"Four or six strings joined in one breadth, and fastened to each other with fine thread, make a _belt of wampom_, being about three or four inches wide, and three feet long, containing, perhaps, four, eight, or twelve fathom of wampom, in proportion to its required length and breadth. This is determined by the importance of the subject which these belts are intended either to explain or confirm, or by the dignity of the persons to whom they are to be delivered. Everything of moment transacted at solemn councils, either between the Indians themselves or with Europeans, is ratified and made valid by strings and belts of wampom. Formerly, they used to give sanction to their treaties by delivering a wing of some large bird; and this custom still prevails among the more western nations, in transacting business with the Delawares. But the Delawares themselves, the Iroquois, and the nations in league with them, are now sufficiently provided with handsome and well-wrought strings and belts of wampom. Upon the delivery of a string, a long speech may be made and much said upon the subject under consideration, _but when a belt is given few words are spoken_; but they must be words of great importance, frequently requiring an explanation. Whenever the speaker has pronounced some important sentence, he delivers a string of wampom, adding, 'I give this string of wampom as a confirmation of what I have spoken'; but the chief subject of his discourse he confirms with a belt. The answers given to a speech thus delivered must also be confirmed by strings and belts of wampom, of the same size and number as those received. Neither the colour nor the other qualities of wampom are a matter of indifference, but have an immediate reference to those things which they are meant to confirm. The brown or deep violet, called black by the Indians, always means something of severe or doubtful import; but the white is the colour of peace. Thus, if a string or belt of wampom is intended to confirm a warning against evil, or an earnest reproof, it is delivered in black. When a nation is called upon to go to war, or war declared against it, the belt is black, or marked with red, called by them, the _colour of blood_, having in the middle the figure of an hatchet in white wampom. * * * They refer to them as public records, carefully preserving them in a chest made for that purpose. At certain seasons they meet to study their meaning, and to renew the ideas of which they were an emblem or confirmation. On such occasions they sit down around the chest, take out one string or belt after the other, handing it about to every person present, and that they may all comprehend its meaning, repeat the words pronounced on its delivery in their whole convention. By these means they are enabled to remember the promises reciprocally made by the different parties; and it is their custom to admit even the young boys, who are related to the