The word wampum comes from the language of the Narragansett, a tribe that still lives on a small portion of their ancestral land in Rhode Island. White wampum beads were made from whelk shell and purple from quahog shell. The beads were woven into belts, often including pictographs, and used in ceremonies or to mark important occasions or agreements. The settler colonists appropriated wampum as a kind of money and began manufacturing their own. Colonists often used wampum as partial payment when purchasing land.