wammus (wamus)

[Also wamus; nament by the North American Indians. The shell was cut away, leaving only a cylinder like a European bugle. Wampum was of two kinds, white and black or dark-purple. An imitation of wampum consisting of white porcelain beads of the same shape has been made by Europe ans for sale to the Indians. See the second quotation under wampumpeag. Ye said Narigansets. should pay of good white wampame . 2000 fat home Bradford, Plymouth Plantation, p. 437. Sachems of Long Island came voluntarily, and brought a tribute to us of twenty fathom of wampom , each of them. Winthrop , Hist. New England, I. 283. The Indians are ignorant of Europes Coyne; yet they have given a name to ours, and call it monèash from the English money. Their owne is of two sorts: one white, which they call Meteaûhock, when all the shell is broken off: and of this sort six of their small Beads (which they make with holes to string the bracelets) are currant with the English for a Peny. The second is black, inclining to blew, which is made of the shell of a fish, which some English call Hens, Poquaûhock, and of this sort three make an English peny. This one fathom of this their stringed money, now worth of the English but five shillings (sometimes more), some few yeeres since was worth nine, and sometimes ten shillings per Fat home. they make of the stem or stocke of the Periwincle, Obs: Their white they call Wompam (which signifies white): their black Suck an hock (Sácki signifying blacke). Both amongst themselves, as also the English and Dutch, the blacke peny is two pence white. Roger Williams , Key to Amer. Lang., xxiv. Striped wampum, a kind of wampum-snake, Abastor erythrogrammus of North America. wampumpeag (wom'pum-pēg), n. [Amer. Ind., wompam , white, + peag , strung beads.] Strings of (originally white) wampum formerly used as tokens of value by the American Indians, and by the whites, especially in trade with the Indians. He gave to the govern our a good quantity of wampom Winthrop, Hist. New England, I. 143. peague . Destruction of Troy (E. E. T. S.), 1. 3602. IMG:content-2041.png:[blocks in formation] A vast speculation had fail'd, And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair. Tennyson, Maud, i. 3. [Rare in both uses.] wan2t (wan). An old preterit of win1. wan-. [ME. wan- , wan- = MD. D. wan = OHG. MHG. wan- , G. wahn- = Icel. van- = Sw. Dan. van- , a negative prefix, being the adj. AS. wan = OFries. wan , won = MLG. wan = OHG. wan = Icel. vanr : see wanel , wane2 , want1 , wanse . AS.compounds with wan- were numerous: wanhælth , want of health, wanhal , unhealthy, wanhygd , heedle ne , etc.: see wan belief, wanhope, wan speed, wanton, want rust, wanwit, etc.] A prefix of Anglo-Saxon origin, frequent in Middle English, meaning 'wanting, deficient, lacking, and used as a negative, like un -1, with which it often interchanged. It differs from un -1 in denoting more emphatically the fact of privation. It still exists as a recognized prefix in provincial use, and in literary use, unrecognized as a prefix, in wanton .