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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 (gcide)

Seawan \Sea"wan\, Seawant \Sea"want\, n.
The name used by the Algonquin Indians for the shell beads
which passed among the Indians as money.
[1913 Webster]

Note: Seawan was of two kinds; {wampum}, white, and
{suckanhock}, black or purple, -- the former having
half the value of the latter. Many writers, however,
use the terms seawan and {wampum} indiscriminately.
--Bartlett.
[1913 Webster]


Wampum \Wam"pum\, n. [North American Indian wampum, wompam, from
the Mass. w['o]mpi, Del. w[=a]pe, white.]
Beads made of shells, used by the North American Indians as
money, and also wrought into belts, etc., as an ornament.
[1913 Webster]

Round his waist his belt of wampum. --Longfellow.
[1913 Webster]

Girded with his wampum braid. --Whittier.
[1913 Webster]

Note: These beads were of two kinds, one white, and the other
black or dark purple. The term wampum is properly
applied only to the white; the dark purple ones are
called suckanhock. See {Seawan}. "It [wampum] consisted
of cylindrical pieces of the shells of testaceous
fishes, a quarter of an inch long, and in diameter less
than a pipestem, drilled . . . so as to be strung upon
a thread. The beads of a white color, rated at half the
value of the black or violet, passed each as the
equivalent of a farthing in transactions between the
natives and the planters." --Palfrey.
[1913 Webster]