Jason Widdiss, son of well known wampum artist and former Aquinnah Wampanoag tribal chairman
Donald Widdiss, has been making wampum jewelry for over 10 years.
"I started off stringing bracelets for my dad for extra
money. Eventually my curiosity took hold and I wanted to learn the whole process.
I remember trying to make beads for the first time.
He (Donald) made it look so easy, like the grinding wheel did all the work. I sat down at the machine, put on the smelly hand
me down mask, and went to work. Two hours and two bloody finger tips later I had made about a dozen warped, uneven beads.
It wasn't till about a month later that i actually
made a bead worth selling. I'll always remember running to show my father my work of art and him replying "about a thousand
more and you might have it down". He wasn't kidding. It took me years to get used to the whole process, which includes
much more than simply grinding out the beads.
First you need to get the quahogs, which only about
every third one is usable. Then you need to shuck the hogs, saw them into the basic shape you want, use a rough grinding wheel
to take the excess off, use a high grit wheel to get the final shape, then you're only half done. The beads still need to
drilled, polished, and sorted into piles of usable and unusable. Then they have to be strung. Depending on
the bracelet this is sometimes the most difficult part, especially with the sinew bracelets."
