Frontiers and Borderlands:
Blogging Across Disciplinary Boundaries
March 12, 2016
Well, I didn't really find wampum in North Carolina. I did, however, stumble across the home of John Lawson who offered a curious description of wampum in 1709. I didn't go out looking for John Lawson. My wife and [...]
March 8, 2016
Wampum belts, when they include both purple and white shells, are crafted with designs that convey particular messages. Sometimes these patterns are unique; other times they are recognizable designs related to common relationship metaphors that recur throughout wampum's history. One [...]
February 26, 2016
On Monday, members of the Haudenosaunee Grand Council visited the White House to discuss concerns about several ongoing issues. Here they are photographed with the so-called Washington Treaty Belt which dates to the Canandaigua Treaty of 1794 and serves as [...]
February 25, 2016
Historical research usually entails long hours reading in the library or archives, and then holed up somewhere writing. But my wampum study invited a different sort of research. I felt that I couldn't properly research it if I didn't get [...]
February 22, 2016
I was first introduced to wampum in grade school when I was taught it was Indian money. Since then, I read about wampum in books like Neal Salisbury's Manitou and Providence and William Cronon's Changes in the Land, but it [...]
