Wampum
 

Graeber / Wengrow 177-8: "[S]ettlers in different parts of North America referred to a whole variety of things as 'Indian money.' Often these were shell beads or actual shells. But in almost every case, the term is largely a projection of European categories on to objects that look like money, but really aren't. Perhaps the most famous of these, wampum, did eventually come to be used as a trade currency in transactions between settlers and indigenous peoples of the Northeast [...] In dealings between indigenous people, however, it was almost never used to buy or sell anything. Rather, it was employed to pay fines, and as a way of forming and remembering compacts and agreements."

> from David Graeber and David Wengrow's Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021)

> tagged with #indigenous_peoples, #economics

> created October 23, 2024 at 12:12:25 PM


> part of unfinished everything


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unfinished everything is an original work / ongoing project (1997-present) by jeremy p. bushnell

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