Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/182

 j 70 On the defcent of the American Indians from the Jews.

tortoife-lhells with pebbles or beads in them, fattened to pieces of deer-fkins,. which they tie to the outfide of their legs, when they mix with the men in* their religious dances.

The Indian nations are agreed in the cuftom of thus adorning them- felves with beads of various fizes and colours fometimes wrought in garters,, fames, necklaces, and in firings round their wrifts ; and fo from the crown of their heads fometimes to the cartilage of the nofe. And they doat on them fo much, as to make them their current money in all payments to this day.

Before we fupplied them with our European beads, they had great quan tities of wampum ; (the Buccinum of the ancients) made out of conch- fhcll, by rubbing them on hard ftones, and fo they form them according to their liking. With thefe they bought and fold at a ftated current rate,, without the leaft variation for circumftances either of time or place -, and now they will hear nothing patiently of lofs or gain, or allow us to heighten the price of our goods, be our reafons ever fo ftrong, or though the exigent cies and changes of time may require it. Formerly, four deer-fkins was the price of a large conch-mell bead, about the length and thicknefs of a man's fore-finger ; which they fixed to the crown of their head, as an high ornament fo greatly they valued them. Their beads bear a very near re- femblance to ivory, which was highly efleemed by the Hebrews.

The New-England writers affure us, that the Naraganfat Indians paid to the colony of Maflachufetts, two hundred fathoms of wampum, only in part of a debt ; and at another payment one-hundred fathoms : which mews the Indian cuftom of wearing beads has prevailed far north on this continent, and before the firfl fettling of our colonies..

According to the oriental cuftom, they wear ear-rings and finger-rings- in abundance. Tradition fays, they followed the like cuftom before they, became acquainted with the Englifh.

The men and women in old times ufed fuch coarfe diamonds, as their own hilly country produced, when each had a bit of ftone fattened with a

deer's

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