Wampum (belt of shell beads)

White shell and purple shell ground into beads and woven with thread into a belt — wampum. For the native peoples of North America it was properly an object of ceremony, of record and of diplomacy. A belt for holding a covenant in memory and handing it on spread, in the fur trade with the colonists, into use as currency, and in Massachusetts it was made legal tender for small payments for a time in the middle of the 17th century. In colonies with no steady supply of coin, tobacco and grain and nails were used in payment too. What is money? The story of the dollar begins from that question.