wam·pum /ˈwɑmpəm/
 貝殼念珠;金錢
 Wam·pum n.  Beads made of shells, used by the North American Indians as money, and also wrought into belts, etc., as an ornament.
    Round his waist his belt of wampum.   --Longfellow.
    Girded with his wampum braid.   --Whittier.
 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.”
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 wampum
      n 1: informal terms for money [syn: boodle, bread, cabbage,
            clams, dinero, dough, gelt, kale, lettuce,
           lolly, lucre, loot, moolah, pelf, scratch, shekels,
            simoleons, sugar]
      2: small cylindrical beads made from polished shells and
         fashioned into strings or belts; used by certain Native
         American peoples as jewelry or currency [syn: peag, wampumpeag]