obtaining furs, by the 1630s colonists had come to accept it as legal tender, evidence of the complex web of interactions in the new world. |