Quahogs have a long history in the state. The shells of the large, hard-shelled clam were used by the indigenous Narragansett people as wampum. The clam itself is a staple of clam chowders and in ...

Almost fifty years ago, when Haraldur Sigurdsson first came to the University of Rhode Island from Iceland, he got interested ...

Allen is from the Narragansett nation in Rhode Island. Allen Hazard: The word "wampum" is what the Europeans took out of our Algonquian pronunciation. The true Algonquian pronunciation is wampumpeg.

The Wampanoag and Narragansett people greatly valued wampum, beads made from shells local to New England. Purple beads came from quahog clams, and the white beads from whelks. STEPHEN LANG ...

What exactly is wampum? The term was co-opted by New England colonists as a shortening for the Wampanoag and or Narragansett word wampumpeag, which roughly translates to string of white shell beads.