Picture a midden of shells, fresh from the feasting, piled near the shore of what is now the northeastern United States. Dark and light, broken and whole, these are the material remains of the marine creatures whose salty flesh fed the Indigenous people who gathered here. Mingled together are the exoskeletons of crab and lobster, the shells of the bivalve mollusks (oysters, mussels, clams) and the spiral-shaped shells of the univalve gastropods (snails, whelks).
This gathering was more than just a meal, however. Important business was conducted here: Weapons were laid aside; peace negotiated; words spoken. Minds will remember, but minds are fragile things. Sturdier materials were needed.
And so it is that the hands of Indigenous artisans gathered, from this midden, two kinds of shells: univalve and bivalve, white and purple, whelk and quahog. From the center whorls of the youngest whelk, and from the outer edges of the oldest quahog, beads were painstakingly cut, sanded, drilled and strung with leather from the tanned hides of deer, and fibers from the pith of dogbane. Woven together, water’s edge, forest thicket, and open fields materialized the message.
In strings, arm’s lengths, or fathoms, these shell beads—called Wampumpeag, or Wampum—encoded and communicated the intentions of those who carried them. Some were used in healing ceremonies and rituals of condolence, or worn as protective adornment. Some were woven into diplomatic collars and belts, and meticulously patterned with symbols. These patterned wampum objects were assigned specific meanings to recall the significance of that encounter, the history of that tribe, or the intentions of those parties.
For centuries, the Indigenous people of these eastern shores—Lenape, Mohegan, Montauk, Narragansett, Niantic, Shinnecock, Wampanoag and others—have made wampum beads. They shared these beads with the Haudenosaunee—Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora—who perfected the art and science of wampum diplomacy.
Native people shared their understandings of wampum with strangers from across the ocean—Dutch, English, French, and others—who, at times, embraced the protocols of wampum diplomacy as an effective means of building alliances. But during the settler colonial era, these strangers also used wampum beads for money, transmuting the shells of these once-living beings into dead agents of commerce. Wampum was strong, but vulnerable; when war broke out, even wampum belts would be marked with blood. Yet, blood could be washed away by the exchange of good words and good wampum.
And so it is that the hands of Indigenous artisans have always gathered these shells to weave new wampum.
—Dr. Margaret Bruchac
Reprinted from OSF’s 2018 Illuminations, a 64-page guide to the season’s plays. Members at the Donor level and above and teachers who bring school groups to OSF receive a free copy of Illuminations.