purple and white quahog shell, weft is vegetable fibre and warp two-ply hemp or cotton, ends bound with rawhide

large zig zag in purple on white ground

Old museum labels state:

"WAMPUM BELT, MOHAWK INDIANS. / [Wampum beads were made by the / Indians from shell of two colours, / white and violet, and were used for / barter as well as ornament, the violet / bearing almost the same relation to / the white as gold to silver. The / records of war, treaties, and other / great events were transmitted from / generation to generation by means / of these belts worked with picture / writing. The introduction of coun- / terfeit wampum in large quantities / Dutch traders lessened its value.] / T.O.D. Coll. 273.-'85."

Handwritten label: "Belt of Wampum / (Mohawk Indians) / Presented by The Provost + Senior / Fellows of Trinity / College - Dublin / Reg No 273.85"

"WAMPUM, NORTH AMERICA / It is well known that wampum or shell beads formed a medium of exchange / among the so-called Indians of North America, at a very early period. / Thomas Morton, as far back as 1630, speaksof the natives of New England as having shell beads in two colours, the value of the white being relatively to that of / the violet as silver is to gold with us. The use of these beads as money would / naturally originate in 1 the demand for them as ornaments, 1 the ease with which / large quantities might be carried and transferred from one person to another, and 3 / the limitation of supply, in consequence of the difficulty of working the hard shell. / Wampum, of course, like that of the bet exhibited in this case, was made by / hand; but the Dutch, when they discovered the value set upon it, introduced the / lathe in its manufacture in New Jersey, thus profiting much for a time, but eventually / reducing its current value. / Wampum was also used mnemonically. When so employed it was generally / woven into belts which, by association of colour and pattern, were made to record / laws, treaties and histories; the fact of treaty being ever afterwards associated with the particular design of its belt. Peace, for instance, would sometimes be proclaimed / by a belt on which were two men with joined hands. Of course these records were / useless without an interpreter; but among the Iroquois there is still a hereditary / "keeper of wampum," whose duty is to be well versed in its interpretation. And, in / addition to this, these mnemonic belts are shown periodically to the whole tribe, and / the history of each publicly recited; thus giving additional permanency to tradition / and advancing a step further in the direction of written records. / Science and Art Museum, Dublin. 11.6.86."

Trinity College Dublin; The Trinity College Dublin museum was founded in 1777 but Rachel Hand thinks there were items in the college before that.

GRASAC researcher notes from a research trip to the National Museum of Ireland on July 23, 2010.

Maker, Name unrecorded. Wampum belt. GRASAC ID: 25884. National Museum of Ireland 1885.273.

This record was augmented by Dana Murray on August 13, 2024. It draws on information recorded during the GRASAC Research trip to the National Museum of Ireland on July 23, 2010. Participants included Alan Corbiere, Ruth Phillips, Crystal Migwans, and Nicholas Stolle, who were assisted by Padraig Clancy and Emma Crosby.