'It's Not Work, It's a Blessing': Behind the Spiritual Experience of Making Wampum

Ginew Benton remembers a crucial bit of advice that Chief Harry Wallace gave him when he first started working at Wampum Magic on the Poospatuck Reservation near Mastic.

Wallace, chief of the Unkechaug Nation, cautioned Benton and his fellow artisans making wampum — unique, hand-crafted works of art, like necklaces, earrings, beads and belts, crafted from the white and deep purple quahog clam shells found on the Northeast coast — that if they were having a bad day, or dealing with stress or anxiety, they should just stay home.

“Making wampum is a very spiritual process,” Benton said. “We’d always laugh when he’d say that. But there’s always a certain point where you’re feeling frustrated, and it will start exploding, or you’ll be trying to drill and it crumbles.

“Wampum is a teacher,” he continued. “It will teach you to calm down, to relax and focus, or that it’s not the time to do it right now.”

It’s a lesson that’s been heeded by Gordell Wright of the Shinnecock Nation. Wright has been making wampum for the past 13 years, getting his start under the guidance and mentorship of Benton and others at Wampum Magic.

Wright, 51, who splits his time between Long Island and his home in Arizona, has made the art of wampum a full-time pursuit, crafting one-of-a-kind earrings, beads, necklaces, belts and more from the shells that hold deep meaning and significance for the Shinnecock people and other Algonquin tribes who live on or near Northeastern shores.

Making wampum is no easy task. Turning a raw material that is the opposite of malleable into intricate works of art requires a serious dedication of time, focus and concentration, not to mention patience and persistence, before anything approaching mastery can be achieved.

But when Wright talks about making wampum, he doesn’t focus on the difficulties or challenges. He speaks, instead, of what it means to him to be immersed in the craft and its cultural significance.

“It’s an honor to do it,” he said. “We’ve been making wampum on Shinnecock and on the Northeast coast for thousands of years. So, to me, it’s about carrying on tradition. I don’t see it as work — it’s a blessing.”

Wright travels around the country sharing the fruits of his labor, selling his wampum creations at powwows and other gatherings across the country, and he’s earned a reputation as one of the best. And this weekend, he will have a booth set up at the 77th annual Shinnecock Indian Powwow.

It is hard to overstate the enormous cultural significance that wampum has held over the thousands of years, not just for Indigenous coastal peoples like the Shinnecock but throughout the country as well. It features prominently in ceremonies; it is used for honoring, in trade, for personal adornment; it is given as a gift, or used as a symbol for war or for peace.

Wampum belts hold particular importance because they are often used to document historical events, alliances, prophesies, treaties and more, making wampum not only a teacher, but a storyteller, too.

Wright made the choice to devote himself to learning the craft at a good time.

Several years ago, wampum making was in danger of becoming a lost art. It was a challenge for many people to find the time and energy to devote to the craft, which requires learning how to effectively use tools, like saws and drills with diamond-bit blades, to make precise cuts and shapes, to polish the wampum. Much of that work must be done with the shells immersed in water, to prevent them from cracking and to keep fine shell dust out of the air.

Wright said it would be a mistake to think that the presence of modern-day tools has made making wampum less hands-on, or an easier task to master.

“It’s still a lot of work and a long process,” he said. “If your heart’s not really into making wampum, you won’t last long on the large scale of making it.”

There is the actual physical work that goes into making wampum, and then there is another unofficial responsibility that comes with it: being the caretaker of the wampum story.

Indigenous artisans like Wright have to do a fair amount of educating about their craft and even the word “wampum,” which has been co-opted over the years, creating a false impression that the term is simply a stand-in for “currency.”

“The currency aspect is not our concept of it,” Wright said. He explained that while Indigenous tribes did trade with it, the idea of wampum being used solely as a form of currency was a consequence of European colonization.

“When the colonists saw the value wampum had and how we used it in all our communities, they decided to use it as currency, because they didn’t have a currency at the time,” he said.

Benton said that telling the accurate origin story of wampum is an integral part of being a wampum artisan — so integral, in fact, that it feeds into the actual craft of making it.

“When you become a wampum maker, you become responsible for the oral history behind wampum making,” he said. “The more experience that you have in understanding and utilizing the oral history in your wampum making, the more that the wampum allows you to be able to create it.”

The shell itself features prominently in creation stories passed down by Algonquin tribes like the Shinnecock, and it’s a story that Benton says he has shared many times.

“The spirit Creator wanted to give us was so powerful, every time he tried to create us, it shattered,” Benton said. As the story goes, the solution was to breathe that spirit into life through a shell.

“The shell bore the brunt of the impact of that very special life, and we were able to contain that very powerful spirit we were given,” he continued. “Ever since then, there’s been a relationship between the shell and the Algonquin people.”

Benton added that the ubiquity of quahog shells on the shores — and the presence of those bearing the deep purple color in particular — is an indicator of how well people are taking care of the Earth. The evidence has, unfortunately, but not surprisingly, been damning in recent years.

“The more purple the shells are and the more plentiful they are, the better it is we are taking care of the land,” he said. “In places that are polluted and not taken care of, the shells have less purple. They’re becoming less frequent. The shells are telling us that we’re not doing a great job.”

Despite that disheartening sign from nature, wampum makers like Benton and Wright will still continue to create their unique works of art. Benton spoke about the importance of someone like Wright not only remaining committed to making wampum, but pursuing it on a full-time basis.

“There are less and less of our kids taking up the mantle and responsibility of our traditions,” he said. “Gordell is one of four people I’ve trained that have been successful over the years, and he’s made it into his purpose and passion and livelihood, which is very gratifying.”

There is multi-layered value in owning wampum, whether it’s a necklace, belt, or pair of earrings.

Each piece is truly one of a kind, unable to be replicated or duplicated, and the skill necessary to create it was acquired over years of hard work. Benton and Wright both said it can take up to two years to truly master.

“It’s expensive because of the rarity of it and the years of experience that goes into it,” Wright said. “It’s just like a Navajo blanket: There’s nobody else allowed to sell Navajo blankets except the Navajo. So when you have someone from Long Island making wampum, that’s a genuine, traditional piece.

“And it’s unique,” he continued. “You can make the same design on a necklace, but it will never be the same.

“It’s like a fingerprint. When you buy a piece, it’s your piece. There’s not a single one like it.”