[Edward Manning Ruttenber (1906)] They were almost constantly at war with the Pequods and Narragansetts, but there is no evidence that they were ever conquered, and much less that they were conquered by the Iroquois, to whom they paid tribute for protection in later years, as they had to the Pequods and to the English; nor is there evidence that their intercourse with the river tribes immediately around them was other than friendly. * * * * * [FN-1] "_Meteauhock,_ the Periwinkle of which they made their wampum." (Williams.) "Perhaps derived from _Mehtauog,_ 'Ear-shaped,' with the generic suffix _hock_ (_hogki, hackee_), 'shell.'" (Trumbull.) [FN-2] _Wompompeag_ is another form quoted as Mohegan, from which _Wompum._ "_Wompom,_ which signifies white." (Roger Williams.) [FN-3] _Seahwhoog,_ "they are scattered." (Eliot.) "From this word the Dutch traders gave the name of _Sewan,_ or _Zeawand,_ to all shell money; just as the English called all _Peag,_ or strung beads, by the name of the white, _Wampum._" (Trumbull.) [FN-4] An interpretation of _Paumanack_ as indicating a people especially under tribute, is erroneous. The belts which they made were in universal use among the nations as an offering, the white belts denoting good, as peace, friendship, etc., the black, the reverse. The ruling sachem, or peace-chief, was the keeper and interpreter of the belts of his nation, and his place sometimes took its name from that fact.