GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English

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1.       
   Wampum , n. [North American Indian wampum, wompam, from the Mass. wómpi, Del. wāpe, white.] Beads made of shells, used by the North American Indians as money, and also wrought into belts, etc., as an ornament.
   1913 Webster
   Round his waist his belt of wampum.
   Longfellow.
   
   1913 Webster
   Girded with his wampum braid.
   Whittier.
   
   1913 Webster
   ☞ 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.
   
   1913 Webster