Why this word is great
HIAQUA — [Noun] Beads or shells, especially strung as ornaments or used as currency by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest. Borrowed from Chinook Jargon hywka, hyakwa, ultimately from Nootka, a Wakashan language. Unlike "wampum" (polished and purple, traded in the forests of the East) or "peag" (small, pale, and counted in the hands of coastal traders), hiaqua speaks of the cold Pacific tides—long, tubular dentalium shells, strung like vertebrae of some luminous sea-creature, clattering softly in a cedar box, passed between hands in ceremony or commerce. They are the gleam of wealth pulled from the deep, the weight of a promise knotted in cord, the quiet persistence of value where metal coins never came—proof that beauty, too, can be currency.