Hiawatha and the Invention of Wampum
When Hiawatha's three daughters were killed by the evil Tadodaho, he was consumed by grief and wandered the wilderness. The Great Peacemaker found him and taught him the Condolence Ceremony to ease his grief. As part of this ceremony, Hiawatha invented wampum — strings of purple and white shell beads — to record the laws and treaties of the growing Confederacy. He strung the white beads to represent peace and the purple to represent the grave matters of the law. The strings of wampum became the constitutional record of the Haudenosaunee, serving as mnemonic devices to help storytellers recall