THE BOOK WAS

DRENCHED

8i<OU 1608725m
-"
73

DSMANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Accession

<Cafll *No,

No

Author
Title

This book should

l>e-returheii

on or before the date last marked below.

A SURVEY OF PRIMITIVE MONEY

METHUEN'S HANDBOOKS OF ARCHAEOLOGY

General Editor
ARTHUR BERNARD COOK, Litt.D.
:

EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE

ROMAN COINS
ENGLISH COINS
GREEK COINS
HOMER AND MYCENAE
THE FOUNDATIONS OF ROMAN ITALY
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CRETE
A SURVEY OF PRIMITIVE MONEY

By
By
By
By

Harold Mattingly
George C. Brooke
Charles Seltman
Martin P. Nilsson

By Joshua Whatmough
By J. D. S. Pendlebury
By A. Kingston Quiggin

1.

2.

Sapi
Sapi

3. 4.

sapi>

Trobriands, p. 172

5.

sapi,

New

6.

Guinea, p. 172

Trade beads, Uganda,

p.

99

7.

8.

Trade beads,

Ujiji, p.

102

"
beads, West Africa,
Aggry
Chevron bead, Africa, p. 39
"
"
bead, Gold Coast,
Aggry

"

p.

39

p.

39

A.

KINGSTON QUIGGIN

A SURVEY OF

PRIMITIVE MONEY
The

Beginnings of Currency

With an introduction by
A.

C.

2 plates

HADDON
in colour

text illustrations by

and

Daphne Kennett,

32 plates in monotone and 4 folding maps

METHUEN

& CO. LTD.,

36 Essex

Street, Strand,

LONDON

W.C.2

First published in

CATALOGUE NO. 3978/U

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BUTLFR AND TANNLR LTD., FROME AND LONDON

TO

H. F.

BIRD

WHO COULD AND SHOULD

HAVE WRITTEN THIS BOOK

INTRODUCTION
BY

MANY

A. C.

HADDON

ago Sir William Ridgeway and I were

Sir William
primitive money '.
collecting examples of
from
the
side
of
classical
the
archaesubject
approached
no
mere
classicist
or
was
but
he
archaeologist, as he
ology,
years

'

had a considerable knowledge of various aspects of ethnology

and was keen to apply the data of ethnology to the elucidation
of classical and archaeological problems.
These wide
interests were manifest in his writings and not least in his
In this stimulating book
Origin of Metallic Currency, 1892.
he presented views new and old, for, as in all he said and
did, he markedly had the courage of his convictions, and
was not afraid of making suggestions which, though often
discredited by his colleagues, had a queer habit of being
more or less verified in the end. The Origin marked a
distinct advance in the study of comparative currency and
laid a foundation upon which others could build.
On the other hand, I approached the subject from the
opposite side. As early as 1888 I was interested in the
trading operations of the Torres Straits islanders and in
In later years I began to collect
their media of exchange.
specimens of primitive currency from various parts of the
world, and Ridgeway and I exchanged duplicates.
Sir Richard Temple in his paper read to the Anthropological Institute in London in 1899 was the first to review
the whole world, and propose a classification of the material,
though La science sociale had already published several of
the articles which appeared in book form in Babelon's
Schurtz (Grundriss einer
Origines de la monnaie in 1897.
des
Geldes, 1898) attacked the theory
Entstehungsgeschichte
of exchanges
Thilenius (' Primitives Geld ', 1921) and
Regling (in Ebert's Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte, 1926)
added comprehensive reviews of the material, which Mon;

tandon (Traite d ethnologic culturelle, 1934) expanded and

plotted on a map.
But the material is constantly accumulating. There are
innumerable accounts by missionaries, administrators and
vii

viii

PRIMITIVE

MONEY

field-ethnologists concerning local types of currency and

native trading which afford valuable data, and in a few
cases throw light upon the social, economic and even ethical

aspects of the accumulation of wealth and its distribution.

Cambridge has been particularly fortunate in her fieldethnologists, and, perhaps partly owing to the well-known
interest of both Sir William Ridgeway and myself in the
subject, has obtained an unusually large collection of primi-

have

much

pleasure in taking this oppormy cordial appreciation of the honorary

work done in the University Museum of Archaeology and
Ethnology by Mr. H. F. Bird, M.A. Besides cataloguing
numerous collections and other assistance he has devoted
years of patient labour to arranging the specimens of
primitive currency and to garnering all the published and
unpublished information available to him on the subject.
It is full time that these scattered records should be
collated for the use of students, and we have to thank
I
tive currency.
to
tunity
express

Mrs. Quiggin for having accomplished this task. Not

only has she done this, but she has studied in many museums
in England, on the continent of Europe, in Africa, in
Canada and the United States of America. This has
enabled her to gain a first-hand knowledge of the actual
specimens about which others have written, and also to
add unpublished examples to those already available for
In the course of her studies Mrs. Quiggin has
study.
found herself unable to agree with various theories concerning the origin of money, and she offers a fresh interpretation
This suggestion is the
for the consideration of students.
result of a careful weighing of the evidence and it provides
an explanation which is, to my mind, more satisfactory
than those which have preceded it.
A. C. H.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

WHEN

the yearly output of books in Great Britain alone

used to average some 16,000, of which barely a third consisted of fiction, it is surprising that there can be any subject

human

But there is, as yet,

which
stages
preceded the use of
coins as the medium of exchange, and of the objects that
coins displaced, objects which for want of a better name
are here called Primitive Money.
of

interest

still

undescribed.

no general survey of the

Many books have been written about the obsolete

currencies of different countries, especially about those of
the ancient civilizations of the Orient, where money has
been in use for hundreds if not thousands of years papers
;

have from time to time appeared in scientific journals, and

occasionally in more popular form, describing different
objects used as currency and the methods in which they
are (more commonly were) employed
collections of cur;

rency, consisting of shells, beads, hoes, spears and other

and there arc
picturesque types are exhibited in museums
abundant references in ethnographical literature and in
books of travel. But there is no general book on the subject ; there is scarcely an adequately descriptive catalogue
of a comprehensive collection. 1
The eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica
'
(1910) though it had a separate article on Shell-money
paid no attention to primitive currency beyond quotations
from Tylor and a brief review of substitutes for money ',
and the bibliography contained no further references.
The fifteenth edition (1929) has a separate article on
'
with a short bibliography and a
',
Currency, Primitive
*
cross-reference to Trade, Primitive ', by the same able pen.
The author, however, limits himself so severely by precise
terminology that he rejects all objects that cannot be proved
to have attained the high standard of his definition.
Such
would
eliminate
most
the
of
labelled
rigidity
objects
;

'

'

Professor

Henry Balfour's descriptive catalogue of the Pitt Rivers

was eagerly awaited. But while this book was in the
making the news of his death destioyed our hopes. I take this opportunity
Collection, Oxford,

of recording

my

gratitude for his kindly help.

ix

PRIMITIVE

x
'

Currency

in

museum

MONEY

collections.

And

it

is

museum

and especially the one in the Museum of

Archaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge, that provided
the inspiration and much of the material for this book.
The problems entangled in the subject of primitive
money and the beginnings of currency are many and varied,
and the earlier solutions were based more on literary
evidence than on museum specimens. This attempt at
disentanglement is based on a display of all the material
evidence, an examination of it without prejudice, with such
deductions as appear to be justified.
collections,

The

is
provided for others by the
without which the letterpress would

material evidence

numerous

illustrations,

value.
Most of the photographs of the Camtheir excellence to the skill and care
Collection
owe
bridge
of Mr. Strickland or of Mr. Tarns ; many were collected
by Sir William Ridgeway or by Mr. Bird many are loans,
acknowledgements of which will be found on p. xxi. The

have

little

maps and diagrams were drawn for me by D. Baldwin at

Cambridge Geography School and by my sons. The
maps include all place-names mentioned in the text, and
those who have worked on similar lines will appreciate the
advantage of having a draughtsman at hand, ready, up to
the

the last moment before going to press, to add, alter or

eliminate a name.
May I here record in permanent form my gratitude to

Mrs. Daphne Kennett for her skill, and also for her
scrupulous care and unceasing patience, in the reproduction
of more than 150 examples. 1 These were specially chosen
to provide a sure basis for present and, it is hoped, for
future discussion.
Had author and artist had their way,
all would have been in colour, or at least in wash, but this
would have raised the price of the book far beyond the reach
of those students for whom it is intended. For it is hoped
that by co-ordinating a vast amount of fragmentary evidence,

accounts and collecting the results

handy volume, some service may be rendered to other
ethnographical, sociological or economic students working

by

sifting contradictory

into a

in adjoining fields.
1

for

The life-like sketch of the man with the copper on p. 3021 was kindly made

me by

Miss Helen Cabot of the

Museum of Natural History, New York.

PREFACE

xi

R. S. Poole, Professor of Archaeology at University

College, London, declared that

To

be a great general numismatist

is

beyond the powers of one man.

Some may know Greek and Latin enough, with such mastery of English,
German and Italian as the modern commentaries demand, to begin the
study of Greek and Roman money. Those who would enter the vast field
of Oriental numismatics must be fortified with Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit
and Persian, besides adding Spanish and Russian to the other languages
Even they must pause beneath the Himalayas
still necessary for their work.
nor dare to cross the Golden Chersonese unless they are prepared to master
the uncouth languages and intricate characters of the further East (pp. 1-2,
1892).

One might add

that to attempt the study of the general

of
numismatics
is beyond the powers of one
prehistory
of
the
in where angels fear to
save
that
rushes
man,
type
the
where
necessitates
some acquainttread, especially
study
ance with the human history of the whole world. But
Fortune favours the bold so too does the expert, whether
ethnologist, archaeologist or numismatist, and here follows
a short list of benefactors.
The complete list of names and
services rendered would fill many pages, so although it may
appear invidious and ungrateful to make a selection, only
those who have read and criticized the main sections are
;

mentioned here.
Dr. A. B. Cook, the onlie begetter of the book, read
through the chapter on Europe and he, Mrs. Hutton and
Mr. C. T. Seltman are responsible for many emendations.
Dr. A. C. Haddon, while specially criticizing the sections
on Oceania, gave generous help, counsel and encouragement
throughout, and the introduction (pp. vii and viii) was the last
he wrote before his death. Mr. J. Driberg, besides criticizing
'

'

the introductory chapters, made valuable suggestions in the

on Africa. Professor E. H. Minns materially
improved the section on China and so did Mr. J. Fa.
Bromwich of St. John's. Dr. R. B. Whitehead corrected
and amended the section on India Dr. W. W. Skeat, the
Malay Peninsula Mr. J. C. Swayne, Borneo Dr. R. le
May, Siam ; Mr. W. E. Armstrong, Rossel Island, and
Mr. J. Layard, the New Hebrides. Mr. G. Shove gave
advice on economic problems as also did Mr. E. Dale.
To all of these fairy godfathers and to many more, in
this country (especially in the British Museum, the Horniman Museum and the Pitt Rivers), on the Continent
sections

PRIMITIVE

xii

MONEY

in Tervueren, Hamburg, Berlin and Vienna), in

Africa (especially at Livingstone, Bulawayo, East London
and Cape Town), in Canada (especially Toronto), in the
United States (especially in Buffalo, Chicago, Washington
and New York), who so generously allowed their special
knowledge to be shared, and were so patient in answering
questions, I record my gratitude and my consciousness of
a debt that can never be repaid.

E.

&

O.E.

In official communications the above letters are familiar.

The author alone is responsible for E. & O. in the following
The omissions are many, due to ignorance and lack
pages.
the errata are probably more, due to the
of information
same misfortunes. All corrections and additions will be
welcomed.
:

A.H.Q.

CONTENTS
PAGE

BY

INTRODUCTION.

A. C.

HADDON

vii

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
I

II

III

IV

DEFINITIONS

PRE-CURRENCY STAGES

II

CLASSIFICATION

2O

COWRIES AND BEADS

25

ii

ix

Cowries

25

Beads

36

General

45
45
61

AFRICA
i

ii

West Africa
A.

Congo

Gaboon

to

61

Angola

81

B.

iii

VI

Nigeria to Senegal
and South Africa
East
North,

OCEANIA
i

ii

08

Australia

108

Polynesia

109

iii

Micronesia and Melanesia in General

in

iv

Micronesia

137

v Melanesia

A.
B.

VII

92

149
Bismarck Archipelago

Solomon Islands to New Caledonia

Guinea and Torres Straits

149
1 60

C.

New

172

D.

Rossel Island

183

ASIA

187
i

ii
iii

General
India

Further India

B.

Andamans and Nicobars

Assam and Burma

C.

Siam and Indo-China

A.

xiii

187
189
198
198
2OI
212

PRIMITIVE

xiv

MONEY
PAGE

vii

ASIA

continued

China

22O

v Japan

249

iv

vi
vii
viii

ix

VIII

IX

Malay Peninsula

251

Borneo

257

The

263
266

Philippines

Dutch East Indies

EUROPE

271

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

2Q2

West Coast

293

ii

Eastern maize area

iii

Caribou-bison area

iv

Area of intensive agriculture

305
308
310
318

v West Indies

SUMMARY

321

BIBLIOGRAPHY

323

INDEX

335
Authors

335

Subjects

339

TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE

FIG.

1.

Cowries, Cypraea moneta, with backs broken for stringing

West African aggries
'

2.

Aggry

3.

',

Gold Coast

4. Olivella shells,

27

'

'

simbos
*

39

40
'

46

simbos

'

5.

Bambala purse

6.

Snail-shell string, Batetela

49

7.

Cone

50

8.

Salt currency, Abyssinia

9.

Brass beads, Nigeria

for

48

Manyema

shell,

56
60

10.

Stone bead used in the slave trade

60

11.

Bangala iron money, Congo

65

12.

Congo spearhead

13.

Outlines of boloko, kundja and woshele

14.
15.
1 6.

17.
1 8.

19.

65
y

Congo

Bubu throwing knife, Congo

Congo knife
Fan axe money
Hoc-money, Congo
Iron bells, Congo
Tukula paste block, Congo

72
72
73

75
81

20. Salt currency, Nigeria

21. Brass bangle, Nigeria

67

70

84
'

85

22. Cloth currency, Nigeria

86

23. Iron bar currency, Nigeria

87
88

Needle money ', Nigeria

axehead
Munshi
25.
26. Manillas ; Bronze Age, Ireland, and West Africa
24.

88
89

'

27.
28.

29.

King manilla ', Nigeria

Gold rings
Egyptian and Abyssinian
Hashshash, Kordofan
;

30. Sakania,

Lake Chad

90
94
95
95

31. Spearhead, East Africa

96

32. Melote, Central Africa

97

Tula spade money

97

33.

34. Brass bracelet,

Uganda

98
xv

PRIMITIVE

xvi

MONEY
PAGE

Uganda

35. Cowries,

99

36. Discs of ivory and shells,

37.

Banana

38.

Katanga

100

Uganda

100

Uganda

seeds,
cross,

N. Rhodesia

103

39. Brass lobolo ring, Portuguese East Africa

40.

Gold

bar,

105

Mozambique

105

hammer, Reef Islands, Santa Cruz

Rubbing stone and shells, Reef Islands, Santa Cruz

41. Shell
42.

43.
44.

Rubbing stone for

Tanga arm-ring

shell arm-ring,

Guinea

46. Rubbing stone for arm-ring,

New

Solomon Islands

124

Solomon Islands

Britain

Mat-money, Santa Cruz

131

50. Ihrik, plaited belt, Marshall Islands

51.

Matty Island

124
127
128

48. Flying fox jaws, Fiji

49.

121

122

45. Shell arm-ring construction,

47. Dogs' teeth,

New

115
116

133

belt

134

52. Tekaroro, shell-money, Gilbert Islands

140

53. To-uba, shell-money, Gilbert Islands

141

54. Fish-hook, Marshall Islands

142

New

150

55. Diwarra,
56.

Nassa

shell

57. Navoi,
58.

59.

Britain

and cassowary

New

arm-band,

quill string,

Britain

Tetiti, shell belt,

161

163

Cruz

164

Torres Islands

Shell-money making, Rowa, Banks Islands

63. Shell-money, New Hebrides
64. Shell-money, New Hebrides
62.

65. Becket, with flying fox fur string,

66.

'

67.
68.

'

New

Caledonia

money ', New Caledonia

White money ', New Caledonia
Head of money New Caledonia
Black

',

Nassa shell-money, New Guinea

Nassa
shell-money, New Guinea
70.
69. Tantau.

71. Detail of

samakupa

72. Breast ornament,

string

New

Guinea

154
154

Mauwai, shell-money, Solomon Islands

Shell-money, Solomon Islands

60. Turtleshell nose ring, Santa

61.

New

Britain

165
166

167
167
169
169
171
171

173
173

174
175

TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

FIG.

73.

74.
75.

xvii

New Guinea
Shell necklace, New Guinea
Cowries, New Guinea
Conus

176

string,

176
177
180

76. Mairi, breast ornament, Torres Straits

Conus

77. Wauri,

181

Torres Straits

shell,

78. Olive shell necklace, Torres Straits

181

Torres Straits

182

79. Dibidibi,
80.

made from

81. Larins, Persian

Gulf

conch

84.

194

Gulf

82. Toweelah, Persian

83. String of

182

wauri, Torres Straits

197

and bamboo, Assam

shells

Dao, Assam

202
205

85. Chabtli, miniature dao,

Assam

205

86. Spearhead,

Assam

205

87. Silver bar,

Annam

215
218

88.

'Leaf-money', Siam

89.

Ngon

Siam

hdi,

218

90. Leaves from the

91. Chinese cowries
92. Imitation

metallic cowries

Key

96.

coin

bell

Pu

234

hoe-money

',

235

China

'

knife-money

knife-money

tao,

101.

Wang Mang

1 02.

Ply

tao

237

China

',

'

Ming

'

234

98.

100.

232

cash

'

Spade-money, China

99. Ch'i tao,

'

'

97.

or

225
226

bridge-money

Chung Mien or
'

219

mother of pearl

'

94. Ch'ing or

Siam

224
in

cowry

93. Outlines of

95.

silver tree,

',

239

China

339

'knife-money', China

240

huan and yuan

103. T'ten

242

Mien

243

104.

Pao huo

105.

Pan Liang and

1 06.

Silver bar,

243

Wu Shu

244
"

China

246

'

107. Sycee tacl

shoe-money

',

China

246

',

China

247

'

108. Sycee tael

'

109.

shoe-money
Saddle-money ', China

no. 'Hat-money', Malay Peninsula

247

254

PRIMITIVE

xviii

MONEY
PAGE

FIG.

in. Malay cock

255

112.

256

115. Buffalo bell,

259
260

Currency kris, Java

113. UnuSj Borneo
114. Tobacco box, Borneo

Borneo

116. Brass cannon,

117.

259

262

detail of crocodile

Borneo;

MokkOj Dutch East Indies;

details

269

Metal ingots
119. Broken bits of Aes formatum
120. Broken bits of Aes signatum or Aes rude
118.

121.
122.

273

274
274

Aes grave
Coin, Tenedos

275

276

123. Socketed axe, Bronze Age

124.

Weighing gold

125.

Mycenaean rings
Gold rings, Ireland

126.

rings,

278

279
287
288

from Wiltshire

127. Iron currency bar

128.

276

Egypt

Copper currency bars

290

129. Dentalium shell-money California

130. Dentalium shell-money, California
131.

Abalone

294
295

(Haliotis) shell pendant, California

132. Buttons, St. John's River

I 33-

134.

136.

298

scalp, California

Woodpecker
House post, Museum of Natural

135. Miniature copper, British

Columbia

property

138. Wapiti teeth,

139.

celt

142.

',

British

Copper 'axe', Mexico

'

axe

302
303

304
309
311

',

Mexico

Copper 'axe', Peru

Snail-shell string, Gran Chaco

143. Cree pipe

New York

303

Columbia

North America

140. Miniature copper

141.

300
History,

Copper bangles, Vancouver

137. Jade

298

312
313

314
317

PLATES
Frontispiece in colour
i. Sapi sapi, Trobriands.
2. Sapi sapi, New Guinea.
3, 4.
Trade beads, Uganda. 5. Trade beads, Ujiji. 6. Aggry
8.
beads, West Africa.
7. Chevron bead, Africa.
Aggry
bead, Gold Coast.

Colour plate, facing page 184

1. Ch'ing, China.
2. Turtleshell chest pendant,
Rossel
Island.
3. Pwomondap,
4. Beetle
leg
Matthias.

MONOTONE
1.

AFRICA,

i.

'

'

Guinea.

San

string,

(at end)
2.

Anklet, Congo.

3. Katanga
Congo. 6. Iron
8. Axehead,
bar,
Nigeria.
7. Shoka,
Congo.
Nigeria.
10.
9. Copper ingot, Transvaal.
Ogoja penny,
Nigeria,
n. Kissi penny, Liberia. 12. Spearhead, Congo. 13. Zappozap, Congo.
14. King manilla, Nigeria.
15-19. Congolese
knives.
20. Throwing knife, Congo.

cross.

2.

Marriage hoe, Uganda.

New

'

'

AFRICA,

4.

i.

Copper

wire, Nigeria.

5.

Mitako, brass wire, Congo.

Collar,

2.

Calabar bar or brass

rod, Nigeria.
3. Cheetems, copper wire, Nigeria.
4. Copper
6. Matingot, Transvaal.
5. Cotton
spool, Sierra Leone.

money, Congo.
3.

AFRICA,
2.

4.

i.
Brass rings strung on leather thong, S.E. Africa.
Native bead currency, Nigeria.
3. Holed stone,
Togo.
Lokele boy with shoka and ngbele, Yakusu. 5. Jibbu, Bubi

belt,

Fernando Po.

5.

WHALE'S TOOTH USED IN PRESENTATION, FIJI

WHALES' TEETH AND ORANGE COWRIES, FIJI

6.

MONEY MAKING, SOLOMON ISLANDS

7.

RINGS, MELANESIA.

4.

shell ring,

Clam

i. Limestone ring,
Pelew Islands. 2.
Rubiana, Solomon Islands. 3. Stone navela,

New

Hebrides
8.

9.

MELANESIA, i. Guadalcanar shield.

Matthias belt.

2.

New Hebrides mat.

3.

San

FEATHER-MONEY, SANTA CRUZ, MELANESIA

AND TOOTH-MONEY, MELANESIA, i. New Britain, diwarra.

2-5. Solomon Is., porpoise teeth, white and purple beroan and
6. Gilbert Is., tekararo.
flying-fox teeth.
7. Guadalcanar.
8. Banks Is., som.
9. New Hebrides.

10.

SHELL-

11.

MICRONESIAN MONEY

12.

STONE-MONEY, CAROLINE

IS.,

MICRONESIA
xix

13.

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

xx
SHELL-MONEY.

Bagi

New

1-5.

New

Ireland

Guinea

Bat
2.
3.
Arangit.
Tapsoka.
Birok or pig-money '. 5. Mui tikutkut
i.

'

(tikutkut, titpele).

Pele,

6-15.

Amunbun.

8.

4.

Duke

of York

Ambui.

9.

kalakalung kambang.
14.
15.

13.

-6.

bingam.

mui.

n.

7.

Alillie.

14. Drill.

15.

pirr

12.

Pounder.

SAMAKUPA AND ARM-RING, NEW GUINEA

'PIG-MONEY', NEW IRELAND

17.

SHELL-MONEY, SOLOMON ISLANDS

BEADS AND SHELL-MONEY IN PURSE,

1 8.

ROSSEL ISLAND MONEY.

IQ.

I.

1 6.

Is.

Ambiubiu.

10.

CEYLON INGOTS.

Ka
y

20. SIAM.

1-4.

21. SIAM.

1-4. Ldts

lo-n.

2.

'

Kim.

5-7.
'

or

NEW CALEDONIA

Ndap and Nko.

DEOGANTA, ASSAM.
canoe

Ngon h6L

12.

3.

KAREN KYEE-ZEE.

Bracelets \
J

money y 5-9. Ticals

'Pig's mouth money*.

or

bullets

'

1-4. Beads.
5-8. Magatama.
9-11. 'Ring-money*
Bean money '.
12-13.
16-19, Coins.
14-15. Badges.

22. JAPAN.

'

23.

MALAY PENINSULA,

24. BORNEO.
25.

i.

Tin

Shell-money and

MOKKO, DUTCH EAST

29.
30.

31.

i.

INDIES

'RING-MONEY', BRITAIN.

GRIVNA, RUSSIA

3.

2.
2.

Brick tea.

OLBIAN DOLPHINS

NORTH AMERICA. Stone beads, shells, teeth.

COPPER, NORTH-WEST COAST AMERICA
NORTH AMERICA. Wampum, purse and porcupine

32. BRITISH COLUMBIA.

(at

II

III

IV

end)

AFRICA

MICRONESIA, MELANESIA AND POLYNESIA

ASIA

AMERICA

quills.

Dentalium and abalone ornaments.

MAPS
I

Gambars.

baskets.

I, 2. PLATE MONEY, SWEDEN.

i. Squirrel skin.
27. MONGOLIA,

26.

28.

2.

ingots.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
GRATEFUL

acknowledgement

is

made

to the following

W.

R. Ridgeway and the Cambridge University

Press, for illustrations from Origin of Metallic

Figs. 26, 81, 82, 120-2,

129

124-6,

Currency (1892)

A. C. Haddon and the Cambridge University

Press, for an illustration from Torres Straits
Reports, Vol.

The

IV

Fig. 79

(1912)

Trustees of the Royal Ontario

Museum,

PI.

Toronto

2,

Fig.

The

PI.

Tcmpleton Crocker

PL 6

Rev. K. Smith, for an illustration from

Yakusu (published by Marshall Bros.)

The

Trustees

of

the

Australian

Museum,

3,

PI. 7,

Fig.

PI.

3,

Fig.

Fig.

Sydney

The

Trustees of the British

Museum

PI.

The

Trustees of the Dresden

Beatrice Blackwood

Museum

and the Clarendon

Press,

Fig. 2

PI. 23,

PJ. 28,
PI.

10,

PI.

10, Figs.

PI.

PL

12,

PL

13, Fig.

PL

15

Fig.

Fig.
i

2-5

Oxford, for an illustration from Both Sides

of

The

Buka Passage
Trustees of the

Hamburg Museum

G. Bushnell
C.

G. Seligman, for a photograph and an

from The Melanesians of British
New Guinea (published by the Cambridge

Fig.

i
i

illustration

University Press)

The

Trustees of the Field

Museum

of Natural

History, Chicago

The

Trustees of the Smithsonian Institute, U.S.

National

Pis. 29, 31,

Museum, Washington

W. E. Armstrong

Cambridge University Press,

and Royal Anthropological Institute, for an
illustration from Man and Rossel Island
;

xxi

PL

18

32

PL 14

PRIMITIVE

xxii

Dr. R.
J.

le

MONEY
PL 20

May

C. Swayne

The

PI. 24, Fig. 2

Trustees of Goteborg

Charles Seltman and

for an illustration

Museum

Methuen

&

Co. Ltd.,

from Greek Coins

PL

26, Fig. 2

PL

28, Fig. 2

Chapter I

DEFINITIONS
Th*

intrinsic value of a thing

much as it will bring.

Is just as

HUDIBRAS
'

'

EVERYONE, except an economist, knows what money means,

and even an economist can describe it in the course of a chapter or
but

it is impossible to define with rigid outlines.

It emerges
of
or
from
and
shades
objects
presentation
dimly
exchange,
imperceptibly into recognizable monetary forms with uncertain boundaries
on either hand, and much of the material of this book hovers on the

so,

borders.

The O.E.D.

definition of

money

as

'

current coin

'

is

too narrow

for a student of economics or of sociology, and would exclude

almost all of the primitive money which is dealt with here. The
'

that which is current as a medium of exthe

entire
includes
range from coconuts, cattle, or even
change
sisters, to bank-notes ; so some limits must be set and Temple's
'
'
barter ',
threefold classification of
and
currency
money
supplied a useful scheme for sorting the heterogeneous mass of
material to which he was among the first to draw attention at the
definition of currency,
'

'

Anthropological Institute in

'

London

in 1899.

I exchange today
Barter is exchange of possessions pure and simple.
grain for your fruit and tomorrow my adze for your knife ; that is
But when our daily transactions become so far complicated as to
barter.
require some other article in common domestic use to be interposed between
the grain and the fruit, and between the adze and the knife, i.e. a medium
between the articles bartered, we have set up a currency and a medium of
exchange. Thus : you and I and the rest of our tribe have all got coconuts
I want fruit
in varying quantities, and can find a use for them every day.
and you want grain, but instead of exchanging my grain for your fruit, I
give you six pairs of coconuts for the fruit I want, and later on you come to
me and give me five pairs of coconuts for the corn you want. Here we are
bartering through a medium and coconuts are our currency. When we
become a little more civilized and proceed to make purely conventional
articles, usable only as a medium of exchange, we have set up a system of
money. For currency consists of articles real or imaginary, used for
account, i.e. for measuring the relative values of different articles of use.
So many coconuts make one knife ; so many coconuts make one adze.
Whereas money consists of tokens convertible into property. So many
imitation spear heads can buy an adze ; so many can buy an axe.

my

He sums up

his definitions thus

Barter is the exchange of one article for another ; currency implies

money that the medium is a token.
exchange through a medium
;

PRIMITIVE

MONEY

This threefold division, although unacceptable to modern economists,

makes a useful foundation for classification, and Temple fitted his
examples into its framework. But it is easy to see its defects. For
example, lumps or bars of metal can be used for barter, as currency
and as money. A gold ring may be worn in the nose, or appear in
a collection of Greek coins. Brick tea, weighed and stamped like
Salt may be a condiment or
a coin, may be crumbled and drunk.
a dowry. Strings of shell disks may be merely ornaments in one
island, and objects of barter, currency or tokens of value in another.
Trade beads, primarily used for barter, develop through currency
'
into money ; and cowries have passed through the same stages
of evolution and back again into ornament without any money value.
And it is the borderline cases that throw most light on the evolution
of money and interesting sidelights on human societies as well.
For the two parties in a transaction may themselves stand in
different categories.
The trader may consider that he is paying
current money when he buys a fowl for ten lengths of brass wire
while the seller regards the exchange as mere barter '.
Commerce among the Baluba in the Belgian Congo gives a
simple example. A man has something to sell. He squats down
somewhere anywhere where a client may be expected, with his
merchandise in front of him.
'

'

'

'

L'amateur passe

s'arrete

Eh, cette mesure de sel, combien ? Dix

troque, pas de formalite", c'est tout

On

Discussion Accord
perles
(Colle, 1913, p. 790).

An

'

Are the beads used

in barter, as currency, or are they money ?

illustration may be taken from Uganda to show how an object

can be at the same time currency or money, a religious symbol or

a mere ornament. The Acholi being received as catechumens at
the Roman Catholic Mission were given metal crosses as signs of
conversion. With these they used to hurry away to the Didinga
and exchange a cross for a goat. They returned later and entered
The crosses were religious symbols but
as catechumens again.
to the Acholi they represented money
they were tokens with which
the
while
could
Didinga received the crosses
they
purchase goats
as ornaments and wore them in their head-dresses (J. H. Driberg). 1
;

Our conception of money and

for the purpose of acquiring

it

the practice of buying and selling

for personal enrichment are seldom
'

'

met with among the simpler societies.

Primitive money is often
indistinguishable from barterable goods, and when it is amassed it is
more for social or religious than for commercial ends. If moneysubstitute (Geldsurrogat) were not too cumbrous a term it would
'

'

be used in place of
1

A name without

supplied personally.

'

'

money

throughout this book.

literary reference indicates that the information

was

DEFINITIONS

useful dissection was made by Thilenius(i92i, pp.

ff.) who
between useful
distinguishes between Nutzgeld and' Zeichengeld^
'
barter stage) and objects of
objects used in exchange (Temple's
conventional form, practically useless, mere tokens of value (' cur*

'

or money*). Petri (1936, pp. 192-3) goes further. All

objects in the Nutzgeld group are, he claims, not Geld in its true sense.
True Geld or money has not only mercantile but also social significance,

rency

which latter is absent in merely useful objects. For example, in

the South Seas, pigs, turmeric, red ochre, axe blades, arrows and
spears are well established exchange articles in interinsular trade.
This is only Nutzgeld. If we turn to strings of shell disks, pieces
of mother of pearl shell, arm-rings or mats as recognized standards
of value with social significance in a community, we have to do with
Zeichengeld.
'

'

is a vague term, and in sorting out

social significance
material in a museum it is difficult to discover a dividing line between

But

Shells are merely shells on one island, but are used

in trade exchange with another, where they form the currency.
Mats are used in barter, but some, acquiring dignity with age, or
prestige with travel or special use, develop into a recognized currency.

the two classes.

and hoes in China, pass readily

Zeichengeld^ and, in Africa, pass as easily back
It is still more difficult to classify the varied ornaments
again.
which those who study the South Seas alone may well believe to be

Spears and hoes in

from Nutzgeld to

Africa, like knives

Is a string of shell-money no
all primitive money.
longer currency when you wear it round your neck ? Is a sovereign
no longer money when dangled on your watchchain ?
In short (to quote Chase, 1938, p. 197)

the basis of

Neither you nor

it

works.

We

know what

it

'

'

money means or how

means where and when we use it, for here we

nor anyone else knows what

But its general la\vs, if any, are

are performing little personal operations.
unknown to even the wisest banker or the profoundest economist.

Both banker and economist would probably agree, however, upon

certain fundamental characteristics, which have been fixed since the
time of Aristotle portability, durability, divisibility and distinction.
Among the humbler folk with whom this book deals there is an
:

which is more important than these four qualities

more difficult to define. It is a quality or intrinsic virtue
acquired by reputation, association or use, something akin to mana
in Africa or
fetish
in Oceania, to what is often loosely called
luck with us (cf. Laum, 1924 passim). This makes such objects
intangible essential

and

far

'

'

'

so desirable that they pass for money '.

general survey of such
them
towards
local
attitude
the
and
of
provides a necessary
objects
foundation for the study of the origin and evolution of money.
It is therefore with the practical and objective, not the theoretical

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

For our present

aspect of money, that we are here concerned.
purpose the term money will be restricted to such forms as serve
the threefold function of a recognized medium of exchange, a
standard of value and a symbol of wealth. Whether the object so
employed is of intrinsic value, like a golden sovereign, or none, like
a five-pound note, i.e. full-bodied money or token-money ', is
of minor importance. Axes and spears, mill-stones or beetle-legs,
'

'

'

beads, shells, teeth or gold rings are money if they behave as such.
If they fail in any of these three essentials they may be called
l
currency (a recognized medium of exchange or standard of value)

or they may (like

evidence of wealth.

much

so-called primitive money) be merely

also needs interpretation, for in this

Wealth

concerned with the possession of objects of

But
prestige associated with them.
exactitude
cannot
be
enforced
where
evidence
of
terminological
function is so lamentably difficult to obtain. Perhaps (to quote
the most important thing about money
Chase again, 1938, p. 198)
connexion

it

less

is

value, than with the

power or

'

the human willingness to accept it ', and the following chapters

are concerned with such objects as are or have been accepted by
peoples before the introduction of a system of coined money.
is

And

here, at the outset of our investigation, it

many objects are called currency

current.

'

admitted that

They may

must frankly be
which are never

serve as standards of value or as symbols of

two of the functions of money, but they are never used in

ordinary trading. They pass from hand to hand, or from group to
group, in important transactions, and play a large part in gift2
but they cannot be termed currency,
exchange and in bride-price
still less, money, in their proper senses.
Unfortunately it is too
wealth,

late

now

objects.

'

'

to discover actual or

All that can be done

ceremonial

is

to collect

'

'

use of

many

of these

what information

is still

The term medium of exchange is far too loosely used. With us

money can be used to buy anything from daily bread to a motor-car, and
But with primitive
indirectly the same money can buy titles and even wives.
forms of money there is rarely universal use. One kind will buy food
while still another may be essential in
another is necessary for a canoe
1

'

secret societies or in marriage payments.

2
The incorrect term ' bride-price is here used as no satisfactory sub*
'
stitute has so far been generally accepted.
Bride-Wealth ',
bride'

'

'

'

'

mairiage-insurance ', dower ', settlement ', indemnity ',

',
equilibrium-guarantee all have their supporters and critics.
So it seems best to retain the earlier Word, placing it within inverted commas
to indicate so-called ', though no one who reads this book is likely to be
'
misled into thinking that either bride-price or mairiage by purchase

compensation
*

earnest

',

'

'

'

necessarily imply commercial buying and

selling.

Cf, discussions in

Man,

1929-31.
3

Ceremonial

1922, pp. 89-90.

'.

For the significance of

this

term

cf.

Malinowski,

DEFINITIONS
available as a basis,
in the field.

and leave deductions to more experienced workers

Every book on economics [says Burns, 1927, p. i] introduces the reader

to the subject of money by way of an account of the trials and troubles of
life in a community where unorganized barter is the only method of exchange.
community without a medium of exchange or a unit of value has, however,
never been found and the stage is one imagined for simplicity of exposition

of the merits of

money

it

must not be taken

seriously.

This is a stage however which must be taken seriously in the

following pages, many of which are devoted to the study of com'
munities all over the world without a medium of exchange or a
unit of value '.
Rajah Brooke gives a picture of the Land Dyak in a Borneo
bazaar.

He has no conception of the use of a circulating medium. Ho may be

seen wandering in the bazaar with a ball of beeswax in his hand for days
together because he cannot find anyone willing to take it for the exact
article he requires.
This article may not be more than a tenth of the value
of the beeswax, but he would not sell it for money and then buy what he
wants. From the first he had the particular article in his mind's e>e and
worked for the identical ball of beeswax with which and nothing else to
purchase it (Ling Roth, 1896, II, p. 231).
Beeswax is, however, a recognized form of currency in Borneo
and a better example of the inconvenience of barter may be
found nearer home.
(p. 259)

witness before the Inquiry of

stated as follows

Framework Knitters

in

1845

When Saturday night came I had to turn out with a certain quantity
of meat and candles or tobacco or ale or whatever I had drawn in wages to
I used to take a can of ale to the barber to get
dispose of at a serious loss.
shaved with, and a can of ale to the sweep to sweep my chimney. I was
in good receipt of wages and in company with my neighbours used to take
in a newspaper, and I was obliged to take a pound of candles at sevcnpence
and leave it for the newspaper, the price of which was fourpcncc halfpenny.
I used to take my beef at scvenpence a pound and sell it to the coal woman
that I had my coals from, for fivepence, and any bit of sugar or tea or anything of the kind that my employer did not sell, I used to get from the
grocer by swapping soap or starch (Knowles, 1922, p. 88).
Such inconveniences

are avoided in simpler societies

by elaborate

customs of credit, deferred payments or payment by services.

Wealth sometimes appears to consist in the amassing of goods or
obligations by one man, so that the entire community is dependent
on him, sometimes by his lavish distributions, so that all are in his
But it would be hard to find any among the simpler societies
debt.
consciously troubled by the inconveniences of barter, and money
usually the introduction of the trader and troubles from outside.

is

PRIMITIVE

The absence

of any

medium

MONEY

of exchange or unit of value in

and the greater part of the Americas will be

The absence in Africa 1 added greatly to the trials

Australia, Polynesia,

discussed

later.

and troubles of explorers. Stanley recalls how in Zanzibar, in 1871,

he tossed on his bed at night, asking himself how much cloth, how
many beads, how much wire would be needed and much worse,
how many carriers for all these loads. And he finally started off
in his search for Livingstone with an equipment in cloth, beads and
wire weighing sixty tons and a total number in his expedition of
200 men.
But unfortunately for the explorer and for the trader, the cloth,
beads and brass wire are not yet currency. They have only an
unorganized bartering value, and local preferences or prejudices may
;

give them fictitious values or render them worthless lumber. When

cowries were first brought into Uganda, two would purchase a
woman ; a generation later it took 2,000 or 3,000 to purchase even

a male slave.
One district in the Congo will accept only blue beads, 2
red
here
a short length of wire is accepted, there, rejected ;
another,
;
and a whole cargo of manillas may be left on a trader's hands, owing
to some deviation from the standard.

Cameron's experiences

travelling across Africa from east to west

He, like Stanley, started off with the

illustrate these difficulties.

usual assortment of trade beads and trade goods, but found, on

crossing Lake Tanganyika, that the beads were no longer currency,
and he had to lay in a stock of copper crosses. When he reached
the Lualaba, an important market town, where he was
buy a canoe and continue his journey, nothing was
accepted save slaves, goats and cowries. Here he was delayed for
weeks unable to trade. He tried to buy cowries at the extortionate

Nyangwe on

expecting to

rate of the equivalent of 3^?. or \d. a piece, and collected the price
of a canoe.
But the chief would not sell. He explained that as the
shells would all be appropriated by his wives for decorations, the
canoe would be a dead loss to him, as the wives, however lavishly
decorated with cowries, would not feed or look after him any the
better.
Cameron offered double the value of the canoe in cowries
But No,
saying that the wives could not possibly wear them all.
that was not the only disadvantage of cowries compared with livestock.
The shells would lie idle, while the slaves or goats as soon as they

were bought started reproductive work and soon repaid their

purchase
1

money

The most

(1877,

H>

P- ?)

examples of trading communities with

and no currency are described by Earth in Bornu

conspicuous

established markets

(1858, II, pp. 310 ff.).

2
For a missionary gamble in large blue beads, making 16 105. out of
2$. gd. worth, see Bentley's entertaining account (1900 II, p. 21).

DEFINITIONS

The

stages which preceded the use of money throw light on its

Writers on its origin and evolution have paid
early history.
attention
to the influence of trade, which, though doubtexaggerated
less the chief stimulus in its subsequent development, was possibly
There are earlier
absent, or at any rate negligible, at its birth.
human institutions than trading, and among the earliest are marriage
and blood-revenge. It would be extravagant to claim that brideprice and wergeld brought currency into existence, but they certainly established standards of value and regularized certain media
of exchange, which are two of the three main functions of money as
*

'

defined above.

custom almost as universal as marriage

itself that among the lesshas in some way or other to give compensation
for his bride, either by exchange, by services tendered or by transfer of
property (Westermarck, 1891, p. 390).

It is a

civilized societies a

man

the simpler societies, where property is insignificant,

marriage are also insignificant or non-essential, although even
among the Eskimo or the aborigines of Australia, where wedding
ceremonies are reduced to a minimum, the man is commonly expected
And among the
to give presents to his future father-in-law.

Among

gifts at

Tikopians, by whom money is ignored, and' pennies given in exchange

for coconuts or bananas, thrown away as useless bits of iron ', the
payment for the woman consists of certain conventional presents
'

wooden bowls and

of sinnet,

a formal equivalent to her

family for the loss of her services' (Firth, 1936, pp. 6, 551-2).
Examples may be found all over the world. Among the ancient as
among the modern Semites, in the Vedic texts as in Homer, in
Babylonia, China and Japan, Africa, Melanesia, Polynesia or the
New World, the giving of presents and/or extortion of payments
appear (with few exceptions) as essential features of the marriage
rites
and whether reminiscent of bride-price or of dower,
wedding presents are universally considered an essential feature of
the ceremony in civilized communities at the present day.
There
can be no uniformity in a world-wide custom such as this, dating
but certain characteristic
from the beginning of human history
The wedding presents or
features can generally be recognized.
payments tend to become conventionalized or symbolic, and hence
preserve antiquated forms even when coins are in ordinary commercial use. This accounts for much of the primitive money
found in museums at the present day. Also, there is, in less advanced societies, a tendency to regard the presents or payments
made by the bridegroom or his kin, as the equivalent of the value
of the woman, and they fluctuate with the position and attractions
of the bride and the bargaining powers of her relatives. Thus
recognized media of exchange and standards of value are established.

of

rolls

'

'

'

'

PRIMITIVE

When
payments

MONEY

objects formerly used as money are still used in marriage'

survive in
it is usual to say that these archaic forms
'

but they represent a pre-currency origin, as well as

;
a post-currency survival, and the ease with which cash payments
are now substituted shows the part they take in the story of the
evolution of money.
'
Bride-price and blood-price have much in common the
bride-price

'

'

'

payment represents an indemnity. (Cf. Radcliffe-Brown, 1929.)

as society
Blood feud in primitive form demands life for life
;

grows less bloodthirsty the demand is whittled down into a system

of payments made to the injured party, or if he is beyond repair,
to his kinsfolk.
This wergeld, like bride-price ', is often the
occasion of prolonged controversy and perhaps further casualties,
but usually, as with the latter, there is a definite scale of values.
In India the vairan or wergeld was in cows, a 100 for a man, whether
he was insulted, wounded or murdered, and 100 cows was also the
average bride-price '. In Scandinavia a silver ring was the equivalent of a thrall, 100 rings or 100 head of cattle of a freeman.
In
'

'

Ireland the eric consisted of cattle or slaves, the clan chief being
reckoned at 180 cows and a slave at 3 or 4, and a pound of silver.
Or a slave's freedom might be bought for a gold ring. In Scotland
in the i2th century the worth of the king's person was valued at
In ancient Arabia, the ransom
1,000 cows, down to the villein at 10.
of a murder was 100 camels for the death of a freeman (cf. Hastings,
1908).

An example of a people with no currency, yet with definite scales

of prices for wives and for blood-money may be taken from Kenya.
The Mkamba of the Kitui district, between the Athi and the Tana
rivers, are cattle-keepers

and the

cattle are all-important.

To a Mkamba his greatest pride and joy are his cattle, nothing else
has the same value in his eyes.
Even a wife is a second consideration
to these, for after all she is only valued as a portion of the herd.
.

Cattle here include cows, sheep and goats, about 30 of the latter
cow is rarely parted with, save for wife
being equal to a cow.

purchase, and the slaughter of one, even to avert starvation, is

inconceivable.
The main use of goats and sheep, on the contrary,
for presents, sacrifices and trading.
The average scale for injuries is high. For the loss of a finger,
one bull and one goat, for two fingers you pay double. For a leg,
a bull and a cow, and the same for the loss of an eye. Accidental
killing costs 7 cows and a bull for a man and 4 cows and a bull for
is

a woman.

To an onlooker it certainly appears as if the Mkamba wife is

bought and sold, or even traded as a piece of goods. Many men

DEFINITIONS
invest

all

their capital in wives, considering

them more

profitable

so a wealthy man may have 6 to 10, and chiefs 20

to 40.
The average price is 3 or 4 cows and a bull, but naturally
a father will get as much as he can, though he may later regret his
greed, if the girl runs away, for every present has then to be

even than

cattle,

'

'

'

returned (Dundas, 1913, pp. 501, 519).

The Dinka of the Upper Nile have a definite scale of compensations.
The killing of a man is still assessed nominally at 100 cows,

though considerably less will usually be accepted. An injury to the

head is reckoned at one cow calf; to an arm (more serious) one
cow to a leg (still more crippling) 5 cows 8 or 10 cows (the average
;

'

'

bride-price among the Dinka) is the usual compensation for the

Not that she is worth less. It is rather
killing of a woman or a girl.
a tribute to her value to the community. No Dinka would harm a

how much less a woman who is worth many cows. So it must

have been an accident, and manslaughter usually costs less than
murder.
There are many other ceremonial occasions which had their
and wergeld bargaining, in
share, together with
bride-price
cow

'

attaching a conventional value to certain objects. The cementing

of blood-brotherhood and the upward steps in various societies
necessitate presents or payments, and the objects used, if not already

currency, are hovering on the verge.

Two final illustrations may be taken from ceremonies connected
with the settling of accounts at peace celebrations marking the end
of hostilities in New Guinea and in Borneo.

unwise [says Seligman, 1910, p. 544] to reconstruct primitive

from what can be seen among unrisen communities of the present
day, but it is safe to say that Melanesia gives no support to the theory that
On
primitive man lived in a state of peace and amity with his neighbours.
the contrary, raiding and warfare appear to be the rule rather than the
each group carried on a traditional feud with some other group,
exception
and tallies of murders were carefully counted on each side, which only
awaited an opportunity for revenge. When one or both sides felt that they
had had enough of it, a peace-making ceremony was formally proposed
by one or the other, and, if accepted, there was a large amount of presentIt is

'

society

giving.
'

'

Among the presents at the peace-making between the Wagawaga

and Maivara (Milne Bay, at the eastern end of New Guinea) a few
years ago were included 15 pairs of tola arm-shells, 9 strings of
sapisapi shell disks, including bagi and samakupa (Pis. 13 and 14),
1
4 shell nose ornaments, besides boars' tusk ornaments and pigs.
Furness (1902, p. 98) describes a peace-making ceremony in
Borneo, when settlement was being made and compensations for
1

The

significance of the

list is

seen on pp. 172 ff.

PRIMITIVE

io

'

MONEY

There must always be a palpable exchange

were arranged.
of beads, highly prized jars, brass gongs, &c., as an indemnity.'
The claim in this case was 5 bronze tawak gongs, and 5 smaller ones,
But a compromise
totalling about 300 Mexican dollars altogether.
was made for one tawak gong and one smaller one and one of the
These objects may all be
exorbitantly valued luku sekala beads.
It is noteworthy that they all also serve as
called
presents '.
killings

currency (see pp. 257^.).

Chapter II

PRE-CURRENCY STAGES
Friendships, like teeth,

may be cemented

with gold

SOMEWHERE

in between the insignificant giving of presents and

recognized money transactions there are two customs of world-wide,
though sporadic distribution, silent trade and gift-exchange '.
Silent trade has been reported from Northern Europe, from the
East (India, Ceylon, East Indies), New Guinea and the New Hebrides,
but its greatest extension is in Africa, where it was noted by Herodotus and may be met with at the present day (Grierson, 1903
'

'

'

Firth, 1929).
When the little pygmy hunter, having made his kill, is gorged to satiety,
he takes what is over of the meat, and in the darkness of the night hangs it
to a branch of a tree at the entrance of the village.
In the morning the
villagers cut off what they want, and hang up in return maize, manioc or
yams of equal value. This is honestly calculated, for the pygmies who will
come in the course of the night to fetch their due, will not submit to trickery,
and their little poisoned arrows have an unpleasant way of tickling the sides
of the villagers who have omitted to pay a fair price (Torday, Causeries
congolaises, p.

176).

A recent example

may be

taken from Northern Rhodesia.

The

Awatwa (Abatwa),
of Broken

living in the Great Lukanga Swamp to the west

'
*
in exchanging their fish
silent trade
Hill, carry on a

for grain.

The

chief produce of the swamp is fish, for which there is a considerable

shore.
party of people would come from an inland village
with corn, which they deposited near the edge of the swamp during the
daytime ; they then returned to their villages or if they had come from some
During the night the
distance, into the timber where they were camping.
Awatwa having heard of their ariival, would journey to the edge in their
canoes, taking with them dried fish, which they left in exchange for the corn,
the latter being taken back with them into the swamp. The inland people
then returned in the morning and removed the fish, neither party to the
transaction having seen the other (Moubray, 1912, p. 58).

demand on

'

This was the method of trading in unsettled

law and order and the cessation of
more peaceful and trustful intercourse between the

Moubray adds

times, but with the

raids, there is

arrival of

groups.'

Miss Kingsley's example from West Africa may be noted as

showing an ingenious mixture of the primitive method of silent
trade and up-to-date shop-keeping with modern coins.
'

'

I have often seen on market roads ... a little space cleared by the wayside,
and neatly laid with plantain leaves, whereon were very tidily arranged

"

PRIMITIVE

12

MONEY

various little articles for sale a few kola nuts, leaves of tobacco, cakes of
salt, a few heads of maize, or a pile of yams or sweet potatoes.
Against each
class of articles so many cowrie shells or beans are placed, and, always
hanging from a branch above or sedately sitting in the middle of the shop,
a little fetish. The number of cowrie shells or beans indicate the price of
the individual articles in the various heaps and the little fetish is there to
see that anyone who does not place in the stead of the articles their proper
price or who meddles with the till shall swell up and burst (1899, pp. 248-9).

Miss Kingsley adds

later

In the cases of silent trade that I have seen, no doubt it was done mostly
for convenience, one person being thereby enabled to have several shops
open at but little working expense, but I have seen it employed as a method
of trading between tribes at war with each other (p. 349).

Silent trade, therefore, does not exclude the use of money,

although from its distribution it appears to be mainly confined to
the hunting and collecting peoples, who, having little or no barterable
property of their own, have no organization for exchange. It is
obviously the most convenient method for peoples of different
cultural levels, mutually hostile or mutually unintelligible. 1
Montandon claims that silent trade based on fear is the prelude
to the market based on confidence (1934, pp. 615-16), but it is
impossible to prove that silent trade was ever more than a local
'

'

'

development to

suit local needs.

Barter, in spite of the inconveniences visible

from a superior

standpoint, does not necessarily produce a medium of exchange.

The sad state of the hungry hatter, unable in the days of barter to
get meat, because the butcher wants not hats but boots, is a commonplace of the economic textbooks/ wrote Withers (1937, p. 9), and
the same textbooks picture a primitive state of society in which
a man is unable to decide between exchanging his cow for an ornament, twelve sheep or a carpet. If instead of introducing hypothetical hatters and butchers and carpets into primitive societies,
attention is turned to what is happening at the present day among
the less-advanced peoples, a clearer idea can be obtained of the
process of evolution, with the possible discovery of the reason why
certain objects become money while others with equal claims do
1

'

'

'

not.

The
may be

objects that are the nearest approach to money-substitutes

seen to have acquired their functions by their use, not in
certain standard of value is fixed
barter, but in social ceremony.
in
their
use
or in wergeld, as already
by
special
bride-price
Their more general use is in present-giving.
discussed.

'

Landtman

'

(1927, pp. 216-17) gives examples of almost silent trading

in New Guinea, a measure of secrecy being
necessary, especially for the transfer of valuables.

between friendly neighbours

PRE-CURRENCY STAGES

13

The custom of present-giving or gift-exchange of a more or less

ceremonial character is found among civilized and uncivilized
peoples all over the world. This exchange may be entirely distinct
from barter

it

may be incorporated in

it

and it may be an

essential

feature in a trade complex, and evolve money in the process.

Illustrations may be seen in the Andaman Islands and

New

Zealand, where there is no native currency elaborated in the Fijian

solevu or North American potlatch, where ideas of money are
while the process of presents-developing-into-money
emerging
is visible in the canoe trade of Torres Straits or the hiri and kula
;

voyages of New Guinea.

Radcliffe-Brown, describing the prearranged meetings of two or
more communities of the Andaman Islanders during the fine season,
says (1922, pp. 83-4)
:

Visitors would bring with them various objects such as bows, arrows,
These were given by
adzes, baskets, nets, red paint, white clay and so on.
the visitors to their hosts, and other presents were received in return.
Although the natives themselves regarded the objects thus given as being
presents, yet when a man gave a present to another, he expected that he
would receive something of equal value in return, and would be very angry
if the return present did not come up to his expectations.
man would
sometimes mention in giving his present that he Would like some particular
object in exchange, but this was the exception and not the rule, and the
When the meeting was
process cannot be spoken of as barter. .
between inland and coast-dwelling communities the exchange was to the
advantage of the inlanders, who thus obtained coast products, but otherwise
since every tribe was self-supporting, there was nothing more in it than an
exchange of presents, the easiest Way of testifying friendship so the
Andamanese regarded it. The exchange of presents did not serve the same
purpose as trade and barter in more developed communities.

Firth (1929, Chap. XII) has made a special study of the giftexchange among the Maori. He concludes that the custom developed
as a sign of goodwill and was fostered and encouraged, as liberality
and generosity are always encouraged in primitive societies, to
promote social harmony. For the purposes of gift-exchange, all
articles, food, clothing and ornaments had their potential exchange
value.
Conspicuous among these were the harakeke cloaks of New
Zealand flax (Phonnium tenax) and the nephrite (* greenstone ')
weapons or ornaments, and it is these last which so nearly developed
into money that they have been so described by Europeans and even
by the Maori themselves. Nephrite (pounamu) was, however, never
a common measure of values, nor was it used as a medium of

exchange in

transactions.

trading

When

traders

first

arrived

custom of gift-exchange was a good

for
barter
fish,
flax, mats and weapons, potatoes and
preparation
timber were bartered for European goods, tools, shirts and the popular
mirrors and beads. In some parts it was the custom for the natives

at the

islands,

this

native
;

PRIMITIVE

i4

MONEY

to place hundreds of baskets of potatoes in a row

the purchaser
then went along and placed a stick of tobacco and a farthing on each,
an equivalent which gave complete satisfaction (quoted by Firth,
Here was a sudden jump characteristic of so much of the
p. 452).
Pacific area, as of Africa, from barter with no medium of exchange
to the use of money with tobacco as a form of currency or Nutzgeld
in between.
Firth points out the essential distinction between gift-exchange
and barter. In the former no bargaining ever upset the proceedings.
Such was not tika (correct), though the recipient was bound, as he
valued his name and reputation, to make adequate repayment, and
usually tried to give back more than he received, to enhance his
;

The desire to obtain fame by being liberal strove

with the wish to have the economic advantage.'
The enhancement of prestige, either personal or tribal, appears
as the main motive of the keen rivalry of the potlatch 1 of the NorthWest Coast of America.
Hill-Tout describes the potlatch as
own

prestige.

a most ingeniously devised system peculiai to the North-West tribes of

America for acquiring social prestige and influence and at the same time
By a well-understood rule, which is
laying up a provision for the future.
observed with a greater punctiliousness than any observance among ourselves, every recipient of a gift at a potlatch gathering is bound in honour
to return another of double value to the donor or his legal heirs at some

future time.

The property usually distributed consists in the main of skins, horses,

personal clothing, blankets, guns, canoes, and since the advent of the dollar,
money. On one historic occasion presents to the value of $15,000 are
known to have been distributed, chiefly in the form of blankets, the oldtime measure of wealth (1907, pp. 155-6).

The

system of present-giving among the Kwakiutl of

intricate

Vancouver Island

When

a boy

is

is

described by Boas.

about to take his third name, at the age of 10

or 12, he borrows blankets from other members of his clan or tribe

In any future distribution of blankets 2 he will
receive a generous share, but all debts have to be repaid.
He can
lend his blankets out at 100 per cent interest the loan may not be
refused without loss of prestige and in this way he can amass a

for distribution.

fortune.
Possession of wealth is considered honourable, and it is the endeavour
of each Indian to acquire a fortune. But it is not as much the possession of
wealth as the ability to give great festivals which makes wealth a desirable
As the bo> acquires his name and man's estate by means of
object. ...

Potlatch

Nowadays the

a gift, in Chinook ; cf. Halliday, 1935, p. 5.

blanket, the unit of value, is here a cheap woollen one,

valued at 50 cents.

PRE-CURRENCY STAGES

15

a distribution of property which will in course of time revert to him with

interest, the man's name acquires greater weight in the councils of the tribe
and greater renown among the whole people, as he is able to distribute more
and more property at each successive festival. Therefore boys and men
are vying with each other in the arrangement of great distributions of
property. Boys of different clans are pitted against each other by their
elders, and each is exhorted to do his utmost to outdo his rival.

Formerly acts of bravery counted as well as distribution of

property, but nowadays the Indians say rivals fight with property
'

(1895, pp. 341-58; cf. also Mead, 1937, Chap. VI).

acquisition of credit and prestige by present-giving or
exchange is more intricate still in connexion with the famous

only

The

'coppers' (cf. pp. 301 ff.). These are sold for blankets with
elaborate ceremonial, the greater the number of blankets given in
exchange and these may be thousands the greater the renown
acquired.

This manipulation of wealth on the North-West Coast is clearly

enough in many ways a parody on our own economic arrangements [says
Miss Benedict (1935, pp. 184, 188)]. These tribes did not use wealth to
get for themselves an equivalent value in economic goods, but as counters
of fixed value in a game they played to win. They saw life as a ladder of
which the rungs were the titular names with the owned prerogatives that
were vested in them. Each new step on the ladder called for the distribution
of great amounts of wealth which nevertheless were returned with usury
to make possible the next elevation to which the climber might aspire.
Goods passed from hand to hand like bank-notes.

The same

'

technique was used in the bride-price ', which was

bid up and up, as in the case of the purchase of a copper. The
bridegroom and his supporters went to the house of the father of
the bride laden with gifts.
Contributions were made to lift the
bride from the floor or to make a seat for the bride '. More and
more blankets were counted out to overpower the family of the
father-in-law, and to show the greatness of the bridegroom.
Among
the Kwakiutl the gifts must be returned later, with interest. There
are payments due on the birth of a child, not only in blankets, but
*

'

in names and prerogatives, to be passed on to heirs.

There are also
conventional gifts of boxes, dishes, spoons, kettles, bracelets and
coppers. These will be met again later on (Chap. IX).
The Fijian solevu (or Great Presentation) contains many features
of the potlatch, though its main purpose is
bartering varied and
No tribe, however wide its territory,
strictly localized commodities.
could be entirely self-supporting, and exchange was therefore a
necessity.
Salt came only from the salt pans in the mangrove
swamps ; cooking
pots from the clay-pits on outlying islands ; the painting of gnatu [barkwas
an
art peculiar to a few ; the carving of bowls and the building
cloth]
of canoes were the craft of the carpenter clans and no other. The comfort

PRIMITIVE

16

MONEY

if not the existence of a tribe depended on barter, and the form of barter
devised by the Fijians accorded exactly with their passion for formal
ceremonial (Thomson, 1908, pp. 280 j[f.).

The solevu is the formal presentation of property by one clan

or sept to another. The ceremonial was much the same whenever
merchandise had to pass, whether in tribute, reward or free exchange
between equals. Thomson gives the following example (p. 281)
:

tribe that owned saltpans, such as those at Nandi Bay, wanted mats.
a formal messengei to one of the islands of Yasawa, asking
permission to bring them a solevu of salt. Yasawa accepted. The solevu
It

would send

took place, both donors and recipients preserving a very accurate remembrance of the value of the present. After some months, or even years,
Yasawa, having plaited a store of mats equivalent to their estimate of the
value of the salt, would propose to return the solevu and the score would be

wiped off. If they seemed to hang fire, deft hints would be conveyed to
them that they were fast becoming a by-word on the Nandi coast.
If their offerings were less than was expected of them, the
ceremonial would lose nothing of its correctness. The speeches
would be as complimentary, the hand-clapping as hearty, but they
would be made to hang their heads with shame when they heard
the caustic epigrams current at Nandi at their expense. With the
arrival of the trader, the need for the solevu vanished, and the native
products, salt, mats, pots, bark-cloth or wooden bowls were estimated
according to their value in calico or in money.
The spirit of the potlatch and rivalry in ceremonial gift-exchanges,
mainly of food at feasts, are found among the Torres Straits Islanders

(Iladdon, Vol. IV, 1912, pp. 310-11 and VI, 1908, pp. 186-7).

There seems to be a great tendency on the part of the natives to give

presents, but always with the expectation of receiving at least an equivalent
in exchange.

Such presents would include useful objects such as dugong

harpoons, bows and arrows or canoe balers, but are chiefly orna-

Some of
mental, arm-rings, necklaces or chest pendants of shell.
these become recognized as standard values, and standard articles
of exchange for certain goods, an early stage in the development
of a recognized currency.
In the remarkable canoe trade presents n play an essential part.
A Murray Islander (of the Eastern group) 2 who wants a canoe gives
'

Landtman, describing the canoe trade from the Fly River end, emphais no clearly marked difference here between actual
commerce and the exchange of friendly presents (1927, p. 215).
2
The canoe trade of the Western Islands is more complicated, as each
island has its price, paid in dugong harpoons, shells and shell ornaments,

sizes the point that there

with additional

'

presents
1904, pp. 296-7).

for intermediates

all

along the route (Vol. V,

PRE-CURRENCY STAGES

17

the trader a fine shell armlet wauri (Fig. 77) which is the recognized
The traders start out on their voyage with
price (cf. p. 181).
various added presents, shell ornaments as well as food, intended
for the middlemen.
For the transaction is from island to island,
all the way to the estuary of the Fly River on the mainland of New
Guinea, where the large canoes come from. The traders may travel
merely to the nearest island, give the order, leave the purchase gifts
and return, while others carry the trade a stage farther. Eventually
the canoe is purchased in exchange for the arm-ring
but additional
presents such as cassowary feathers, bird of paradise plumes, dogs'
tooth or other necklaces, or boars' tusks are added by the vendor
and by the intermediaries as it is conveyed to its final destination.
Haddon concludes that probably a mental record is kept of the
source and destination of every object and doubtless in the long run
[and canoe purchase may spread over several years] everyone is more
or less satisfied
He emphasizes the
(Vol. VI, 1908, p. 187).
;

'

'

'

significance of present-giving.
Exchange of ornaments makes for
peaceful relations and there is a great love of exchange for its own
It serves as an effective protection to
sake, regardless of utility.
normal trade in an area full of fear of malevolent magic, of suspicion

and

potential hostility.

Certain of the articles considered as

'

'

presents

acquired con-

canoe, a dugong harpoon, a wauri

ventionally recognized values.
shell armlet, a necklace of olive shells (Fig. 78) or dogs' teeth were
all about equal, and were regarded as the exchange value of a wife.
The dibidibi chest ornaments (Fig. 79) were of less value they were
;

used more often

Ten

served as a kind of currency '.

barter, and
or twelve dibidibi of fair size would be equal to a large shell
in

armlet (wauri\ a canoe, a dugong harpoon or a wife (see pp. iSoff.).

The value of these articles depends chiefly on their being special
products of their respective areas. Canoes could only be obtained
from the Fly River. Dugong harpoons were a speciality of the two
islands Muralug or Mabuiag (each thought its own the best).
The
best Conus shells were found on the Warrior Reef, so the neighbouring
islands had the finest armlets and chest ornaments.
Mother-ofpearl shell, occurring everywhere, though everywhere prized, did
not acquire such definite exchange value. Neither did any of these
The white trader upset native
objects develop into currency.
the
introduction
of
economy by
objects that were desired by all.
In MacGillivray's time (1848) a knife or a glass bottle was considered
a sufficient price for a wife in Muralug, and calico is now the chief
'present' in canoe-trading (Haddon, 1904, p. 231).
The hiri trading voyages of New Guinea show the same combination of barter and present-giving, out of which certain objects appear
to emerge as currency.
The chief stimulus here is provided by the

PRIMITIVE

i8

MONEY

Every year, at the end of Seppottery industry of Port Moresby.

tember or beginning of October, at the end of the south-east trade
wind season, a fleet of large sailing canoes, lakatoi, sets out from the
neighbourhood of Port Moresby to the estuaries and rivers of the
Papuan Gulf. The canoes are laden with pots carefully packed in
dry banana leaves, and certain articles of value are taken also, and
these are bartered for sago with which the boats return with the
the north-east monsoon, about three months later.
The special ornaments taken on these voyages are the shell armnecklaces made of Nassa
pearl-shell crescents, mairi
rings toia
1
or
dodoma.
tautau
teeth,
shells,
dogs'
Other ornaments or articles of value may be added (especially
the artificially deformed boars' tusks), but these four are more than
mere ornaments, and they have their special significance and market
When the boats reach the Gulf there is great rejoicing and
value.
much ceremony, each member of the visiting crew selects his
friend and gives him one or more of these selected
presents '.
Every article so bestowed has its recognized value, and, if accepted,
the corresponding value [in sago] will be given in exchange (Selig;

'

man, 1910, pp. 96-120).

Trading and gift-exchange and the emergence of currency can
be seen in the kula system of the Massim, who spread over the
south-eastern end of New Guinea and the island groups farther to
the east. Here the trading from island to island (and the people
are keen traders and adventurous sailors) is associated with a cereConus arm-rings or
monial exchange of valuables of two kinds
bands, (here called mwali, which corresponds to the Motu toid)
made in the Trobriands and a special type of necklace (soulava, the
:

Motu

bagi)

made

of a string of Spondylus shell disks (sapi sapi) with

a pendant at the end (cf. PI. 13).

The arm-rings pass from hand to hand as gifts, gifts in solicitation ', as Miss Benedict terms them, and the necklaces travel in the
same manner but in a reversed direction. These ornaments are in
no sense currency they are not used in barter.
*

But certain other articles enter into circulation in the kula trade,
such as the axe blades from Murua or Woodlark Islands, (beku or
benam), which travel as far as the Papuan Gulf spatulas (potuma)
with large concentric handles ornamented with sapisapi disks and
These are used in trading,
strings, and other highly prized objects.
and, escaping from the kula circle along the southern coast of New
Guinea, increase in value and may be described as currency. We
shall meet them again in Chapter VI.
Here we may note how such trade objects can emerge from being
presents or articles of exchange and barter and become trans;

'

use of these as currency

is

discussed later (pp. 172 ff.).

PRE-CURRENCY STAGES

19
'

to use
into reservoirs of condensed economic value
Malinowski's phrase. 1
When arm-rings are too small to be worn, but have definite
when the overgrown axe-blades are
equivalent values in sago
when the shell-disks,
ornaments
and
for
canoes
pigs,
exchanged

formed

in certain districts, are made up into strings, and one

then currency is establishing itself,
string will buy a dozen pots
and these special objects, becoming more specialized and unfit for
domestic use, are acquiring the token characters that we recognize

made only

in

money.

All the above examples of present-giving, whether in the Andaman

Islands, New Zealand, North America, or Melanesia, show expectation of return and may be included in gift-exchange '.
'

There is another source of conventional present-giving which has

share in the early history of money, where the giving is all on one
side, from a chief or headman to his followers.
In Africa and Melanesia, as in Europe, Asia and the New World
the first duty of a leader is to be generous. Wealth is power, and
adherents must be secured by material favours.
great man in
Yap has his avenue of stone money in New Britain his rolls of
diwarra ; in British Columbia his store of blankets or coppers, as
All are expected to act as banker and
insignia of rank and wealth.
its

dispenser to supporters and dependants.

The Chinese chieftain must be able to communicate his fortune,
and to distribute it from top to bottom of the scale of creatures '.
Presents show respect and enhance the prestige of receiver and of
'

Zulu chief, like an Irish chief,

giver (Granet, 1930, p. 227).
depended for his popularity on the cattle that he captured and could

When, in our own islands, gold was

with
were
more
cattle, rings
easily, and being less prolific,
equated
more
and court gleemen
than
cattle
distributed
probably
willingly
in Britain praised their beaga bryttan in the same fulsome strains
Gold rings,
that were used by the Court Praisers in Swaziland.
cattle, blankets or shells, amassed as evidence of wealth, thereby
distribute to faithful followers.

'

'

acquire the prestige that equips

1

them

for developing into currency.

See his account of the kula ring, 1922, with map, pp. 83, 90.

Chapter III

CLASSIFICATION
A
IT

place for everything

how
when used in

has been seen

values

and everything

in its place

certain objects attain accepted or conventional

bride-price ', in wergeld or as presents on
*

ceremonial occasions. Such objects often acquire the character of

tokens in trading transactions and supply the material for the study
of primitive money.
Hence the difficulty in applying Temple's classification (1899,
pp. 99-122) and distinguishing between barter, currency and money

with any strictness. But some classification is essential in dealing

with such a mass of heterogeneous objects distributed in time from
hundreds, if not thousands, of years B.C. up to the present day,
and in space over the habitable globe.
Various schemes have been suggested and different authors and
museum curators have sorted the material into groups according to
their theoretical or practical limitations.
Schurtz's classification (1898, pp. 6,

28, 75) into Binnengeld,

Aussengeld and Zeichengeld (Internal, External and Token money)
makes a valuable distinction, as it is obvious that such types as
(for

example) shell-strings locally made for

functionally distinct

local

exchange are

from cowries or manillas brought by traders

from overseas, but the partition is not of practical application, as

in most cases there is little information about the origin and actual
use of the currency concerned. It is collected and labelled currency or money and nothing more. Neither are his divisions
into Schmuckgeld and Nutzgeld, with Kleidergeld in between (Ornamental, Useful and Clothing money), really helpful save for superficial
'

'

'

'

sorting.

Thilenius discusses the question of classification (1921, pp. n-j^.)

and, while recognizing the value of the distinction between Nutzgeld,
Schmuckgeld and Zdchengeld, admits that the boundaries overlap
and are difficult to define. Even the contrasted extremes of Nutzgeld
and Zeichengeld, which correspond to our full-bodied and token
money, cannot always be distinguished and still leave the mass of
material unclassified. 1
'

'

'

'

Lacouperie's Natur- Handels- und Industriegeld ', ' in Int.* Archiv f.

Eth. t VI, 1893, P S7> or Mohtandon's natural money and money of
'
civilization
in Traitd d* ethnologic culturelle, 1934, p. 615, fail for the same
reasons.
'

20

CLASSIFICATION

21

Regling, in Ebert's Reallexikon (1926), abandoning theory,

a material classification into Food, Cattle, Clothing,
Ornament, Tool and Metal currencies (Nahrungsmittelgeld, Viehgeld, Kleidergeld, Schmuckgeld, Geratgeld and Metalgeld) with subdivisions.
And some such practical grouping is adopted in those

adopts

Museums

(too few, alas !) where a separate section is allotted

to currency.
The Pitt Rivers collection at Oxford struck out a
new path with its divisions of Raw Materials, Useful Objects

and Ornamental Objects

i.e.

Textiles,

Shell,

but the grouping according to material,

&c., is the one more commonly

Metal,

adopted.

Such

classifications

may be admirably adapted

for their special

purposes, but they have the defect for the geographer, the ethnologist
and the sociologist of grouping together things which do not belong.
This is to ignore the functional interpretation of facts, and it seems
better to attempt to form groups that are interrelated, so as to
gain some idea of their evolution and of their interdependence,
while at the same time they illustrate the culture in which they
are found.
No study so successfully combats the error of separating
history into watertight compartments as the study of numismatics,'
says Scltman in an earlier volume of this series (1933, p. 265),
and the study of money before it becomes numismatics is even less
lamenable to such separation.
In reviewing the whole world, the most obvious classification is
'

anthropogeographical, and this is adopted here.

The material forms of money are local, i.e. geographical products,
as Babelon pointed out in his articles in La Science sociale half a
century ago. The evolution of money is anthropogeographical,
influenced alike by man and by his environment
and the distribution of money is by human agency
so classification by region
and race gives the fullest significance to the material. Moreover,
;

leads to more interesting interpretations, throwing light on problems of early migrations and early intercourse, of trading and
tradeless areas, and providing evidence for those who claim that
it

the basis of all civilization, as for those who claim that the
is the root of all evil.
The abundance or scarcity
of currencies is influenced by geography as well as by political and
Barter and trade develop in areas of contrasted
social conditions.

trade

is

love of

money

produce, where bush and sea-coast, forest and plain, mountain and
lowland oifer each other novelties and encourage the exchange of
1
Within the inconvenient limitations of passage wall cases in the Museum
of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, the arrangement is anthropogeoThe Knox Collection at Buffalo has the same fundamental plan,
graphical.
with unrivalled opportunities of display (cf. Mosher, 1936).

PRIMITIVE

22

Hence the

goods.

MONEY

chief stimulus to trading

is

inequality of natural

endowments, animal, vegetable and mineral, but much depends also on

means of transport available, the nature of the coasts, the navigability
of the rivers, the canoes, boats, inland tracks, beasts of burden or
human porters that can be used. It might be added that the climate
and general surroundings should be favourable but not too
favourable, not so satisfying that no more is required, and yet not
so barren that there is no surplus for exchange. All this exchange
can, however, be carried on without anything that can properly be
called

money.
The Melanesian sells the
There is also the human factor.
Samoan gives/ Geography may be at the back of this, but it is
mainly due to differences in political or social organization, which
have developed definite inherent characteristics, and to the trading
instinct
of the Melanesian may be attributed the extraordinary
wealth of currency and its unique elaboration, which is described
and illustrated in Chapter VI.
*

'

The

African Negro shares this characteristic.

He

loves pro-

longed bargaining, and his clinging to earlier forms of currency is

Commerce for the Congolese, says
partly due to this partiality.
Mahieu (1924, p. 65), is une sorte de jeu, auquel il se livre avec
passion and his reluctance to make use of coins of fixed values is
'

'

deepened by the fact that they curtail his opportunities for argument
and disputation.
There are many other factors involved. Hobhouse shows
(1930) that though private property in personal things such as
weapons, ornaments and tools appears to exist everywhere at the

present day, yet among the lower stages of culture communal

principles are strong while the concept of private ownership is
comparatively weak. At the same time the proprietorship in things
personally made or even personally owned is often far stronger
than with us, and parting with them is like losing a part of the owner's
personality.

We

have unfortunately no working model of primitive comin which, theoretically, money would not be needed, and
it is difficult even to conceive of any social stage in which
personal
property is not recognized as such. A hypothetical picture of the

munism

perfect peace in

which Mankind lived before the evolution of personal

property destroyed its harmony is too far back to concern the modern
economist, though glimpses may be seen among such moneyless
cultures as those of the Andaman Islanders, the Nicobarese and the
Eskimo. Generally speaking, a study of unrisen peoples suggests
that desire of possession and ideas about personal ownership are
'

most communities as in our own.

these sentiments appear to be weak, the reason is to be

as strongly developed in

Where

'

CLASSIFICATION
sought rather in geographical, economic or

any innate human

23
l

political

conditions than

and a cursory glance at the

distribution of currencies shows that there is no generalized interpretation of the blanks, which only vaguely coincide with racial
in

differentiation,

boundaries.

The Andaman Islanders, the Australians, the Eskimo, the

Asiatics

Central

and the Maori have neither geographical environment nor

race in common, but they are (or were) alike in one characteristic,
In these so-called primitive societies
a comparative self-sufficiency.
where division of labour, save between men and women, scarcely
exists, where each family group could provide for its own needs
without outside help or external supplies, currency is not to be
barter is rarely organized
looked for
trade can scarcely develop
and though there is present-giving, it has little commercial imBut groups so independent and so self-contained are
portance.
found
even among the most aloof there are indications of
rarely
extra attractions and external contacts, and women are generally the
disturbing element. Abundant illustrations will be found in the
a brief glance at what is happening in the Solomon
following pages
Islands at the present time, showing successive stages in the evolution
of the use of money, may form the prelude.
In Bougainville, the largest island of the group, there is great
contrast and perpetual hostility between the bush folk of the mountainous interior and the more recent coast dwellers.
Nor are the
mountaineers at peace among themselves
they live in isolated
groups and are usually at feud with their nearest neighbours who
may live across a valley and up the next mountain ridge. Each
family, therefore, is necessarily self-contained and provides for its
own needs, and if there is any exchange it is not of necessities, but
of extras. Stone for tools is only found in one part, earth suitable
for pottery-making in another, and there is a certain amount of barter
in stone implements and in pots.
But while in most of Melanesia
barter is constantly going on, with markets at regular spots at regular
intervals, in Buin (South Bougainville) there is nothing of the kind.
Exchanges of goods take place only at present-givings, which are
the essential accompaniment of gatherings and feasts on special
occasions such as marriages and funerals, meetings for blood-revenge
or for peace-makings. And all givers expect presents of equal value
in return or another feud is started.
The most valued presents are shell-strings and Tridacna
arm-rings, which must be obtained from the coast, and these are
essential for
bride-price for blood-money and for all ceremonial
;

'

e.g. well-meaning rulers may prohibit or discourage the use of money

(Sparta, Peru, Japan) while self-seeking rulers may introduce it for their
own benefit (China, Bornu).

PRIMITIVE

24

MONEY

So there is exchange between the mountaineers and

presentations.
the coast dwellers, the former bringing taro and yams, pelts or baskets,
to barter for fish, salt-water (for cooking), coconuts and, above all,
shell-strings

and

wives or pigs.

shell-rings.

For without these men cannot

buy

Miss Blackwood (1935, pp. 439-40) describes the better-organized

barter to the north of Bougainville, between the villages of Buka
Here the important exchange is that of taro and fish. Few
Passage.
villages are so fortunate as to be self-contained as regards both these
essentials of existence.
The land near the coast is not very good for

the inland people have only the small amount of

growing taro
fish they can take from the rivers.
The fish-taro exchange is there;

in the life of all the villages in this area.

hoods, the speciality of one area, pots of another, clay
pipes of another, all have their exchange values, standardized according to supply and demand and the bargaining powers of buyers and
sellers.
This is what is usually described as
barter pure and
simple ', although the adjectives are seldom appropriate.
The next stage is reached when an agreed rate of exchange is
adopted and certain goods are given a fixed value, which remains
constant.
The native currency here consists in lengths of teeth,
bound on strings (imuri) covered with red ochre, and shell-money
This is not used for
(beroari) imported from other islands (PI. 10).

fore a

permanent feature

Women's

ordinary trading, but for marriage payments, for compensations for

The
special purchases, with ceremonial significance.
ordinary currency is trade tobacco in the form of plug twist, mixed
with molasses, made up into sticks about 6 inches long. Trade has
One shilling equals three
also introduced coins, mainly shillings.
sticks of tobacco.
Five will buy a fathom of shell-money.
fathom of the more valuable tooth-money is arbitrarily valued by
But 5 merely means untold gold or a lot
the natives at
5.
of money '.
Thus in one island may still be seen a money-less barter, with
present-giving and ceremonial exchanges developing into local forms
of currency, which may be estimated in tobacco and coins.

wrongs and for

'

'

'

1
A wife costs 100 to 200 fathoms of shell-strings and a pig 20 to 30 ;
100 fathoms is blood -money for a murder (cf. Thurnwald, 1910, pp. 127,

Chapter

IV

COWRIES AND BEADS

i.

COWRIES

The army marches on

its

stomach

IN the following chapters objects used as money will be grouped

in their respective geographical provinces
Africa, Oceania, Asia,
Europe and America. But there are two important currencies that
:

cannot be confined within these limits, cowries and beads. Their

distribution as ornaments and charms, if not as money, starts before
the Christian era and takes us all over the Old World and into the

New.

The
easy to

ideal properties of money are that it shall be handy, lasting,

difficult to counterfeit (portable, durable, divisible

count and

and recognizable), so there are not many rivals to the precious

metals.
The most remarkable exception is the cowry, which, startits
on
travels before gold and silver coinage was in general use,
ing
extended its range farther than any form of money before or since,
spreading from China and India eastward to the Pacific islands
and
travelling across and encircling Africa to the West Coast
the
In
of
lands
into
New
World.
some
these
gold,
penetrating
silver or bronze coins existed and circulated locally, but cowries
formed the common currency throughout this vast expanse of the
trading world. With unrestricted imports their value depreciated
on the main highways, though they are still in actual use in out-of-the;

way parts to-day.

The reasons for their popularity are both obvious and concealed.
The surface and the shape are attractive and decorative, so that
they are used as ornaments and playthings even where they are,
common. And when they are carried into inland regions, they
acquire the added charm of novelty touched with mystery, and the
enhanced value given to all exotic products. It is difficult to separate
their use as decoration, as charms and amulets, and as
givers of
life
from their use as currency, as the ornamental and magical
concepts added so much to their value. But it is as currency that
we are concerned with them, and we recognize at once how aptly
they supply the essential requirements of money. They are easier,
cleaner and pleasanter to handle than coins, which are usually
they are as easy to count in pairs, in quartettes
regarded as ideal
or in fives, and practically impossible to counterfeit.
Many centuries after coins had been in daily use in China, a
'

'

25

PRIMITIVE

26

MONEY

despairing Emperor abolished the whole monetary system riddled

with forgeries and returned to an official currency in shells. And
cowries surpass all other shell currencies in solidity and uniformity.
They are fairly constant both in size and weight, and equal in these
respects to the seeds such as crabs' eyes, beans, rice, wheat or barleycorns which provided the earliest units for weighing gold and silver.
The name cowry is derived from the Hindi and Urdu kauri,
Sanskrit kaparda, but the varied names in different countries have
often led to confusion.
An early French name was porcelaine,
which may contain an echo of a Roman nickname of little pig
and connect it with fertility cults, and both porcelaine in French and
1
cowry in English were applied to many shells that were not Cypraea.
The only cowries with claims to be called money are the large
orange or tiger cowries (Cypraea aurora, C. tigris, &c.) and the
familiar little C. moneta or C. annulus, which we still use as counters
'

in domestic gambling. 2

The large shells have been treasured in our islands for many
centuries, and are not uncommonly found buried with their owners
in Anglo-Saxon graves.
They may have been used in presentations
'
'
or exchange, as in Fiji, where they are often called currency
on the eastern

(PL 5) or in barter as
are native, but rare.

coasts of Africa,

where they

The little cowry represents the most widely spread money of

world commerce, used by the trading nations of the Old World
from the South Seas to the western coasts of Africa and across to
America. The original occupant of this solid, shiny, slightly
asymmetrical shell with its narrow ventral opening was a gasteropod
mollusc living in shallow water and preferring that water to be warm,
hence its distribution in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. 3 It is usual
to distinguish two varieties, the money cowry, Cypraea moneta, and
the ring cowry, C. annulus, the former often called the
large
and the latter the small cowry, the one just over and the other
just under an inch in length (Jackson, p. 156, with illustration).
But size is an unsafe guide in conchology, and the Cypraea are
In Southern Nigeria the ring cowries in
notoriously variable.
current use are twice the size of the money cowries, and Mahieu
tabulates large and small varieties of both kinds in the Congo
*

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

1
Venus mercenaria and other clam shells were called porcelaine in
America, while cowries and olives are inextricably mixed in Africa.
2
The border line between gambling counters and money is not easy
to define, and it is safe to say that cowries are still used for gambling all
over the world. For small stakes they aie obviously superior to coins, as
they are so much easier for the winner to scoop up. When copper atts,
the value of a cowry, or -^ of a tical, were used for gambling in Siam, they
were bent up at the edge to avoid fumbling.
3
Jackson, 1917, gives a map of its recorded range, p. 124.

COWRIES AND BEADS

27

Trading interests obviously regulate size, for when cowries

are bought wholesale and traded retail, it is to the merchant's interest
to buy up the smaller specimens.
So, although C. moneta may be
larger than C. annulus on its native Maldivian shores, it is the smaller
specimens that find their way as currency to the Guinea Coast and
the East Indies.

(p. 41).

In trying to disentangle the two varieties many difficulties are

encountered. Most records are content with merely reporting
'
some
cowry currency with no description or further details
and
distinguish between Indian (moneta) and African (annulus)
some distinguish between large and small ', which it is usual
to interpret as moneta and annulus, as above, but with caution.
currency string may contain both
varieties strung together and when the backs
are chipped off or ground down for stringing
'

'

'

'

uncertain. 1 The
indiscriminate mixing of the two is to be
expected in Africa, but it is surprising to
find both varieties in the small change of
a Panjab banker towards the end of last
(Fig.

i) identification is

century.
It is fortunate that civilized as well as

uncivilized

man is

susceptible to the fascinaThe literature is extenthere is no need to repeat what

tions of the cowry.

sive,

and

Cowries Cypraea
backs
with
broken for stringing

FIG. i.

momta,

has been so fully and admirably dealt with.

travelling history of
the cowry as currency will suffice here.
Cowries (both moneta
and annulus) arc found in the Red Sea, and may have been used

A brief summary of the

1

It is not even certain that C. moneta and C. annulus are really distinct.
animals change their colours and patterns with age and exhibit two or
three different coatings of enamel at diffeient stages, so that by some authorities these are considered as merely the extremes of one variable mollusc
(Reeve, 1842, II, p. 262).
2
Presented by Temple to the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford.
8
Stearns traced the history of the cowry in his Ethno-Conchology ',
Rep. U.S. Nat. Mus. 1889, pp. 297-34; Schurtz in his Grundriss einer
Entstehungsgeschichte des Geldes, 1898, pp. 88-98, gave a summary and
review, and Schneider in his monograph (Muschelgeld-Studieri), edited by
Carl Ribbe, in 1905 sifted, criticized and amplified the mass of information
already collected (pp. 101-73). Jackson, in Shells as Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture (1917), made use of Schneider's monograph as of
other wiiters before and after, and devotes pp. 122-94 to a study of the use
of cowries as currency, amulets and charms, with a map of their distribution.
Wiener, in Africa and the Discovery of America, (1920, Vol. II, Part III)
traces their wanderings and history by means of etymological and linguistic
evidence (pp. 203-23) ; Montandon, Traitd d'dthnologie culturelle, 1934,
illustrates their distribution as currency with a map (pp. 614-19).

The

'

PRIMITIVE

28

MONEY

as currency in Egypt in ancient as in modern times.

They were
highly valued as ornaments and worn as charms or talismans and

buried with their owners in Pre-dynastic as in later graves (Jackson,

1
917, pp. 1 28 ff.). They travelled up the Nile Valley and also along the
coasts and may have taken part in the early trade which was carried
on between the Eastern Mediterranean across the Indian Ocean and
down the East African coast at the beginning of our era. 1
The true money cowry (Cypraea monetd) and its career as money
throughout the world starts in the Indian Ocean, with its collecting
industry in the Maldives (called Divah Kavzah, or Cowry Islands ')
and its centre of distribution in Bengal.
Sulayman, the Arab merchant in the Qth century, describes the
riches of the Maldives, which consisted in cowries, and how the
Queen amassed large quantities in her treasuries. (Ferrand, Voyage
du marchand ardbe Sulayman (851), 1922, p. 3 1 ). Masudi of Baghdad
the Arab historian, who died about the middle of the loth century,
amplifies this account.
(Meadows of Gold, 1861, p. 337). He
records that cowries were the only money in the Maldives, and when
the royal treasury was getting empty the Queen directed women to
cut branches of coconut palms and throw them on the sea. The
animals climbed up on to these and they were collected and spread
on the seashore until only empty shells were left, which were brought
in to replenish the treasury.
Pyrard de Laval, who was wrecked on the islands and spent 2 years
there at the beginning of the I7th century, gives much the same
description of the collecting, and adds
'

They called them [cowries] Boly and expoit to all parts an infinite
quantity, in such wise that in one year I have seen 30 or 40 whole ships
loaded with them without other cargo. All go to Bengal for there only is
there a demand for a large quantity at high prices. The people of Bengal
use them for ordinary money although they have gold and silver and plenty
of other metals ; and, what is more strange, kings and great lords have
houses built expressly to store these shells and treat them as part of their
treasure (1887, I, p. 78).

He tells how Portuguese ships brought rice from Cochin solely to

exchange for cowries for the Bengal market, the shells being put
up into parcels or baskets of coconut palm leaves each containing
these were negotiated like bags of silver, by weight,
12,000 shells
and between merchants taken as counted, though in less than no
time they will take a tally of a whole parcel '. It was a profitable
trade, as they were bought at 9,000 or 10,000 for a rupee and sold
;

'

for 3 or

When

4 times

as

much.

Mohammedans

the
1

The

overran Bengal in the I3th century

reference in the Periplus

is

doubtful.

COWRIES AND BEADS

29

currency and spread thence over

cowries were already established as

the trade routes of India. There is evidence of their continued
commercial use down to the present day, for they may still be
found in native bazaars, and were reported as in use as small change
in Benares, Darjeeling and Hyderabad until a few years ago.
They never formed a currency in Ceylon, or on the Malabar
coast (where they are native), but they increased in value as they
travelled inland and their travels led them to Eastern Asia and to

Western Europe.
Cowries were the currency of China some hundreds if not
thousands of years before there is any record of the Maldive industry,
the supplies being derived possibly from the Sea of Formosa, or
farther to the east from Borneo and the Philippines, where later
they were used for ballast. But Marco Polo clearly states that in
his time the cowries in the Province of Carajan [Yunnan] were
brought from India (Yule, 1903, II, p. 45). Cowries in China
had a fluctuating commercial career, being highly valued, depreciated,
abolished, reinstated and abolished again, as is described below
224 ff.).
Westwards from India 1 they spread through Afghanistan into
Persia, and from thence into Europe, where they encountered the
stream that had trickled up in prehistoric times, probably connected
with the amber trade. Occasional occurrences in graves cannot
prove that the shells were used as currency here, though when 50
are found together, as at Vitebsk in Latvia, the inference is perhaps
not unwarrantable. 2 The bronze cowries found in Etruscan graves
may be compared with those of China, which are usually presumed
to be money.
The gold cowries of Cyprus (as also of Egypt)
bear witness to their estimation, though there is no suggestion of
commercial use.
(pp.

The

early history of cowries in Africa is difficult to trace.

They

found in the Red Sea, and may have been carried inland from
Egypt, and by sea along the coasts. Later the Arabs brought them
across the Indian Ocean in their dhows as ballast and for trade
with the natives, and they were dispersed all across the caravan
routes of the north. 3 The ships of the Dutch and the Portuguese,
the French and the English followed the Arabs, but their trade
was mainly with the West Coast, as was described in the iyth century
are

1
Only two cowries, neither of them C. moneta or C. annulns, have been
recorded in the Indus Valley excavations (cf. p. 193).
2
For Scandinavia and the Baltic region cf. Jackson, 1917, pp. 130 ff.
3
Some idea of the profits of the trade in the i4th century can be
reckoned from Ibn Batuta's statement that cowries could be bought in the
Maldives for 400,000, sometimes even for 1,200,000 to the gold dinar, and
he had himself seen them sold in \vhat is now Nigeria at the rate of 1,150 to
the dinar (1929, p. 243).

PRIMITIVE

30

MONEY

by Barbot, Agent-General of the Royal Company of Africa and the

Islands of America at Paris.

The Boejies or Courts, which the French call Bouges, are small milkwhite shells commonly as big as small olives, and are produced and gathered
and thence transamong the shoals and rocks ot the Maldivy islands,
ported as ballast to Goa, Cochin and other ports in the East-Indies by the
natives of those numerous islands ; and from the above-named places are
dispersed to the Dutch and English factories in India ; then brought over
to Europe more especially by the Dutch, who make a great advantage of them
according to the occasion the several trading nations of Europe have for this
trash, to carry on their traffick at the coast of Guinea and of Angola, to purchase slaves or other goods of Africa and are only proper for that trade
no other people in the universe putting such a value on them as the Guineans
and more especially those of Fida and Ardra have long done, and still do
to this day.
These Cauris are of many different sizes, the smallest hardly
larger than a common pea ; and the largest, as an ordinary walnut, longish
like an olive
but of such great ones there is no considerable quantity in
proportion to the inferior sizes ; and all are intermixt great and small.
They are commonly brought over from the East-Indies in packs or bundles,
well wrapp'd, and put into small barrels in England or Holland, for the
better conveniency of the Guinea trade (Churchill, Collection of Voyages,
1704, Vol. V, pp. 338-9).
.

;
;

Bosman, the Dutch factor at Elmina, describes these barrels of

cowries at Fida
:

my

time the English sowed up their small Barrels of Boesies (the

Money of this Country) in Sacks, thinking thereby to have secured them
from the pilfring Fingers of the Negroes but they were mistaken ; for as
they were carrying them, on the way they cut the Sacks of the Barrels, and
dug out their Boesies at the Chinks of the Barrel with an Iron Chissel (1705,

In

P. 349)-

Cowries thus entered Africa in two streams, and Wiener traces

the Indian words derived from the Sanskrit kaparda (which he
connects with the Chinese ho-pei) by the overland route from Zanzibar to West Africa ; while the Maldive name boly, Portuguese
buzio, French' bouges, travelled by sea, appearing in Benin as abuy

and in Dahomy

akwe (1920, pp. 221-3).

note that these two streams did not flood the
entire continent.
The Arab trade advanced across Africa from east
to west, along the northern routes to the Niger, and past the Lakes
to the Upper Congo, and cowries spread down the rivers and their
tributaries.
Trade by sea landed cowries on the West Coast, and
they spread up the rivers and their tributaries. But in between were
areas where cowries never penetrated before the introduction of the
as

It is interesting to

'

cloth (which to a great extent, superseded

wire.
The adventures of the cowry on the East Coast were very different
from those on the West. On the East there were two serious rivals

usual

trade goods

cowries), beads

',

and brass

the local C. annulus, which anyone could pick

up along the

shores,

COWRIES AND BEADS

31

and the established cattle-standard inland. In a cattle area,

especially one where iron is fairly abundant, other currencies are
less important, and the cowry plays a small part.
When, however,
it first travelled into the interior, the Arab traders made sensational
In the days of King Semakokiro, about five generations
cowry first appeared in Uganda, and two shells would
1
But this high price was short-lived. In the
purchase a woman.
reign of his grandson (about 1860) their value fell and 2,500 would
only buy a cow, and a woman was worth 4 or 5 cows. This was
at the capital and on the main trade-routes.
Off the beaten track
cowries were still good value. Junker, in 1886, found eggs
priced at 5 cowries each and a bunch of bananas for 30. The final
knell was struck by the coming of the rupee about 1921, when
cowries were reckoned at 1,000 to the rupee and were of no practical
value in bargaining.
But strings, nominally of hundreds, can still
be found, side by side with modern coinage. And some of the
ancients of Wanyoro probably still talk of the good old days when
10 cowries would buy a cow and 30 a woman (J. A. Grant, 1864).
Cowries travelled along the trade routes of the North, and are
recorded by Ibn Batuta in the Kingdom of Melle in the i4th
profits.

ago, the

century and by Cadamosto in the Songhay Kingdom in the 15th.

In the same century Leo Africanus met them in Timbuktu, where

400 went

to the ducat.

The Spaniards found them

already established along the West

Coast, and they formed the usual currency there for some centuries.
Barbot includes cowries in his list of trade goods for the French trade

and in Dahomey in 1669,

with Senegal and Gambia about 1677
the best commodity the Europeans can carry thither to purchase
slaves, cotton cloth and aggry beads is Boejies or Cawries, so much
valued by the natives, being the current coin there and at Popo,
Fida, Benin and other countries further east, without which it is
;

'

scarcely possible to traffic there

'

(Churchill, 1704, Vol. V, p. 338).

the accepted currency all along the coast from
Senegal to Angola for two or three centuries, percolating slowly
inland up the rivers, and had their importation been regulated,
might have continued in use down to the present day.
But in the middle of last century the Hamburg merchants who
had been carrying Indian cowries from the Maldives, found it
extremely profitable to load up with C. annulus on the East Coast,
at Zanzibar or Mozambique, and unload on the West Coast.
At
first these shells, being larger than the Indian cowries, were much
appreciated, but when hundreds and thousands of tons had been
brought into the continent, the new variety soon became too common,
and the price of both fell so low that they ceased to be of any use

They formed

J.

Roscoe, 1911, p. 456.

PRIMITIVE

32

It is difficult, as

in trade.

MONEY

explained above, to trace the fluctuations

One was more popular in one district, one

and both kinds may occasionally be found on the same

of the two varieties.

in another,

Along the Gold

string.
of last century, but their

Coast importations ceased towards the end

use continued, although 2,000 went to the
'
head (valued between is. 6d. and 2s. 3^.) because they were used
by the factories for paying native labour. At one time these payments were made in gold dust, but the opportunities for fraud were
so easy that the natives preferred the unadulterable cowries ; and
ratio of two
they continued to be preferred inland, though the old
'
the
a
a century
to
the
score
was
of
half
thing
past
farthings
(tapo)
'

'

ago (Burton and Cameron, 1883, P- I 5S)In 1896 4,000 were only worth a mark in German Togoland,
but Schneider tells of a man who was unable to buy a fine horse,
offered cheap for 63 marks, because he ^as unable to pay in [about
And cowries are
a quarter of a million] cowries (1905, pp. 148-9).
the common native currency in the Northern Territory of the
Gold Coast, and still often preferred to coin, which is accepted
with suspicion and protest.
In Nigeria cowries were in general use until lately, 1 though
head of 2,000 was only worth about 6d. They were useful
the
because the smallest silver unit was $d., so for minor transactions
With the issue of the anini, -J of id.,
:owries were indispensable.
this need for very small change was supplied, but the memory of
still

'

'

:owry currency will long be preserved in the name for the halfpenny,

meaning a hundred (cowries).

Up-country their value increases.

iarij

In the North and West

almost exclusively in cowries wherever currency
exists, though in the bush markets transactions are carried on without
C. moneta is
currency by means of barter (Talbot, 1926, p. 875).
the
of
rarer
and
when
C.
annulus
here,
ceased,
isually
importations
:urrency

is

still

former increased in value, and the price is still rising. They

formerly played a large part in fines and in
bride-price '.
:hief's tribute consisted in thousands of slaves and rolls of cloth
md millions of cowries thousands would be paid by a father on
:he

son's marriage or presented to the wife's father after the birth

)f the first child.
lis

Barth in 1851 found cowries (C. moneta he observes) the common

currency of Kano market, 2,500 being equal to the Spanish or the
\ustrian dollar.
With cowries so plentiful and so cheap the counting
vas a formidable operation, for they were not strung as they were
>n the coast, but had to be counted one by one, or rather five by
The governors of towns packed them in sacks made of rushes,
ive.
1
For an interesting aspect of the reappearance of cowry currency in
Northern Nigeria see Nadel, S. F., 1937, p. 488.

COWRIES AND BEADS

33

20,000 to the sack, but no private individual would receive these

without counting them out.
The general custom is to count them
in fives, in which operation some are very expert, and then to form
heaps of 200 or 1,000 each.' The counting of 500,000 shells
is a really heroic work '.
Barth says that cowries were then a novelty in Bornu, where
there was no recognized currency.
The ancient standard roil or
pound of copper had fallen into disuse, and the usual media of
exchange were the gabaga or cotton strips. Cowries, here called
kungona, were introduced as a commercial speculation by the rulers,
and 8 went to the gabaga, and 4 gabaga or 32 cowries to the rot I.
*

For larger transactions shirts (dora), too small and unfit for wear,
were worth 6 rotls, and large shirts up to 50 or 60 roth. But values
went up and down in response to speculation so that sometimes
45 sometimes 100 roth went to the dollar. Further inland, there was
no currency at all. Agades in the Air oasis, with a population of
some 7,000, was an important trading centre for the salt caravans,
thousands of pounds' worth of salt passing through in the year, yet
its characteristic feature is that no money of any kind is current
in the market, neither gold nor silver nor kurdi [cowries] (1858, II,
'

'

pp. 310-11).

Denham and Clapperton, travelling south from Bornu, shortly

before the time of Barth, record their first meeting with cowries
as currency at Katagum, between Bornu and Kano.
Farther south
they note the great convenience of the cowrie which no forgery
can imitate ... as a ready medium of exchange in all transactions
And another traveller exclaims, In what country of the
(p. 57).
world would you find all the food that you need along the road
'

'

'

'

'

few shells ?
'A few shells sounds like an under-estimate,
where the bag ', the unit of value, contained 50,000 and 4,000 to
5,000 were only worth a Maria Theresa dollar. Nevertheless,
though cattle, ivory and slaves usually supplied the higher values,
large payments as well as small were effected by means of cowries,
and the cowry-counter a curiosity of the West Sudan trading
centres counted daily from 250,000 to 300,000 of this small change.
for a

'

'

'

(Ratzel, 1896-8, III, p. 310).

In West Africa, from Senegal to Nigeria the cowry still holds its
own, in spite of rival native currencies or Government disapproval,

and we meet

it again in the Congo basin.

It is curious to find that
has vanished from the regions in between. Eastward of the Niger
delta, in what was German Cameroons and the hinterland, as all
along the Lower Guinea coast, Schneider says that cowry-currency
has disappeared without leaving a trace. (Spurlos verschwunden,
it

P-

*57)-

The Congo

area

is

renowned for having a more varied

collection

PRIMITIVE

34

MONEY

of native currency than any other part of the world. It is fortunate

in having the most complete collection excellently housed and displayed at Tervueren, Brussels, in charge of Dr. J. Maes, himself an
expert collector. In spite of all this wealth of native currency the
cowry once introduced soon proved enormously popular, but
1
The first cowries
depreciated with the unlimited importation.
were probably brought inland into the Kasai-Sankuru region by
the slave-raiding incursions of the Badjok (Kioto) before the coming of the Europeans. While they were still a novelty, 300 or
400 would be paid for a wife. About the beginning of this century
3,000 was the normal price. Some 6,000 or 7,000 might have to be
paid to an injured husband if adultery is proved, and fines for murder
or for suicide ran into higher figures. Even attempted murder or
slave was valued
suicide was priced at 20,000 to 30,000 cowries.
at from 30,000 to 60,000 according to the district, a female slave
being more. Goats from 10,000 to 15,000, a fowl 1,200 down to
a hoe iron at 300.
The Bushongo are the great traders of the Kasai and Sankuru
district in which these figures were collected, and it is owing to
this trade, and owing to the large numbers with which they have

to deal, that they possess, what is rare in Africa, names for figures up
to a million, though they admit that a million or even a hundred
thousand are beyond comprehension. (Torday and Joyce, 1911,
p. 229).

With the depreciation of the cowry owing to importations of

thousands of tons every year from Zanzibar and Mozambique, they
declined in value and only survive in use along the Kasai, as also
in some of the back-waters of the Middle and Upper Congo.
Cowries appear in the list of goods in payment for ivory at Nouvelle
Anvers in 1885, together with a varied assortment of trade cloth,
beads, brass wire (mitako) and an empty bottle (Mahieu, 1924,
But this is a retrogression from currency to barter.
Cowries are common in Pacific waters, but their use is decorative
rather than commercial.
According to Jackson's map (1917, p. 124)
the recorded range of C. moneta and other forms is from Japan
and Hawaii in the North to New Zealand and Easter Island to the
South and East. And there is an important centre of distribution
in the islands between Borneo and the Philippines, where for long
they have served as ballast for ships. But while they constituted
p. 65).

One

of the main difficulties which besets the collector of primitive

to decide what is valued as money and what is valued as decoraThe cowry belts of
tion, and in very many cases no decision is possible.
the Mpbenge (kamba-barakutd) are as good an illustration of this overlap
in Africa as are the shell-money belts of the Micronesians or the Solomon
Islanders in Oceania ; cf. Maes, 1910, pp. 501-2.

currency

is

COWRIES AND BEADS

35

currencies on the mainland of Asia, there are very few references to

any such use in the islands.
Pickering visited Hawaii with the Wilkes Exploring Expedition,
1838-42, and says that an estimable and intelligent Hawaiian lady
Money was certainly
gave him particulars of former customs.
known, for with a string of cowries, Cyprea monetas, it was possible
to buy any articles wanted.'
Specimens that were finer than usual
were extravagantly valued, and could only be worn by the highest
'

(1863, p. 91). As Polynesia never developed a native

currency (cf. p. 109) and as this is the only reference to such use
of money in Hawaii, the exchanges should perhaps be regarded more
Nor is there much evidence
as barter than as money transactions. 1
for the use of cowries as currency in Melanesia, though Schneider
records doubtful instances from the Bismarck Archipelago (1905,
p. 1 1 8), and they are used as gifts in the New Hebrides (cf. p. 168).
There is more information from New Guinea, especially in the
Mandated area, where cowries are used both strung and made up
chiefs.

into ornaments

(cf. pp. 175 ff.).

surprising occurrence

is in Dutch New Guinea.

It
it is recorded from the interior among a
because
surprising,
Papuan
people with totemistic culture, who, as a rule, have no need for and
no clear conception of the use of money. The shells are called
finale or tingala and the natives in the highlands at the sources of the
Mamberamo are so keen on possessing them that they cross over
passes in the mountains some 10,000 feet high, to buy them from

The most

is

the lowlanders. They prefer them as flat as possible, and when

they are almost as broad as they are long, and shiny white, they
Their value is high. Ten constitute a small
circulate as coins.
fortune, and will buy a capable young woman or a full-sized pig.
young pig or a middle-sized one can be bought for 2 to 5 shells.
Objects in daily use seldom cost more than a shell apiece (Wirz,

XVI, 1924, p. 121).

With the gradual opening up of the interior of New Guinea
by exploration, and the stimulus of the discovery of gold, cowries
from the coast now find their way more easily into the formerly almost
inaccessible mountains, and among the Mount Hagen tribes of
Mandated territory it takes a fathom and a half of cowries, sewn
on cord, for a bride, but there is no fixed price and five times this
may be demanded (Ross, 1936).
Travellers into the interior who bring native carriers down to
the coast describe their excitement at finding cowries on the beach,

and how they spend all their time there,

ground picking up gold and silver '.

as

'

on

1
Schneider, 1905, p. 118, quotes a record of cowries
in Fiji, with a query.

Tom
ah

Tiddler's

Geldsurrogat

PRIMITIVE

36
It is

doubtful

if

MONEY

cowries were ever used as currency in America.

mounds and

in early burials which show

were
sacred emblems among
European
they
the Ojibwa and the Menomini to the west of the Great Lakes, and
were used in initiation ceremonies (Jackson, 1917, pp. 184 ff.),
but there is no record of their use as money. They were imported
into America, as into Africa, for trading with the natives, and
stocked by the Hudson Bay Company to barter for pelts, but their
function was ornamental, rather than financial.

They have been found

no

trace of

in

influence

ii.

Beads

BEADS

the most exasperating objects [in the British

Museum].
T. A.

JOYCE

Cowries and beads have much in common.

Geographically they have much the same distribution, their
dispersal being due to the same agency, the commercial enterprise
But while the original homes
of traders with less-civilized peoples.
of the cowries are known, the source or sources of early trade beads
are

still

much

in dispute.

Secondly, beads, like cowries, often owe their popularity to

While the cowry may have some claim to be
supernatural beliefs.
a symbol of fertility, it is more generally valued as an apotropaic,
Beads are also apotropaic, possibly (like
a talisman or a charm.
the cowry) owing to their association with eyes or to their association
and beliefs in their magic virtues were
with holed stones or rings
doubtless fostered, if not invented, by traders to increase their value.
A third similarity is of more immediate concern. Cowries used in
currency are difficult to identify and, as has been seen, impossible
to classify.
Just the same may be said of beads, but here the
For while cowries have persisted as
confusion is infinitely worse.
currency in many parts, owing to the fact that they cannot be
imitated, trade beads have been imitated for hundreds of years, and
so skilfully imitated that it needs microscopic and chemical analysis
to distinguish between a pre-dynastic bead from Egypt, a genuine
aggry from the Gold Coast (if such a bead can be identified)
and a Czechoslovakian product of today.
Modern trade beads are seldom of any general interest, nor are
local prejudices worth noting, save by the trader, though they add
but old trade
variety and attractiveness to museum collections
beads are fascinating mysteries, about which much has been written
but little is certainly known.
Take first the aggry beads. Why aggry ? Read (1905) in a
note on a necklace of glass beads from the Gold Coast, says frankly
;

'

'

'

'

COWRIES AND BEADS

37

'

have never yet been able to get a satisfactory answer to the

The O.E.D. tells us that this
What is an aggry bead ?
is
a word of unknown origin and meaning, applied to coloured and
variegated glass beads of ancient manufacture, found buried in the
ground in Africa they closely resemble the glain neidyr or adder
I

'

inquiry,
'

stone of the Britons

'.
'

'

The comparison with the British druid stones is due to

Bowdich, who in his report of his mission to Ashanti in 1817
The
gives a general description of the aggry beads and their uses.
plain beads were blue, yellow or dull red, the variegated (' mosaic ')
ones of every colour and shade. The natives distinguished between
these, which they dug out of the ground, worth their weight or
twice their weight in gold, and the boiled beads made locally,
which were imitations, but heavier. The beads were used for
ordeals, for oath-taking and, ground down and mixed with water,
'

'

were rubbed on children to assist their growth. If one was accidentbroken in a scuffle the price paid was 7 slaves, but Bowdich
never heard of their being used for money, for the currency was in
gold (1819, p. 218). Bowdich sent a suite of these beads to the
ally

'

British Museum, noting the similarity of the beliefs, if not of the

beads, to those of the ancient Britons.
These beads were well known to the traders of the Coast. Duarte

Pacheco Pereira, the Portuguese explorer who probably assisted at

the founding of the Castle of Elmina (the first permanent European
settlement on the Gold Coast) in 1481, speaks of the trade there and
In exchange the
the amount of gold yearly brought to Portugal.
chief goods bartered were cloth, brass manillas, handkerchiefs,
corals, certain red shells which they estimate as we estimate precious
'

stones

',

white wine and

'

which they

certain blue beads

call coris

'

(1905, p. 114).

These beads came from Benin as he tells later, describing the

trading some five leagues up the left branch of the Rio dos Forcados,
There trade consisted principally in slaves,
in the Niger delta.
cotton cloths, a few leopard skins, palm oil and certain blue beads
with certain red lines or stripes, 1 which they call coris '. These were
bought in exchange for brass or copper manillas and sold again at
'

Fort St. George for gold (p. 121).

Barbot towards the end of the i7th century records, among the
most profitable items for trading in Dahomey, slaves, cotton cloths
and blue stones called agry or accory, very valuable at the Gold Coast
and at Benin, besides slaves and cotton cloths blue coral, alias
'

'

'

The description of blue beads with red lines or stripes, ridges or

Kimble, however,
zigzags (riscos) suggests chevrons (Frontispiece, Fig. 7).
'
reads conchas not contas, and translates blue shells with red stripes without
1

explanation (1937, p. 128).

PRIMITIVE

38

MONEY
*

akory from Benin '. Barbot adds the local belief that blue coral
grows in branchy bushes like the red coral at the bottom of the rivers
and lakes in Benin, which the natives have a peculiar art to grind
or work into beads like olives, and is a very profitable merchandize
at the Gold Coast (1704, Vol. V, pp. 348, 361).
The accounts of the early explorers and traders trace these
aggry beads to Benin and to native industry. There they could
be bought in native markets or through the agency of the factors,
which suggests that they were due to overland trade, and the blue
coral may have been made from the long Venetian pipes which the
natives cut up and ground down on a whetstone into whatever shapes
they pleased, as Barbot records of the Gold Coast (p. 274).
Philological guesses are seldom of any value, but the confusion
between coral and aggries, together with the early spellings of coris
and accory certainly suggest that the word aggry is no more than
a coral ', a name used for beads in general, and that the beads
were substitutes for the red coral, a royal monopoly in Benin, which
no commoner could wear without the King's sanction. Mediterra'

'

'

'

'

'

'

nean coral was exported, some centuries B.C. chiefly as amulets,

but also for trading, to India in the east and Africa in the west,
and reached Timbuktu and the Niger in Arab caravans. But even
in Barbot's time the string of coral which in Benin was a badge
of office, was made of counterfeit beads, and he tells how the officer
was obliged to wear his string, and was put to death if he lost it,
and how five men were killed when a string was stolen the owner,
the thief, and his accomplices for a string of coral not intrinsically
worth twopence (p. 367).
How, when and why blue beads were substituted for red coral
is not clear, but it is not unreasonable to assume that the Africans
'

'

then, like their descendants of the present day, showed preferences

sometimes for red, sometimes for blue, and sometimes for particoloured beads, such as in still earlier times composed the La Tene

from the Crimea (Dechelette, II, III, 1914, Fig. 575, p. 1318)
or the Merovingian string from the Rhine (Andree, 1885, Fig. 3,
p. 1 14), either of which if dug up in West Africa would confidently
string

be classed as

'

aggries

'.
'

'

There is no doubt about the high values attached to these aggry

beads, which were worth their actual weight in gold, sometimes
doubled or trebled, or several slaves. The natives believed that
they grew out of the earth some generations ago, a belief

common

by finding them in the ground of

old village sites, where they had been either intentionally or accidentMany natives still believe that beads when buried,
ally buried.
not only grow, but breed, though King Suna of Uganda experimented
to

many

in vain.

parts of Africa, fostered

Another native

belief, that

beads are the bones of a snake

COWRIES AND BEADS

39

'

'

or petrified snakes' eggs, links them with the snake stones of the
Britons, and the mysteries surrounding them doubtless added much
to their estimation.

Miss Kingsley, noting the African's successful resistance to

prophesied that travellers in the remote future

civilizing influences,
will find him

'

with his tom-tom in his dug-out canoe -just as willing to sell as big
the debris of our importations to his ancestors at a high price.
Exactly how much he will ask for a Devos patent paraffin oil tin or a Morton's
tin I cannot imagine, but it will be something stiff like he asks nowadays
for the Phoenician
aggry beads (Travels, 1897, P- 679).
still

curios

'

'

The

Phoenicians are said (by Herodotus) to have sailed round Africa

some beads from the Gold Coast

early in the 7th century B.C., and

now in the British Museum are
'

authoritatively

associated

with

name and time of the Carthaginian Hanno' (Man., 1905, i)

the

but the belief that the aggries were

introduced by the Phoenicians still
awaits proof.
Cardinall has cleared up some
confusion by showing that the
name aggry was given to three
different types of bead in the Gold
Coast, all (he believes) of Venetian

and brought by the first

European traders some 2,000 years
origin,

than the Phoenicians. The

kinds
are the plain blue glass
3
blue coral
of early
beads, or
later

accounts,

West African

FIG. 2.

'

which

are

similar

'

aggries

'.

(f size)

in

shape to the red coral beads of Benin

the mosaic or eyed beads

with such admiration by
and
described
2
(Fig.
Frontispiece, Fig. 6),
*
Bowdich, regarded by many as typical aggries ', which inspired
and the striped, which
the native industry of the present day
included the chevrons (cf. Frontispiece, Fig. 7). 1
:

These novelties would have come first into the hands of chiefs or great
men, enhancing their worth and importance, and giving them by this
association fictitious values in native estimation, although they can all find
counterparts in the products of Venice or even of Birmingham (Cardinal!,

I924-S, P- 298).

There

is

new

claimant to the

counter-part anywhere
1

else (Fig. 3

name

'

'

aggry

and Frontispiece,

some old chevron bead

Captain Wild collected
*
'
there.
that they are not called
aggries

which has no

Fig. 8).

When

in Ashanti but says

PRIMITIVE

40

MONEY

he was in Ashanti Captain Wild noticed the large buff-coloured beads

of ginger-beer bottle aspect as he describes them, worn on the
'

charm (suman) by important chiefs (amanhene). They are

heirlooms, handed down like crown jewels from the chief to his
The natives call them
successor, and could not be bought or sold.
'
Beck gives
aggries and all believe that they grow in the ground.
wrist as a

as his opinion not only are these beads

are also of considerable age '.

The one

made by

natives, but they

here had been in the possession of the

of the village of Osai Tutu, 1 a few miles north-east
of Kumasi, but came into the market during the slump.
The problem of aggries is far from being settled, and can only
illustrated

Queen Mother

be cleared up by an expert on the spot. Meanwhile, it would

if the name aggry ', if used at all, were restricted
to special beads from the Coast, for there are early trade beads from
'

simplify the subject

other parts of Africa whose history is

equally obscure and these, though all
lumped together as aggries ', may or
may not be derived from the same
*

source.

Their geographical distribution

is

suggestive and may help to explain how

they came to Africa. They are well
known on the West Coast, as we have
seen, and used in the gold trade there.
But they do not spread into the gold-less
FIG.

3.' Aggry

',

Gold Coast

Congo region. Schurtz(i898, pp. 103-5)

notes

their distribution also in the

South-East, where in the richest gold districts the most ancient (or
^gty ') beads are found. These are not the blue coral of the
West Coast, but are of all colours, shapes and sizes. They were
believed to come from the Kingdom of Monomotapa (Rhodesia)
and to be dug out of the earth there. Their rarity was accounted
for by the belief that the earth had caved in and covered the place
in which they had been excavated.
Ogilby (1673, pp. 582, 605), recording the trade of his day,
described the exchange of Cambayan beads for cattle between the
Namaqua and the Portuguese of Monomotapa, and gives more details
about the trade of Sofala.
'

'

'

In that country [which he identifies with the Ophir of King Solomon]

Mohammedans coming by sea in zambuks bring silk stuffs and ashcoloured, yellow and red Cambayan beads, which they exchange for Gold,
as those of Sofala barter these wares again with them of Monomotapa for
Gold, which they receive without Weight.
the

Osai Tutu was the founder of Ashanti, and reigned about 1700.

COWRIES AND BEADS

A little later (1700) Barbot notes

41

the little glass balls

from
which were used instead of money at Malindi (1732, IV,
p. 518).
Merensky, Mission superintendent among the Basuto in
1860, described the beads or corals, especially a yellow and black
sort
only worn by chiefs and their wives. No commoner was

Cambaia

'

'

allowed to own one. He mentions 17 different types, red, green,

blue, white and variegated (1882, pp. 543-5).

and illustrates 15 types (1891, p. 399), many

and asymmetrical. These are all reed beads, none
of them corresponding to the West Coast aggries '. The most
valuable here were the largish yellow beads called talama, a word
which means gold in many African dialects. The largish angular
Bartels describes

irregularly cut

'

'

'

dark-blue transparent beads familiar throughout Africa (cf. FrontisThe word has been traced
piece, Fig. 5) are also called talama.
to the Arabic dirham, which means money ', and dirham is derived
from drachma, a weight, originally a handful. Beads are still
measured by the handful in East Africa.
If the association of ancient beads with ancient gold-seekers can
be established, it would seem an easy matter to identify the early
But
gold-seekers by discovering where these beads were made.
when India, China, Japan and the East Indian Islands, Egypt and
the Eastern Mediterranean all have their supporters, the difficulties
are complicated.
'

Sir Richard Temple believed that they had their origin in

Egypt,
and
recognizing types familiar in I7th- and igth-dynasty graves
he assumed that the Arabs, trading under Egyptian masters, trafficked
;

with Egyptian beads, and were followed by the Spaniards and

Portuguese, using the same wares, made in Venice (1899, PP120-1).

Egypt is credited with the invention of glass-making, and during

Bronze Age beads spread round the Mediterranean, their
occurrence in Spain, Brittany and South- West Britain indicating
the

maritime trade. As the knowledge of glass-making also spread,

factories were established and imitations were made, the Eastern
Mediterranean, and especially Venice, being renowned for beads

down

to the present day,

though Cambay was for a time, a serious

rival. 1

An

extensive trade in beads spreading so widely, and over so

makes identifications and dating peculiarly difficult,
many
and it must be confessed that at present there is not sufficient evidence
to prove where the ancient trade beads came from, whether from
one centre or, as seems more probable, from many ; nor who were
the intermediaries responsible for their distribution.
centuries

245).

Especially in

the

i6th century

(cf.

Wiener, 1922,

II,

pp. 226^.,

PRIMITIVE

42

MONEY

Had Africa been the only continent concerned, the problems

would be simplified, but Africa is probably the last chapter in the
whole story, and West Africa the last word. Mere resemblances are
The string of aggries ' presented by Sir Richard
misleading.
Temple himself to Sir William Ridgeway (Frontispiece, Fig. 6) is
pronounced by Beck to be comparatively modern, probably not
more than a century old, and some of the beads might even be of
Czechoslovakian manufacture, so superficially indistinguishable are
they from those turned out at the present day.
Superficial resemblances may mislead, but comparisons are being
placed on a safe foundation by microscopic and chemical analysis
and the study of ancient trade beads is becoming an important aid
in archaeology.
Here and there a few beads are found in graves or
other hoards of a definite horizon, and the evidence is gradually
and when related, if not identical, beads are found
accumulating
in South and East Africa, in South India, in Malaya and in the
East Indies, the question is seen to be far-reaching.
These clues have been provided by Beck (1928, 1934), who
has been able to identify some of the early beads found in megalithic
tombs and urn-burials in South India, in early sites in the Federated
hoards of Sarawak of the 9th and loth
Malay States, and in treasured
*
centuries A.D. And the
similarity between the majority of the
beads [from Kuala Selinsing, F.M.S.] and those from the middens
of South India, those from Zimbabwe and those from Zanzibar
'

is

unmistakable

'

(1930, I34).

The

mysterious Pelew beads of Micronesia belong to the same

problem and probably to the same chapter of history. Some of
these are ordinary-looking cornelian or agate beads (which suggest
Cambayan origin), but most are artificial, with numerous varieties,
indescribable shapes and unpronounceable names. 2 Each one has
like a man '.
The beads have different functions
its special name
some are used for ordinary buying and
according to their class
some only for special purchases one will buy a canoe,
selling
one will buy a house, another is the price of a village, and another
Some belong only to chiefs
reverently handled is beyond price.
some are lent out at interest, with different scales of interest for
different classes, the system being intricately complicated and
'

seemingly

illogical.

Similar beads, equally treasured, have been found in Timor,

1
Still earlier links have been recognized by the finding of a Hittite stone
bead of 700 B.C. and an Italian glass bead of about the same date, together
with Phoenician and early Cypriote beads, in a hoard of Roman and Indian
beads in the Johore River (Gardner, 1934, p. 467).
2

Barak y bunau, kluk, kalebukub and adolobok among the larger classes
are credible, but misnroaol, kalopthuy and pknalaywayu present difficulties.
Cf. Kubary, 1895, PP- *ff.

COWRIES AND BEADS

43

some cases identical (Andree,

Floras and
the
1885, p. no) brought perhaps by
Hindu-Malay pearl-fishers
whose language has been traced through Polynesia and as far as the
Carolines and the Gilberts in the names for pearl shells and oyster
Savu, the beads being in

(Christian, 1910, pp. 236-7).

The study of ancient trade beads in Britain belongs rather to
the province of archaeology than to that of currency. Nevertheless,
'

mention must be made of the chevrons, druids' beads or snake

stones 2 found in British barrows and Anglo-Saxon graves, with
their counterparts on the mainland of Europe.
Beads of this rather
complicated pattern are conspicuous among the Gold Coast aggries
one was recognized in the Pelews (Andree, 1885,
(as seen above)
have
been found in pre-Columbian graves in North
p. no)
they
America (Schoolcraft, 1851-7, I, Pis. 24, 25) and a clever imitation
was detected by Beck in a Sarawak hoard (p. 261).
Brent, describing the glass adders of the Druids ', adds beads
exactly similar are now manufactured in England for the African
slave trade
(1872, p. 684), which accounts for their common
occurrence on the West Coast (where they are of course called
'

'

'

'

'

'

'

aggries

')

and

their dispersal inland along the trade routes.

Beads age rapidly in Africa, and burial in the ground produces

an appearance of such hoary antiquity that an import of 50 or 100
years ago can easily lay claim to be a relic of Phoenician traders, a
claim which only an expert can disprove.
There is evidence of intercourse and commercial interchange
from the beginning of our era, (as recorded in the Periplus), between
the Mediterranean, the coasts of Arabia and East Africa to the west
of the Indian Ocean, and the Spice Islands to the east, while (according to Herodotus) traders had found their way still earlier down the

West

Precious stones figure largely in trading lists,

were creeping in. Pliny records
how the people of India were skilful in counterfeiting precious stones
and in the Chinese account of Roman Syria, based on the report of
the ambassador (A.D. 97), the writer describes the articles made of
rare precious stones as sham curiosities and mostly not genuine
coast of

and even

Africa.

in the earliest, imitations

In succeeding centuries Phoenicians,

(SchofF, 1912, pp. 221, 277).
Arabs, Indonesians and Malays carried on the trade, with gold and
slaves among the most valued exports from Africa, spices, pearls
and pearl-shells from the East. It seems reasonable to suppose that
this early trade, using beads in barter, if not as currency, which was
well established some 2,000 years ago, distributed the products of
1

Other theories of the origin of the Pelew beads

will

be found on

p. 148.
*

Glain nadroedd

illustrations.

is

the Welsh form.

Cf.

Akerman, 1851,

p. 51,

with

44

PRIMITIVE

MONEY

Egypt, later of Venice and Cambay, and later still of Birmingham

and of Czechoslovakia, wherever traders could foist them on the
But the help of
natives in exchange for goods of greater worth.
the
skill
needed
the
is
to discover the
or
of
specialist
archaeology
stratum to which any particular bead belongs.

Chapter

AFRICA
I

i.

General,

ii.

speak of Africa and golden joys.

PISTOL

West Africa
Senegal,

in.

A. Congo, Gaboon to Angola ; B. Nigeria

North, East and South Africa
i.

to

GENERAL

GEOGRAPHY

plays a large part in influencing and determining

native currencies, but the human factors are at least of equal
importance, so in making a general survey the choice lies between
a physical or an ethnological map for the foundation. Fortunately

the two often overlap, and they overlap sufficiently for this purpose in
Africa, if we note the main outlines of geographical conditions and
race distribution.
The whole of the North and North-East of the Continent, from

the Red Sea to Senegal, and penetrating with the slave trade far
and Arab trade,
south of this line, is the zone of Arab influence
;

trade-goods and trading currencies preceded, accompanied or

followed the Crescent over that vast area marked Arab and Berber
in The Times map of Races and left blank in the map of Commercial
Development. This infiltration, already visible at the beginning of
our era, and stimulated with religious zeal in the yth century, had
reached Nigeria and Senegal in the loth, blotting out evidence of
former migrations in the same direction
and with cowries, beads
and finally coins, produced a uniformity irrespective of environment.
But geography overrules racial boundaries to east and west. The
West Coast, including the Congo basin, shows no marked contrasts,
whether the native traders are of Sudanian or Bantu-speaking origin,
'

though Spain and Portugal,

as well as Britain, France and Belgium,

more recent times.
Along the Mediterranean and all down the East Coast to the

left their

imprints in

South, the cattle country links Africa with the early pecuniary system
of Europe, however distinct the Nilotic Negroes may be from the
Southern Bantu. Abyssinia stands aloof behind its mountains
while among the Hottentots and the Bushmen farthest south, native
currencies are undeveloped.
These are the broad outlines, with the main divisions between
West and East, the former with a great variety of currencies, each
area, each river, and often each tributary of the river having its own
The East (which includes the
special characteristic form of money.
;

45

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

46

North) has few primitive types, and most of

de

Marie-ThMse

'

in

it is

labelled

'

Thalers

Montandon's map.

But before proceeding to a regional survey we may note certain

materials used as currency over the whole continent ; shells, iron,
Shells, here as elsewhere, ignore local
salt, cloth and beads.
boundaries, and prove their claim to be best-sellers ; iron, salt and
cloth are widely used, though appearing in specialized forms in

These four classes can be dealt with first.

have watched the cowries percolating along the trade-routes
of Africa and noted their extraordinary popularity wherever they
went. But in the Congo region and to the south of it they met a
different parts.

We

serious rival in their distant relative oliva nana, the little olivella
shell called by the trading Bayaka nzimbu

mbudi* corrupted

into jimbu, simbu, simbo,

in
&c.,
trading jargon.
This is a small shell only about half an

inch (12

mm.)

long,

much

lighter

and more

than the cowry (Fig. 4). It is found

simbos
in many parts along the coast, but the great
collecting centre was at Loanda.
Pigafetta, writing down in 1591 the account of Duarte Lopez,
who had spent 12 years in the Kingdom of Congo, described the

FIG.

Olivella

4.

shells,

fragile

'

'

native industry.

An island called Loanda meaning

flat country and devoid of
mountains, as it hardly rises out of the water, ... is formed from the
sand and mud which are deposited by the sea and the River Coanza
This island furnishes the money
[Kwanza], whose streams meet here.
for along its
used by the King of Congo and the neighbouring people
shores women dive under water, a depth of two yards and more, and filling
2
their baskets with sand they sift out certain small shell-fish called Lumache,
and then separate the male from the female the latter being most prized
for its colour and brightness.
These Lumache are found along all the coasts
of Congo, but those of Loanda are finest, being transparent and in colour
somewhat like the chrysolite [topaz], with other kinds, not as greatly valued,
It must be remembered that gold, silver, and other metals are not valued
nor used as money in these countries and so it happens that with gold and
silver in abundance, either in mass or in coin, yet nothing can be bought
except with Lumache (Hutchinson, 1881, pp. 18-19).
.

Dapper a century

money used
and that the best

later (1686, p. 367) describing the

in Angola, says that simbos represent silver there,

1
The name is given to any shells used as currency not only to olivella,
hence the frequent confusion between olives and cowries, all of which, as

lumped together, so thatjimbu, simbo, &c., come to mean

zvampum in America. Wiener (1922, II, p. 221) derives
nzimbo from the Maldivian name boli, meaning cowry, which became abuy

well as beads, are

1

money

',

like

with plural prefix, zimbuy.

Lat. Umax, slug or snail.

in Africa, and,
2

AFRICA

47
1

But importations from Brazil, fished up at

Rio de Janeiro, were brought back by Portuguese slavers.
Schneider (1905, pp. 94-100) quotes references and descriptions
concerning these shells from the end of the isth century, and clears
up much of the obscurity which surrounded them, owing to their
confusion with cowries. It is obvious that many of the earlier
writers had never seen either cowries or olives.

come from Loanda.

After the introduction of the Portuguese makuta (1624) the

inland petty trade was still carried on with simbos, cowries, native
But in the next century the fishery seems
cloth or blocks of salt.
to have ceased, the simbos depreciated, and disappeared as currency,
due partly to the foreign importations, and partly to the superior
attractions of the all-conquering cowry.
But they were still used inland, especially in the Kwilu-Kwango
area.
The Bayaka traded them down the rivers to the Kasai, and

they became the currency of the Bambala and Bahuana of the Lower
Kwilu as well as of the Bateke of Stanley Pool. The Bambala have
special purses for carrying the shells, among them being the baskets
plaited in a ring, like miniature lifebelts, with a neck for inserting
One hundred nzimbu will buy a
or extracting the shells (Fig. 5).
fowl, a slave costs 10,000, a female slave (women are always variable)

anything from 10,000 to 30,000.

may be

1905 was

as follows
10 nzimbu
20 mitako
100 mitako
2 salts

salts

20

salts

The Bahuana

scale in

2
:

== i
---

=
=

mitako (brass rod 6 inches long)

fowl
salt (2 or 3 pounds)

a he-goat
a big she-goat
a male slave

(Torday and Joyce, 1905,

p.

398

1906, p. 283

1907, 52)

The cowry has conquered the olive, but it has yet other
worlds to conquer, and a snailshell currency still holds its own
1

the

Loanda (founded by the Portuguese, 1576) was the headquarters of

trade with Brazil. John Ogilby, Royal Cosmographer and

slave

Geographick Printer to Charles

of

Loanda and
2

The

'

brazils

value of native

II, distinguishes

between

'

pure simbos

'

'

(1676, pp. 502, 570).

money cannot be

stated. in

s.

d. as it varies

with

the individual, time and place, besides being influenced by many factors
inoperative in our commercial circles. Authority may fix some equivalent,
but with difficulty, and the Belgian attempts to fix the mitako in the Congo,
as described by Mahieu (1924, Chap. Ill) are instructive.
Lugard's rough
estimate that the daily wage of native labour was approximately the same as
the local value of a fowl gives some idea of equivalence, if not too rigidly

The pre-war (1914) rate paid by Government and by Europeans

ranged from is. lod. a day in the Union of South Africa, to yd. in Nigeria,
and the price of an average fowl
3</. in East Africa, and i \d. in Rhodesia
was about the same (1929, p. 405 /.)
applied.

PRIMITIVE

48
farther

inland.

MONEY

spread along the Northern Congo

southern tributaries, the Kasai and the

Cowries

they spread along

its

but there is a cowry-less region between these, between

Congo above Stanley Falls (here called the Lualaba) and the
Great Lakes. Here the Warega and Wazimba, the Warundi to the
east of them and the Bakusu to the north (besides many others), use

Sankuru

the

strings of snailshells, called musanga, ikumi, viringi

and a variety of

untranslated names (Mahieu, 1924, pp. 10, 119-22).

Similar strings

FIG. 5.
Bambala purse
for simbos '. (J- size)
*

were formerly the currency of the Batetela of the Upper Lomami

(Torday and Joyce, 1922, p. 52, Fig. 30). The men break up the
shells and perforate them, an easy job as the shells are very thin
and brittle, and then make them into necklaces and trading strings.
The latter are measured from the big toe to the heel, 10 strings of
this length being equal to a length of calico.
These African snails
are very large, some 4 to 5 inches (10-13 cm.) long, so the broken
pieces are often very large too.

more evenly cut and

finished,

The

smaller strings are usually

and may form necklaces, but the

AFRICA

49

coarser strings of fragments an inch or more across, with irregular

scratchy edges (Fig. 6) are unsuitable for wearing on bare skin and,
The
single or bunched together, have no use save as currency.
'
in
and
entrance
to
in
are
bride-price
strings
especially important
'

And
secret societies, for which no other form of money is accepted.
a currency which is almost indefinitely divisible is here essential, as
the contributions are distributed according to custom, 40 per cent
among the degree next above, and 60 per cent among members of
lower degrees. Practical demonstration of the share-out saves
dispute.

Mahieu (1924, pp. 121 ff.) describes the ikumi of the Wasongola,
on the Lualaba, of poor workmanship, and low
value, a single string a palm long being worth only
about 10 c. These are little used in trade, but
form an important part of the marriage portion,

number of strings fluctuating with the social

The
position or personal attractions of the bride.
viringi (sing, kiringi) of the same district are not
the

of local manufacture, but are obtained from near

Ponthierville in exchange for oil, fowls and other
produce. These are not worn as ornaments, but
are merely for trading,
marriage settlements.

and

The

also figure largely in

standard string is as

long as the forearm and nominally worth a franc.

The kiringi is a bunch of 16 strings, nominally
worth 1 6 francs. Before 1914 their value was
only 3 or 4 francs but later they were bought
up by traders, who often paid 25 francs a bunch.
They found that they could not buy ivory from
the natives entirely for cash it had to be supplemented by some of the snailshell strings.
Snailshells also provided an important currency which Schneider has described (1905,

FIG.

6.

string,

Snailshell
Batetela.

(8 size)

pp. 88-94) as stretching from Senegambia to Benguella made of

little disks of Achatina shells.
And he distinguishes Achatina
balteata along the coast, and Achatina monetaria in the district
inland from Mossamedes in Angola. Here he quotes from Dr.

who was collecting shells as well as plants and insects

in
Angola
1853-61, and indeed it needs a specialist to identify
the shell out of which these little disks are cut, especially as the

Welwitsch,
in

edges get polished with use, and show little evidence of their
The inland industry appears to have
original colour or texture.
had its centre in the Benguella or Kwanza district, some way from
the Coast, and the disks were there called dongo, and were strung
in bundles of 6, about as long as the forearm, called a quiranda or

PRIMITIVE

So

MONEY

These strings were highly prized as ornaments as well as

currency, and a quiranda was worth 1,000 to 4,000 rets, (about 5.?.).
As strings they do not attract much attention, being irregular and
kirana.

The Bubi currency in Fernando Po

uneven.

is

much more effective.

strings are plaited into broad flat plaits, the ends of the
threads being tied together where they meet, to make circular bands

Here the

or belts for arm, neck or waist, and especially waist. These are
fine example nearly a yard long (90 cm.), and over
called jibbu.
4 inches (10 cm.) deep, is illustrated in Plate 3, Fig. 5. It is believed
that these shell-strings are not native to Fernando Po, but were

introduced by runaway Angola slaves, who used to escape from their

Portuguese owners on San Thome, to the Spaniards on Fernando Po,
Johnston, 1908, p. 959, Fig. 494).
(Kingsley, 1897, p. 59
Shell-strings are also used as currency among some tribes of
the Upper Nile, Uganda and East Africa (see below, pp. 100-101),
but their commercial and social functions are nowhere so con;

spicuous as in the regions to the west.

One more Gastropod is occasionally represented in collections of African currency, this

is the cone shell, which is so conspicuous in
ornament and currency. Conus
Conus imperialis and others are
West and in East Africa as ornament, or displayed as signs of rank and wealth
Melanesian

papilionaceus,
worn both in

Schneider
1924, pp. 46, 117-18).
86-8 ) collected the early references
PPV?S>
which indicate that the shells (papilionaceus)
were imported into West Africa from Fernando

(Mahieu,

7 .-Cone
Manyema.

FIG.

shell,
size)

Po and San Thome, and that the slave traders from the latter island
brought them over to the mainland in the i6th century. Here they
had a high value and were greatly prized, worth 20 shillings a shell
'

as

Andrew Battell records (1901, p. 31).

The larger imperialis were imported from

'

the Moluccas in the

East Indies and may have travelled along the same trade routes as
the Indian cowries.
This was the kind that Livingstone met in the
Balunda district (and illustrates, 1899, P- 2O S)- '^ wo would buy a
slave and 5 were worth an ivory tusk or
10.
The basal whorl of Conus that Sir John Kirk collected in 1850
as currency among the Manyema, to the west of Lake Tanganyika,
is illustrated (Fig. 7).
These end whorls of the shells, or more
often disks ground down from them, are prominent as regalia and
talismans in East Africa, especially in Tanganyika Territory, Kenya
and Northern Rhodesia, and though they are rarely recorded as

currency they figure largely in ceremonial presentations and are used

in

'

'

bride-price

and

fines.

AFRICA

51

Next to shell-currencies the most popular and widely spread

The choice illustrates the axiom
materials are iron, salt and cloth.
that the chief stimulus of barter and trading is inequality (either in the
provisions of nature or the products of man).

It also illustrates the

axiom that pleasure in possession arises from its use, regarded as

characteristic of Anglo-Saxon mentality, which is incapable of, or
at any rate, ignores, any finer aesthetic appreciation (Schurtz, 1898,
But among the Africans, if not among the Anglo-Saxons,
p. 112).
iron and cloth are valued for decoration, as much as for use.
It has been noted before that where nature is lavish and uniform
in bounty, where wants are simple and there is enough for all,
exchanges may be made but trading is not a social necessity. Commercial bartering begins with specialization.
Iron, though abundant,
not found everywhere and the working of it is a specialized craft.
Saline deposits are still more local, and salt-making becomes a
monopoly. That cloth should become a currency is less obvious.
Materials are common, cloth-making is not such a specialized craft
as iron-working, but it represents a certain amount of work done,
sometimes remarkably fine work, and logically or illogically, takes its
place with iron and salt among the most widely spread currencies
that evolved in Africa before the opening up of the continent by
Europeans. Possibly neither of these owes its estimation to its
intrinsic worth alone.
Magic and ritual are closely associated with
is

iron-working, less with salt-getting, but salt possesses symbolic

virtues also.
And both iron-working and weaving may have gained
if
not
some supernatural character, from their introduction
prestige,
from the unknown, by a conquering people, which enhanced their
And
values, at any rate in- West Africa (Johnston, 1908, p. 791).
iron, cloth and salt have continued as trading currencies ever since.
Shokas (axes) made in Birmingham are the currency of the Upper
Congo, as hoes of the Upper Nile and bars of varied shapes from
Nigeria to Sierra Leone. Salt is the typical currency of Abyssinia,
and the common payment for carriers along the Kasai and cloth,
americani ', indigo drills and many other well-established lines
is
accepted in place of money right across Africa, extinguishing
native cloth currencies on the way.
Apart from the fact that iron complies with the four primary
demands of an ideal currency, that it shall be durable, recognizable,
portable and divisible, it has the further essential characteristic of
and even where it occurs, it is not always
comparative scarceness
worked. Smiths, as is well known, form a special class, caste or
:

'

'

sometimes highly honoured, sometimes as conspicuously

despised, hence their products are not such as any man can make

guild,

for himself.
their craft is

Further, owing to the exclusiveness of the workers,

surrounded with a certain mystery, and this mystery

PRIMITIVE

52

clings to the output of the forge.

MONEY

The belief that

there

is

something

to be almost universal, and it

the
value
of
iron
enhances
objects used as currency.
certainly
Another point in favour of iron-currencies must be noted, though

little

it is

uncanny about metals appears

an advantage shared by

shells

an ornamental value.

Just as shells used as currency can be used also as chaplets, necklets, armlets, bracelets, leglets, anklets, waistbelts and other decorations, so can iron be used in the form of rings with an additional
There may be some
solidity and safety that shells seldom possess.
feeling of enclosure and safe-keeping about the ring form, as fostered
'
in that
spiritual fetter ', the modern conventional wedding-ring,
and here only the larger and (in Africa) rarer shells can compete

with iron, but it is an obvious advantage when surplus wealth

can be so conveniently stored on necks, arms and legs (own or
~.

wives').
is

Iron is more than potential wealth or potential ornament. It

of practical use. Hence it is impossible to insist on any strict

man would
dividing line between currency and non-currency.
take his iron bars, rods, manillas or mitakos to the smith to be made
and the axe, hoe, knife or ring would
into axe, hoe, knife or ring
have the exchange value, save for the smith's deduction, of the
:

original metal.
use, it is, in

If the object is left unfinished, and has no practical

*
Temple's definition (p. i), reckoned as money ;
'

but when it is shaped, polished or sharpened, although it has its

exchange value all the same, it is merely a tool, or an ornament.
With ornaments the distinction between what is money and what
is not is even more difficult to estimate.
In many parts of Africa iron is money, that is, it represents a
standard of value, it is a recognized medium of exchange, and a
symbol of wealth. To succeed in the last function it must be displayed ; hence it may be coiled round the arms, legs or necks of the
owner or his women-folk. But it is still money.

With all these advantages, as money, acceptable in exchange, as

ornament, or for practical use as tools, iron easily acquired its
supremacy throughout Africa, and metal-work provides the most
conspicuous objects in currency collections, although not all of the
types seen there are of native metal or of native manufacture. These
will be described according to their regional distribution later on.
Salt, like iron, only occurs in certain districts, and, also like iron,
when once acquired, becomes indispensable. Doubtless our earliest
ancestors lived happily without either iron or salt
both are of late
introduction in many parts of the world (salt usually later than iron)
and carnivorous people can do without any additional salination.
But as iron holds its own through its superiority over the materials it
replaces, so salt, once enjoyed, spoils the taste for saltless food,
;

AFRICA

53

Hence the salt trade

especially where the food is mainly vegetable.
in interior Africa often seems more like blackmail than barter.
In a country

like our own, with the sea accessible all the way
and ample deposits of salt inland, it is difficult to realize
the salt-hunger in those parts of Africa where the sea is far distant
and inland deposits are sparse. Mahieu describes it vividly.
Speaking of imported salt in the Congo, where it arrives in little
squares like lumps of sugar, and constitutes une veritable monnaie,

round

us,

he says that the natives are so fond of the taste that successive
Hence, after
possessors of this money can rarely resist a lick.
serving for several transactions it reaches the final consumer sticky
saliva, and thick with dirt, which happily does not affect the
stomach of the negro (1924, p. 57). The importance of the salt
trade in Africa, its export across the deserts, and its influence on the
caravan routes and on the slave trade are well known.
Ibn Batuta in the i4th century travelling south to Timbuktu
described Taghaza

with

An unattractive village with the curious feature that the houses and
mosques are built of blocks of salt roofed with camel skins. There are
no trees there, nothing but sand. In the sand is a salt mine. They dig for
the salt and find it in thick slabs. A camel can carry 2 of these slabs.
At Iwalalan [Walata] 10 nights' journey away a load of salt brings 8 to
10 mithqals, 1 in the town of Malli it sells for 20 to 30 and sometimes as
much

as 40.

and

silver is

sell

with

it

The

negroes use oalt as a medium of exchange just as gold

They cut it up into pieces and buy and

used [elsewhere].
(p. 317).

Here the salt trade was on a grand scale, with caravans of hundreds
of camels all laden with salt. And it passed for money wherever
it went.
In the Congo also it passes for money ', and is indeed preferred
to money by labourers 2 and carriers in the interior.
But the local
salt is derived from different and humbler sources.
Torday describes and Norman Hardy illustrates (1911, p. 134,
PI. XVII) salt-making on the Sankuru.
The plants are burnt, their
ashes collected and water is filtered through them into troughs
smouldering fire is lit underneath,
ingeniously made of bark.
and the water evaporates, leaving the salt behind.
Among the Babunda of the Upper Kasai preparations for war
consist in the collection by the chief of quantities of salt, neatly
3
This is the currency of the district,
wrapped in banana leaves.
'

cf.

The

mithqaly an

Arab weight and measure of

value,

was very

varied,

Barth, 1858, Vol. V, p. 23.

2
Roadmakers (women) round Luluaberg are paid in salt by the bucketful,
and they spend it, in teaspoonfuls, in the bazaar (Norden, 1924, p. 173).

M. W.

Hilton-Simpson, 1911,

p. 263.

PRIMITIVE IVTONEY

54

and

also used for paying the

it is

another

murder indemnity of a man of

village.

On

the Upper Lukenie, which runs into Lake Leopold, blocks of

salt are the only exported currency of the Bohindu (Torday and
At the head waters of the Lomami, farther to
Joyce, 1911, p. 268).

two or three pots of salt are the price of a slave (Mahieu,

1924, p. 38) and on the northern boundary on the banks of the
Ubangi, salt is a common currency (Boyd Alexander, 1907, II,
p. 226).
Imported salt was used by Moroccan traders along the
Guinea coast for several centuries, and native salt in cones
(Fig. 20) is still current in Bornu, and forms an essential item in
(D. F. H. MacBride).
bride-price
Angola was famous for its salt trade more than three centuries
the east,

'

'

ago, as

Andrew

Battell records (1901, p. 37)

In this place [the Quissame region just south of Loanda] there is such
store of salt that most part of the country are perfect clear salt, without any
earth or filth in it, and it is some 3 feet under the earth as if it were ice, and
they cut it out in stones of a yard long, and it is carried up into the country
and is the best commodity that a man can carry to buy anything whatsoever.

commodity which

inevitably depreciates in transit lacks the

aspect of money and save that it is put up in commercial
units and has a higher rate of acceptability than most, it differs
little from other objects of barter.
It is met with, hovering between
barter and currency, throughout East Africa.
Sir Samuel Baker
1

durable

'

'

how

he heard the traders in Nyoro (Uganda) calling out

Salt to exchange for lance-heads
Coffee
&C. 1 (Alexander, 1907, II, p. 171).
going cheap for red beads
Hose describes the salt trade in Tanganyika (1882, pp. 8-9)
described
'

Milk

to sell for salt

'

The most noticeable feature in Ujiji is its market

the only export
of great extent
being the famous packages of salt, current all over the
Lake shores. It is manufactured once a year on the banks of the Ruguvu
River ease of Ujiji, where from two to three thousand people assemble for
the sole purpose of making the salt.
.

It is packed up in cylindrical leaf packages weighing from 20 to

30 pounds each, and valued at Ujiji at about 2 yards of good calico
or 100 strings of the beads figured in the Frontispiece, Fig. 5.

The most

familiar

example of a

real salt

currency comes from

Abyssinia.
Francis Alvarez, the Portuguese missionary who was sent on an
embassy to the Negus, and spent 6 years in Abyssinia, 1520-6, wrote
:

South American parallel could be heard last century in Corrientes

in the Argentine, where the children were wont to run along the streets
'
'
Salt for candles !
Tobacco for bread
calling out
(Roscher, 1878, I,
!

P- 340).

AFRICA

55

Salt is current instead of money from the Red Sea to Congo on the West
Sea.
It is said to be dug out of mountains and cut into blocks a hand -an half in length, 4 fingers broad and 3 fingers thick. When dug out 100 or
1 20 of these blocks were woith three-quarters of a ducket ; a day's journey
distant 5 or 6 blocks less were worth the three-quarters of a ducket ; at
the King's Court, 6 or 7 blocks were worth this money and as it travelled
farther one block would purchase a slave and it became nearly worth its
weight in gold (Purchas, 1905, Vol. VIII, p. 53. C/. P. M. de Salviac,
1

90 1,

p. 159,

who

illustrates

other forms of salt-currency).

Alexander Hamilton, the East India merchant, early in the i8th

century wrote

The

current small money of Ethiopia is salt, which is dug out of the

as we do Stones from our Quarries, which they break into Pieces
of several sizes, the largest weighing about 80 pounds, the others in 40, 20,
10, or 5 pounds, and are so expert in dividing it that they err not above
5 per cent more or less in their Calculation of Weight ; 20 Pounds is in
value, i Shilling Sterling, and those Pieces of Salt is the cunent Money
in their Markets for Provisions (1727, I, p. 24).

mountains

Major Powell Cotton travelling in the country in 1899 found that

Menelik's smaller silver or copper coins were only accepted in the
neighbourhood of the capital.
Beyond that district crystallized salt bars 10 inches long and 2 inches
Four went to the dollar at the
across at the centre were the small change.
capital, and gradually lost value as one proceeded north, until at Adua
I obtained 15 to the dollar.
Changing a dollar was not the work of a
moment ; each bar had to be examined and sounded, for if it were not of
the right size, was chipped or cracked or it did not ring true, the first person
to whom it was offered would be as indignant as a London cabby when
tendered a bad shilling (The Times, 17.6.38).

The

show the four values in use,

\ and J dollars, these are not only useful
for barter or as small change, they are (or were until the recent
reorganization) legal tender for fines and taxes (Walker, 1933, p. 195).
Cloth is of little more permanent value than salt, but it was
firmly established as currency here and there in West Africa before
the varieties of European cloth which now form the usual trade
salt bars illustrated (Fig. 8)

being equivalent to ii,

i,

goods supplanted native products. And although native cloth is

not durable (hence its rarity in Museum collections) it is divisible

and recognizable, and has the further advantage of being particularly

well fitted for transport. A large quantity can be packed into a
comfortable shape for head-porterage, and, being blameless of sharp
1
angles and projections, is always a popular load.
It may owe its widespread distribution in the tsetse fly area to its
1
Hobley describes how on his way to Uganda his porters always rushed
for the bales of cloth, so these were unpacked, and 10 pounds of brass wire
tucked away inside (1929, p. 78).

PRIMITIVE

56

MONEY

But its acceptability in its personal appeal to the womenportability.

folk must not be overlooked.
Iron in its commonest forms is
cloth is potentially a dress or at least
potentially a tool or a weapon
a decoration. So in the regions where cloth is worn by women it
plays a large part in pre-matrimonial as well as actual bride-price
;

'

negotiations.
It may be noted that cloth as currency progressed a stage further
than was ever attained or attainable by salt. From Nutzgeld it

Srils
.%

'

'

3!
J ^
FIG. 8.

Salt currency, Abyssinia.

(J size)

becomes Zeichengeld, a mere token. From being a potential garment

becomes a useless strip of material (in the Sudan), a mock shirt

it

Bornu) or a bundle of fibres (in the Congo).

This bunch of fibres (either Raphia palm or banana as used for
weaving) called mbadi or mbari, was the unit of value in the Cataract

(in

region before the coming of the Belgians (Mahieu, 1924, pp. 15-16,
These useless bundles of tangled hay ', as Johnston calls
ill.).
them (1908, p. 790), were traded inland as far as the head waters of
the Kasai and the Lomami, but are no longer met with, having long
ago been replaced by European cloth and brass wire.
'

AFRICA
Woven

cloths

are

more

57

These are

persistent.

in

different

men's cloths, and longer pieces for wrapping

for
each
burial,
up corpses
having its value according to its length.
The unit of measurement was usually the fathom, measured between
the outstretched fingers, and multiples of this, but a fathom might
be very liberally or very stingily interpreted, and the actual length
Barbot
often depended on negotiation rather than on measurement.
describes how in the Congo district in dealing with the king, the
fathom was reckoned at 6 ft. 2 in. but, for ordinary people, at 5 ft. ;
while farther along the coast it shrank to 4 ft. (1732, pp. 504, 506,
lengths,

women's

cloths,

In the Loango area (now in French Equatorial Africa) the

Portuguese cortade was the unit of measurement and the same name
A piece may be of 5, 10 up to 100 cortades,
is still used for the yard.
and the longer pieces are folded and counted by folds. Shorter
lengths are conveniently plaited or rolled into a bundle tied at the
ends, a handy shape for small purchases, but not intended for any
other use.
Mat-money woven of native grass (chiefly fine
'

'

'

'

Raphia palm leaves) in pieces approximately square were

1
The madiba
money in the Belgian Congo.
of the Upper Sankuru (some 60 by 40 cm. = about 2 by i feet)
formed the tribute paid in immense quantities by the Basonge to
the Arabs and used by the latter for buying goods in the markets
and by Europeans for paying their men. They were the common
currency along the Sankuru and the Kasai while from the Basonge
area they were exchanged with the Baluba, who exchanged them for

strips of

widely used in place of

Katanga crosses from the south.

Mat-money was also current in the Lower Congo, in the
Cataract and Stanley Pool region (Loir, 1935, pp. 58-9, Figs. 49, 50).
Small pieces (PL 2, Fig. 6) were widely used and were almost the
only currency at one time on the Congo border.
'

'

Dapper, describing the current money of Lovando (Angola), puts

cloth (libongos and panos-simbos) first, with simbos next and red wood
But though inland in his list of the
(tukuld) third (1686, p. 367).
riches of the kingdom of Macoco, slaves come first, he notes the
*

little pieces of cloth and such

bagatelles, which they esteem as much in their country as gold and
silver in Europe
(p. 359).
These mats went out of use at San Salvador about 1830, but
lingered on on the frontier of the Congo State until about 1900
10 of the small bits were worth a small copper macuta and 50 were

simbos and Indian cowries and

'

about equal to a string of blue beads.

1

and

Mahieu

describes the madiba, bongo, nlabu and other kinds (pp. 13-17)
opposite p. xx, a weaver making one of these mats. Cf. also

illustrates,

Johnston, 1908, pp. 515, 792, 799.

PRIMITIVE

58

MONEY

The trading value was increased by sewing 30 of the small mats

together in 3 rows of 10, to make the nta, and though the whole
was worth only about a franc, this was the unit all up and down the
Middle Congo among the Bateke traders. They were used for
compensations and marriage payments and still more generman who had killed another had to
ously expended at funerals.
relatives
nta
and
a
the
200
husband claims 100 nta
pay
gun.
from his wife's lover. This is also the average bride-price '.
Should the girl die, her relatives must provide a substitute or refund
the nta.
Far greater quantities of nta are seen at the funeral of a
or
wealthy
popular man, who is swathed in cloths provided by
relatives.
Mahieu tells how at Stanley Pool he saw a corpse so
lavishly bundled in cloths that it was too cumbersome to be removed
by the usual entrance and had to be extracted by removing the end
of the hut.
This bale, as he calls it, was 6 feet high, and had to be
levered along by poles to roll it into the grave, in which it was planted
woman never justifies this expense and the maximum
upright.
number expended on her is about 20 (Mahieu, 1924, pp. 14-15).
The superior attractions of European gaily printed cottons have
discouraged if not destroyed local industries, and trade goods such
as
americani ', 'indigo drills', 'savedlist', &c., have taken the
1
place of grass mats and native cloth in commercial transactions.
Their acceptability, however, is not universal. Torday on his
expedition (1907-8) met with an unexpected obstacle in the KasaiSankuru region. They paid the carriers each day in salt, the local
currency, to be exchanged for food in the villages where they halted.
And they took with them the European cotton goods which are the
common currency throughout, but in the unexplored region between
the Loange and the Kasai, where missionaries had never penetrated
nor white traders ventured, they found that nothing save axes would
serve as currency.
Salt was still useful for small change, but cloth
not at all, the chief having issued an order that any one of his subjects
fines,

'

being found wearing European cloth would be instantly put to death.

This added greatly to the difficulties of exploration, as the iron bars
are heavy to carry and one man's load only equals the value of one
piece (about 2 yards) of cloth (Hilton-Simpson, 1911, pp. 42, 310).
Nor was cloth universally acceptable farther north, even in the
Barth in his journey from Bornu to
early days of exploration.

Timbuktu (1853-5) had

to

depend mainly on native cloth and cowries

for buying provisions, though his darning needles were often valued
more highly. The cloth even in narrow strips was worth hundreds

of cowries, so

was so great a
1

it

was a

far

difficulty.

more convenient currency when transport

In some places cowries were refused and

Mahieu (pp. 50-1) gives lists and values

Hobley (1929, pp. 245-6) for East Africa.

for the Belgian

Congo

and

AFRICA

59

only cloth was accepted, though the cloth current in one place was
useless in another.
The Kano turkedi was the kind specially used in the salt trade,
6 cloths for 9 slabs of salt, but on the way from Say to Timbuktu he
had difficulty in disposing of his turkedi (worth 3,000 cowries) as
the local currency was in faravel or narrow cotton strips worth only

300

Many

shells.

other kinds of cloth are mentioned in his travels

as forming the currency, including, in Bornu, the shirts, which were

also the currency of Kanem, in French Sahara.
These had ascending
values, like coins, from the dora, too small, coarse and unfit for wear,
to magnificent tobes fit for presentations (II, pp. 311, 471 ; IV,

pp. 290-2, &c.).

Native cloth is

still essential in marriage payments in

parts of
Nigeria (cf. pp. 85-6), and native mats are used as currency, as
they were more than three centuries ago up the Gambia.
Jobson (1620-21) says

Now through the whole Countrey there is no use of any Coyne or Money
neither have they any, but every man to choppe and barter one thing for
another, and the onely nominated thing is matts, as in asking the price of
this or that I desire, the word is How many matts shall I give you ? (1933,
p.

168).
*

Likewise Ogilby (1676, p. 357)

in case they want Money [at the
Petty Market] they exchange all other things for Matts ', while
Barbot (1732, p. 78) calls mats properly the coin of the country '.
Neither native cloth nor native mats provided currency in East
:

'

Africa,

though imported

money

in

modern

calico is often the favourite substitute for

times.

Calico here [Northern Rhodesia] is the staff of life.

For most purposes
takes the place of hard cash.
Men draw their rations in calico, they are
buried in calico, marriage dowries are often paid in calico. The headman
who brings you presents is recompensed with a yard or two and returns
wreathed in smiles. Calico is to the plateau what
shells are to the
South Sea Islanders (Gouldsbury and Sheane, 1911, p. 10).
it

Beads in general have been already discussed (Chap. IV, ii). In

is little evidence of currency beads of native manufacture.
Exceptions are found, as might be expected, along the Upper and
Middle Congo, where copper is so popular both for ornament and
for exchange.
Strings of copper beads are currency both above and
Mahieu records their former use farther
below Stanley Falls
north (1924, p. 27)
and brass beads strung on leather are popular
ornaments, sometimes described as currency, in South-East Africa.
Balfour collected the string of brass beads or pendants of peculiar
shape, used by the Munshi in Nigeria (Fig. 9) and also the large
stone bead (Fig. 10) used for buying slaves.
It has been stated that some of the more roughly made blue

Africa there

PRIMITIVE

6o

MONEY

annular beads of the Congo are of native manufacture. Sir Harry

Johnston believed that they were the work of the Katanga people
(influenced by metal-workers from the north some 600 years ago)
and made out of the vitreous substances in the slag of their coppersmelting furnaces (1908, p. 790 fn.) and there is a little Bakwese
(Upper Kwango) bunch of these beads (fastened to a charm in the
shape of a pair of bellows) in the British Museum labelled nativemade Katanga ' (Torday and Joyce, 1907, p. 147). But Dr. Maes
and further dissays definitely
toujours de fabrication etrangire
cussion is waste of time.
The early aggry ' beads of the Benin and the Gold Coast were
;

'

'

'

'

used in exchange, though scarcely as currency, and imitations have

been made in both regions for generations. Bowdich (in 1817) had
heard in Ashanti of the local industry of boiled beads but dismissed
'

'

FIG. 10.

FIG. 9.

mere

Stone bead used in

the slave trade.

Brass beads, Nigeria

(J size)

'

by observation or
technique which has been described
and
kept secret, the replies of the natives
to questions being more than usually evasive apprehensive that their
patent might be infringed and a rival firm set up (Man. 1937, 115).
These coarse and clumsy beads are used in trade both in Nigeria
in the latter region
(PL 3, Fig. 2) and in the Gold Coast, and as
*
the
are
to
intended
they
represent
precious aggries ', the makers
charge six or seven times more for them than for the European
it

as

conjecture, as he could not verify

it

And

'

the
(p. 219).
illustrated by Wild is still

discovery

'

'

trade beads.

There

is

a close relationship between beads and holed stones

their ancestral type) and the holed stones of the Gold

(which may be

Coast and Togo (PL

1
currency collections.

Fig. 3) have found their way into many

These are pierced quartz disks, some 2 to
another Stone Age problem in Africa, are sometimes
3,

The quartz balls,

used as currency in the Northern Territory of the Gold Coast (R. F. Wild).
1

AFRICA

61

2\ inches (5 to 6*5 cm.) in diameter, and about i inch thick. Suggestions for their use are : spindle whorls, digging-stick weights,
loom weights, net sinkers, necklaces, arrow and implement sharpeners,
fire-making apparatus, and sacred insignia. But as they have been
found in considerable numbers, one hoard under an old tree (Worobong, Kwahu district) containing hundreds if not thousands, they
may be an early form of currency.
There is less uncertainty about their modern use, which is as
charms or amulets. The natives believe that they have fallen from
the sky, some regarding them as the female counterpart of the miniature stone implements or god axes of the same region (Wild, 1927,
Man, 1943, 18). The holed stones collected by Rattray
pp. 182-4
in Togoland (now in the Pitt Rivers Museum) were placed in water
and the water thus impregnated was used for washing and drinking,
and stones were occasionally ground and the powder administered
for medicinal purposes, just like that of aggry beads.
'

'

'

WEST AFRICA

ii.

A.

'

CONGO

GABOON TO ANGOLA

Portuguese money was carried to West Africa by

been familiar along the coast
and penetrated, though very slowly, inland. Yet even
time barter is the sole method of trading in many
traders, so coins have

explorers and
for centuries,
at the present

of the inland

and European coins are altogether useless. On the Coast

itself coins are not always accepted and commodities are preferred,
as Miss Kingsley's sprightly description illustrates in the scene
between the ship's captain and King Coffee ', the head of the
Kruboys engaged to work the ship.
The Captain took Miss Kingsley for a temperance missionary
and ostentatiously proposed to pay the boys off in money and not
in gin and gunpowder,
districts

'

which are unpopular in missionary circles. King Coffee's face was a study.
If Captain X, whom he knew of old, had stood on his head and turned bright
blue all over with yellow spots before his eyes, it would not have been
What for good him ting, Cappy ? he asked.
anything like such a shock.
What for good him ting for we country ? I suppose you gib gin, tobacco,
Here his Majesty's feelings flew
gun, he be fit for trade, but money
ahead of the royal command of language, great as that was, and he expectorated with profound feeling and expression (Travels, 1897, p. 647).
'

'

'

This reluctance to accept modern coins has preserved Africa,

especially West Africa, as a happy hunting-ground for collectors

and

Except where other references are given, place and

Maes and Boone, 1935.

spelt as in

tribal

names

are

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

62

of primitive money, and it is fortunate for them that the reluctance

for it is not primarily due to
not likely to be easily overcome
these
or
distrust, though
Mahieu, from
certainly exist.
suspicion
whose admirable survey much of the following is drawn, explains
why a fixed currency such as is provided by Government is so
is

unpopular.

Commerce

provides for the Congo native, as for the blacks in

sort
a
of
general,
game into which he flings himself with enthusiasm.
He finds in it the opportunity to indulge his excessive love of talking
and gesticulation. It is in the local markets that one must see him
exert himself and puff his goods with a volubility which none of our
salesmen could achieve, though our ears and noses suffer cruelly if
forced to endure these gatherings for any length of time. The
native excites himself to such an extent that he loses sight of his
own interests it is not rare to meet men who, after having in the
course of a day in the market, bought and resold, exchanged and
re-exchanged goods twenty times, return home with diminished
The custom of exchange by which the seller is forced to
capital.
over-estimate, because the buyer depreciates, is naturally more
favourable for interminable discussions which the black loves, than
purchase by fixed value, which permits of rapid sale. Therefore
he is reluctant to accept nickel or silver coinage, and limit his
;

entertainment (p. 65).

Neither silver, copper, nor even nickel coinage really supplied
his needs.
coin represents far too high a value to be of daily use.
When the head of 2,000 cowries was worth about is., a handful
of the shells could be profitably spent in the market, so neither the
copper centime nor the nickel anini, the tenth-of-a-penny, was
sufficiently minute.
At the other end of the scale coins are unserviceable for more
important transactions, not merely because potential danger lurks
in uncanny metals, but because (not unreasonably) the natives feel
that European money lacks the magico-religious virtue possessed

'

by

their

offence,

own.
it is

'

So in a life permeated by religion

safer to follow in ancestral footsteps,

and
and

fearful of

for large

purchases, especially those attended with ceremony, it is risky to

use alien money with no blessing in it.
In a survey of the materials of West African currency the first
impression is of the predominance of iron among the earlier objects,
local patches of copper and a later popularity in brass.
But
must not be forgotten that the more perishable salt and cloth
were equally popular and more generally distributed. Many of the
iron currencies have a very restricted range, and some of the most
spectacular, which figure so conspicuously in museums, are local

with
it

symbols of wealth rather than of active currency.

They may have

AFRICA

63

an exchange value, but do not pass from hand to hand in commercial

transactions.

The less-spectacular iron currencies are seldom found in museums

at

These

all.

are the ingots in lump, bar, or other shapes, that are

commonly used in barter and as currency throughout so much of

Africa.
As money they have been recorded in the Kasai area
where a bar weighing a kilo will buy a couple of fowls or 10 small
'

'

cloths (madtba). 1

Large ingots (gamba bete) worth 80 mitako are

currency on the Lomami to the east, and large lumps (dundu), 3 or
4 inches across weighing 2 to 3 kilo, are worth a he-goat, or from 2\
to 5 francs among the Azande and other people of the AruwimiWelle region to the north (Mahieu, 1924, p. 117). Very little has
been recorded about the use of ingots as money, although it is of
special interest, for it provides a living illustration of the stage which

European currency passed through many centuries ago, as the

Argive spits and our own currency bars bear witness.
From the i5th century onwards imported iron was a popular
trading medium all round the coasts, and was used by the Africans
to make their weapons, tools and ornaments, and took the place of
the native metal.
Barbot says that all of the iron for Guinea was
of the same size and weight,
called in London by the name of
Voyage-Iron, and is the only sort used all over the coasts of North
and South Guinea and in Ethiopia '. Slaves, and all other goods
were reckoned in iron bars usually 8 to 12 for a man, and less for
'

'

'

'

woman
The

(Churchill, 1704, Vol. V, pp. 44, 273).

and most conspicuous exhibits in collections or

largest

African currency are the decorative axes, kasuyu, popularly called

zappozaps ', of the Lulua, and the gigantic spearheads, Uganda or
ngbele, of the Lomami.
It is doubtful if the
zappozaps have any right of entry at all.
their
name
take
from
that of a notorious brigand chief and
They
slave raider of the Lulua, whose followers, collected from various
'

neighbouring
skill

tribes, settled at

'

Luluaberg and are renowned for their

in iron working. 2

The

axes were insignia of rank worn for parade and ceremonial

they could not be owned by a commoner, and though
display
they may represent wealth, they are not used as currency. The
*
earlier
(and many are far earlier than the name)
zappozaps
;

'

Torday and Joyce, 1905, pp. 407-8 ; illustrated by Schmeltz and de

Jong, 1904, PI. 68, Figs. 6-8. But the Bashilele iron-bar currency in the
same area appears to be derived not from an ingot, but from the throwing(Torday and Joyce, 1911, p. 94).
life-size group of smiths at work in the Tervueren Museum,
Brussels, are Zappozaps.
Cf. Johnston, 1908, II, pp. 441-2, 516
1913,
P- 394
Torday and Joyce, 1922, II, p. 2 ; Maes and Boone, 1935, pp. 209,
knife
2

The

356.

PRIMITIVE

64

MONEY

are veritable works of art, with radiating spokes indulging in complicated loops that would test the skill of any craftsman, and characteristic rows of human faces Janus-like on the bars (PL i, Fig. 13).

They

and an early specimen was found buried

and was recognized as belonging to the ZimIn later years these axes were turned out in large

travelled far afield,

in the

Khami

ruins,

babwe culture. 1
numbers for European trade florid specimens in polished copper
flooded the market and were used, together with imported goods, for
This may give them a claim to mention here, as
native trading.
;

being used in place of money, but though included in currency

by Schmeltz and de Jong (1904, PL 64, Fig. 72), and Mahieu
(1924, pp. 18-20), they are definitely excluded from the Tervueren
Collection.

The Uganda or ngbele made by the Turumba (or Barumbu)

below Stanley Falls, illustrated in the centre of PL i, is the currency
between the Congo and the Lomami. This is an enormous spear-

head, over 5 feet 6 inches long (1-677

O anc* weighing 4^ pounds.
Cumbrous though these are, they are still in use among the neighbouring tribes, though mainly for bride-price and for the purchase
of canoes. 2 They have a definite value according to their size, being
worth from 10 to 25 shoka, 100 to 250 mitako, 2,\ to 5 francs, or
'

'

and 5$. in English money. A fine specimen may

much and the price is rising with their scarcity. They
no longer made now that the country is more open to European

between

2s.

6d.

fetch twice as
are

goods, but they

still

play an important part in marriage palaver

and

unknown in native markets. 3 Thirty will buy a male slave.

The Topoke (or Tofoke) of the Lomami also use this huge spearhead (ndoa) currency. Thirty will buy a male slave and 40 to 50
might buy a female, though a purchaser may have to go up to 100.
are not

Smaller spearheads, axes and hoes are used for

less

important goods

(Torday and Joyce, 1922, II, p. 202).

This Stanley Falls region is the centre of spearhead currencies
and there are many different types and values recorded among the
neighbouring

tribes.

The Mobenge

to the north need 20 to 30 makongo for a male

and 50 to 100 for a female, according to estimation. The
Wanande to the east, near Lake Albert Edward, have a less valuable
spearhead, ttuma, only worth a fowl or about 6d. The Mangbetu
slave

in the North-East,

show in

their

mapuka

that evolution (or degenera-

Neville Jones, Occasional Papers of the Rhodesian Museum, No. 40.

will buy a canoe 35-40 feet long (Bentley, 1900, II, p. 295).
In the photograph taken by the Rev. K. Smith, reproduced in PL 3,
Fig. 4, the little Lokele boy is holding a shoka in one hand and supporting
a ngbele nearly twice his height with the other. The value of the latter was
2

Ten

quoted as

los. 6d.

(Smith, H.

S., p.

18).

AFRICA
tion)

from weapon

to currency that

65

marks so

many African examples,

for the spear-blade has become blunted at its edges, and tip
tang are twisted into decorative spirals (Mahieu, 1924, p. 24,

and
ill.).

'

Nor could the Bangala iron

money between the Ubangi and
the Congo (Fig. n) serve any
'

practical purpose with its charand flukes

acteristic twists at tip

(Schmeltz and

de Jong,

1904,

spearhead

cur-

PI. 68, Fig. 5).

There

are

rencies farther south too between

Upper Lomami and the

Upper Sankuru. Here an ikonga

the

FIG. ii.

Bangala iron money, Congo

FIG. 12.

Congo spearhead

worth a fowl, 2 or 3 a dog, and 5 or 6 a male slave

illustrations and
and
Joyce (1922) give other examples with
Torday
values, but to obtain some idea of the variety in this region a visit
must be paid to the Tervueren Collection at Brussels,

(Fig. 12) is

PRIMITIVE

66

MONEY

Spears made wholly of iron, twisted, split, barbed, and blunted,

decorative rather than useful, are used in barter in the Congo region.
The currency spears ' of the Bapopoie of the Aruwimi to the
'

'

'

north-east of the Congo are worth i or 2 pieces of cloth, according

to the metal ornamentation of the handle (Mahieu, 1924, p. 24).
But most of these decorated spears should be classed, like the
'

zappozaps above, with objects of parade and insignia of rank,

rather than with currency.
All of the preceding may be classified as spears or spear-blades,
even if their original purpose is blunted or contorted, but there
is a large class of objects used as money to which it is difficult to
give a generally descriptive name, as they have so little resemblance

weapons or implements. They are neither spears

nor axes, hoes, spades nor trowels, but are likened by collectors
sometimes to one, sometimes to another, of these prototypes.
Of such the shoka (which means axe in Swahili) of the Stanley
to their ancestral

Falls region, and the kundja (or iwenga) of the Kasai-Sankuru, are
well-known examples. The common shoka (PL i, Fig. 7) has the
outline of a broad spear-blade broken off short, and though accepted
widely as conventional currency it varies considerably in size and
The larger ones are some
inches (28 cm.) long weighing
weight.
about 8 ounces, with smaller ones 9 inches (23 cm.) long weighing
about 4 ounces. There are still smaller ones. The Bakusu shoka
is the chief standard of value between the
Congo and the Lomami,
south of Stanley Falls. This is only just over 6 inches long (16 cm.)
and was worth from 25 to 90 centimes before the Great War and
i franc
Johnston, 1908,
50 centimes after (Mahieu, 1924, p. 22

Mahieu

estimates the large shoka at 10 mitako,

50 centimes or 6rf., but as its value varies with time and place,
rising and falling to two or three times above or below its average,
estimates are of little use.
When European imitations of the shoka were introduced, they
Fig. 452, p. 749).

were at first eagerly accepted, until the natives found that the iron
was inferior and would not make good tools. The accumulation
of unwanted stores, together with the variations in native-made shoka,
led to an inquiry, and finally an acceptable model was sent to Birmingham to fix the standard, and that provided the ordinary currency

up

to the

coming of the

franc.

Grenfell, writing in 1903, says,

All the smiths in the Stanley Falls district depend on these [shoka] in
making axes, knives, spears, arrowheads, &c., and households depend on
them as a market currency. All our Yakusu food for workpeople and

children

is

paid for with shokas

and without these we are

He

three bundles of plantain

one shoka

in difficulties at once.

adds that the imported shoka, cut from a rolled plate of iron,

AFRICA

67

not worked at all, was a popular substitute, but one with a thickening
in the middle in imitation of the native pattern has not caught on
at all ...
I think the fault is not with the pattern, but with the
'

quality of the iron, the natives requiring an article that will not
run to slag into the charcoal pits as it is being worked up '. (JohnHis illustrations, Fig. 452, p. 794, show shoka
ston, 1908, p. 797.

of different ^shapes.)

FIG. 13.

Outlines of boloko, kundja and ivoshele>

Congo

kundja, the unit of value among the Basongo Meno on the

its junction with the Kasai (and also of the Bohindu
)f the Lukenie, to the north of them), is equally enigmatic.
It
Caries in size, though not to such an extent as the shoka, and is
The Basongo Meno are not ironvaguely trowel-like in outline.
melters and they do not make the kundja, but obtain them by

The

3ankuru above

mrtering salt, their local currency, with the Bankutu farther inland.
They obtain from them also iron throwing-knives (here called

PRIMITIVE

68

MONEY

and U-shaped copper bars (boloko), but the iron kundja

the standard of value (Fig. 13).

woshele)
is

2 small kundja
10 big kundja
1 boloko
2 boloko
3 boloko
10 boloko

~
=
=
=
=

a
a
a
a
a

big kundja
boloko

he-goat (or more)

male slave
female slave
wife

(Torday and Joyce, 1911,

p. 268)

Congo knives have a character and a ferocity all their own, and
seems inappropriate that some of the most fearsome should have
come into common commercial use. The knife currency with the
most extensive history and the most extended use is the trombash l
or throwing-knife of the Sudan and the Upper Nile, which, travelling
across Africa as the pinga of the Azande, the bo of the Ubangi and
it

the woshele (oshele) of the Sankuru, gave its name shongo to the
2
Its prototype
Bushongo and Bakongo on both banks of the Kasai.
seems to be the wooden F-shaped trombash originating in Libya,
which developed into a weapon characteristic of the Shari-Chad
region ; it achieved great effectiveness in the hands of the warlike
Azande, who, with a well-directed hurl of a well-balanced knife,
could cut off an enemy's leg at 20 yards. Dr. Maes, experimenting
at Tervueren, cut through a -inch deal plank at 15 metres.
The history of the throwing-knife illustrates the transition from
weapon to currency, with reflections of geographical and racial
influences.

In the Sudan, whirled along the open plains, the Zande pinga is
a useful and barbarous weapon. But even in this area it has a
definite currency value.
Nachtigal (1887, p. 362) tells of his difficulties in buying grain at Baghirmi, as the traders would take nothing
but throwing-knives in exchange. He needed two a day, and the

supply was inadequate.

Among the peoples of the savanna it is still a weapon of war,
it is also a tool, and is used for cutting trees,
clearing bush, and in
And another type is developing side by side, not for
agriculture.
use, but for show, as is the case with so many of the Congo
knives.

Coming westward

or southward into the forests of the Congo,

1
Trombash is one of its names in the Sudan, and has been adopted for
the iron throwing-knife though it belongs properly to the wooden throwing-

club.
2
Bushongo means they of the throwing-knife. Bakuba (
Bushongo)
means they of the lightning, and is piobably from the same source. Both
names were given by the Baluba, who had never met throwing-knives
before (Torday and Joyce, 1911, p. 2).

AFRICA

69

throwing-weapons are of little use. They retain their characteristic

shape, but, without finish or polish or cutting-edges, become currency
iron, capable of being made into tool or weapon if required.
the Bangala and their neighbours in between the Congo

Among
and the

northern curve of the Ubangi, they are the recognized currency,

2 to 4 being paid for a goat, 6 to 8 for a male slave and up to 30 for
a

woman.

The throwing-knife occurs again as currency in the region of

the Kasai and Sankuru under various names, the most widely known
of which is the shongo or woshele. The shongo is neither tool nor
weapon, it is merely the conventional unit of iron, made by the
Bankutu and spread with the extensive trade characteristic of the
region by its intermediaries the Bakuba, more properly called
Bushongo, whose name is reminiscent of their fame with the knife
This was once the typical weapon of the Bushongo,
but its use was officially prohibited on humane grounds, lest it
should kill the innocent by one of the most remarkable of their

like lightning.

'

'

Shamba Bolongongo, the great Bushongo hero, who is comto

have reigned about I6OO. 1 Shamba was an adventurous
puted
traveller opening up friendly relations with neighbouring peoples
chiefs,

which developed into the extensive trading for which the Bushongo
were and still are, famous. Among the Basongo Meno, to the
north of the Kasai and Sankuru, there is no evidence or tradition
to suggest that the shongo were ever of any practical use, they are
merely iron currency, and the same name is given to the iron bars
of European manufacture which ousted the work of native smiths
(Torday and Joyce, 1911, pp. 26, 94). The shongo were so eagerly
and easily converted into tools, weapons or ornaments that they were
rarely preserved in their original form, save possibly in the secret

treasury of a chief. This rarity gives surviving specimens a fictitious

'
The throwing-knife on the Sankuru is a veritable banknote ', says Torday
its actual value in metal is a hundred times

value.

'

which

inferior to its estimated value,

is

that of several slaves'

(Causeries congolaises, pp. 178-9).

The

throwing-knife on

PL

shows the Bangala type

Dr.
B. Hurry) and should
J.
(collected by
not properly be classed with money ', though it was collected as
such, for it has been sharpened and polished and made into a weapon
transformed from Zeichengeld to Nutzgeld, from a monetary token
to a potentially murderous weapon of war.
The Bubu of the northern curve of the Ubangi, have a throwingknife currency which could not possibly be used as a weapon of
war or a tool of any sort. It is not even called a knife or a tool,
but ngindza, which means money '. Here the blades have dissipated
i,

Fig. 20,

from the Ubangi region

His image, carved in wood,

is

in the British

Museum.

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

70

plates of very thin metal (Fig. 14), which, save

no practical use. 1
have
money,
It has been suggested that the throwing-knife has other derivatives
used as money, and that the weapons used by the warlike Fan,
from the Welle district, have degenerated into the Fan axes of
the Gaboon (Fig. 16). A parallel can be seen from the Ubangi area,
where a bundle of Bubu so-called arrowheads are tied together

into

bloated

as

'

'

FIG.

14.

Bubu

'

throwing-knife,

Congo

'

Fan axes ', and serve as a unit of exchange. (Thilenius, 1921, p. 15, PL I, Fig. 8, illustrates a specimen in the Hamburg
Museum). The Bangala execution knives (PI. i, Fig. 19), in some
rather like the

'

'

of which the influence of the throwing-knife can be detected, are

on the border land where so many ceremonial objects are balanced
between wealth and currency. Some (but usually those without
'

'

handles) are
1

Fig.

known

been used in ordinary trading trans-

S., 1925, ill, Pis. 2 and 3 ;

Cf. Schmeltz and de Jong, 1904, PL

Thomas, E.
i.

to have

PL

i,

117, Fig.

i.

Thilenius, 1921, p. 19,

no,

Fig. 5

and PL

AFRICA

71

actions
others have no such guarantee
but as all have a certain
exchange value they find their way into currency collections (Johnston, 1908, II, p. 694
Thomas, 1925, p. 139, Fig. n, XI, p. 137).
The knife or chopper of sinuous outline on PI. i, Fig. 17, is attributed
to the Bayanzi * lower down the river.
;

Johnston (1908, p. 775) regards the choppers as coming from the

and one in the British
North, together with the throwing-knives
Museum, collected by G. Burrows, is from the Welle District.
;

The chopper and

flounder

'

money

illustrated

Fig. 433; p. 774) belong to the same group,

specimen has special interest as both it and a

by Johnston (1908,
and the Cambridge

'

'

currency spear

are

brought home by one of Stanley's men '. The knife, with

deep blood-groove ', and ornamental punch-marks, illustrated on
PI. i, Fig. 15, and in more detail in Fig. 15, is a fine specimen of
the so-called
currency knives '. It was collected on the Kwilu
its
but
shape and workmanship are more characteristic of
(Angola)
the Ubangi farther north.
This mean term between sword and
dagger ', as Ratzel describes it, suggests Arab influence (cf. Schmeltz
and de Jong, Pis. 87-90).
The Fan axes (Fig. 16) are among the most familiar examples
labelled

'

'

'

'

'

of token-money derived from weapons or tools. 2 The Fan (Fang,

Pahuin, Mpongwe, Pangwe or many other names, either synonymous,
or those of related tribes) formed one of the most dreaded
races between the Niger and the Cunene, owing to their superior
vigour, their reputation for ferocity, and their terrifying throwingknives now replaced by muskets. They came from the East,
probably from the Congo-Nile divide, and are found as ivory and
rubber collectors and traders in the Gaboon, especially along the

Ogowe and

its tributaries.

Miss Kingsley described their mode of life as she saw them

the end of last century, collecting ivory and rubber

at

to exchange with the rich men of the village for a very peculiar and interlittle iron imitation axe-heads which are
bikSi
esting form of coinage
tied up in bundles called ntet, 10 going to one bundle, for with biki must the
8
You cannot do so with rubber or ivory or goods.
price of a wife be paid.
These bik&i pass, however, as common currency among the Fans for other
articles of trade as well, but I do not think they will pass bikti out of the

The name

Bayanzi, it may be noted, covers a number of tribes and

engaged in tiade along the course of the Congo, from the
Lower Ubangi to the Lower Kasai. Kiyanzi was the trade language in
this section of the Congo.
8
Temple, 1899, p. 118 the
Cf. Ridgeway, 1892, p. 40, ill., Fig. n
British Museum Guide calls them razors and spells them beki (p. 243).
especially those

Tessmann
3

(1913, II, p. 212) spells

Miss Kingsley 's bundle of

'

'

'

them awumbekie.

axes

'

is

in the Pitt Rivers Collection.

PRIMITIVE

72

MONEY

Thousands of these bikgi done up into ntets go to the price

of a wife. You do not find bikfi close down to Libreville, among the Fans
who are there in a semi-civilized state, or more properly speaking in a state
of disintegrating culture. You must go for bush (1897, pp. 320-1).
tribe.

FIG. 15.

The

Congo
'

little

FIG.

knife

axes

'

16.

Fan axe money

can no longer be found as Currency, even

though you go for bush, as they are superseded nowadays by spearblades of various shapes. Tessmann (1913, II, p. 212, Fig. 66)
illustrates 5 of these and also a chief counting out his money arranged
in piles of spear-blades (Fig. 65).

AFRICA
The Fan
Africa.

'

Thin

axes

'

little

73

are not the only currency of this type in French

pieces of iron, ranging from 3 or 4 inches up

B
FIG. 17.

Hoe-money, Congo

to 8 inches (8 to 25 cm.) usually flattening out at one end have

'
'
'
been collected as conventional arrowheads (if small) or con-

ventional spearheads

'

(if larger) (cf.

Mosher, 1936, Fig.

10, p. 28).

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

74

They are

of small value,

but the more familiar

'

some 50 of the little ones go to the centime,

sombies of the Ivory Coast are quoted at
'

a penny each.
In an area of hoe-culture such as West Africa, hoes themselves,
iron for making into hoes, and inchoate forms in between may all
be used instead of money, varying in name, shape and value from
district to district, playing an important part in marriage palaver,
but presenting no specially interesting features.
The shoka (commonly included in the hoe group) of the Stanley
Falls region, have already been described (p. 66).
Mahieu illustrates
the
hoes
the
Lower
and Middle
of
the
Bayaka
ntsengo
Kwango,
(p. 25)
Congo, worth 300 simbo shells, and the fluked lukasu, in copper,
from the Katanga and Kasai region, worth 50 copper rings (nsambu),
one or two lengths of cloth or 4 fowls. An ordinary slave was worth
40 tukasu. The jembe of the Lomami is a larger implement, long,

thick and solid in construction (Fig. 170).

There is a still larger
type, described as a hybrid weapon-hoe-knife form, which has been
found more widely distributed. The one illustrated in Fig. 176

comes from the Lomami Thilenius illustrates one in the Hamburg

one in the
Collection from the Cameroons (1921, PI. i, Fig. 12)
Berlin Collection is from the Ogowe, A.E.F.
and Schmeltz and
de Jong illustrate one from Tanganyika, PI. 63, Fig. 14. They also
;

'

the typical Bangala axes or hoes made of soft iron, for

currency, some much like shoka in outline, others fluked with queer
twists at the tips (see p. 65, Fig. n).
The making of these was an
important industry at Bopoto on the northern bend of the Middle
Congo. It was here that in 1884 Grenfell exchanged his beads,
wire and cloth for these
which were the usual currency
axes
farther east.
One axe ' was here valued at two brass mitako, but
farther up the river one would sometimes buy a goat (Johnston,
illustrate

'

'

'

1908, p. 122).

In this Middle Congo region, and in the Welle-Ubangi region

2
gongs or bells are doubtfully included in currency
These
are
made
of
(Fig. 18).
lengths of iron, beaten out and
hammered together down the edges they have no tongues, but
are beaten with rubber-headed sticks.
They are found singly or
in pairs rigidly connected by a curved handle, and they range from
about 6 inches (15 cm.) in height, to a couple of feet (50 to 60 cm.).
to the North, iron

1
The little bits of iron, like large pins, about an inch long (3 cm.), with
curved ends like hockey-sticks, or with a small semicircle at the end like a
'
half-moon as described and illustrated by Barbot, may belong to this class
of currency. They were used at Accra, Barbot says, as current money
instead of the little bits of gold (krakra) (Churchill, 1732, Vol. V, pp. 251,
*

264,
8

PL

22, Fig. 4).

Their name, gunga,

Burmese gong.

may be

onomatopoeic, like the Chinese ch'ing or

AFRICA

75

Five of the smaller ones would buy a pot of palm oil, 100
would buy a slave. Those of the Mobenge between the Welle and
the Middle Congo, huge upstanding fellows, were worth a wife,
or 2 male slaves (Mahieu, 1924, p. 26). These native-made gongs
or bells spread over a wide area, from Togo to East Africa, and often
have ritual significance ; several have been found in the diggings
at Zimbabwe and other contemporary ruins in Southern Rhodesia,
and they occur in Northern Rhodesia also. One old and dilapidated
specimen in the Livingstone Museum is preserved as the lukano
or insignia of the Lunda chiefs, and wars have been waged for the
possession of a lukano. (Brelsford, 1937, pp. 82-3).
Since metal is used almost universally for barter throughout
Africa, most objects made of metal hover on the edge of currency,

Iron

FIG. 18.

bells,

Congo.

(J size)
'

knives or hoes can be readily turned into money ',

while on the other hand money can be turned into spears, knives,
hoes or bells. This is even more clearly seen in metal ornaments
of various kinds, such as necklets, armlets, leglets and anklets 1
among which the dividing-line between ornament and currency

and

bells, spears,

'

cannot be distinguished.
As ornament copper is preferred to iron, and as it is found in
abundance in many parts of Africa, and is so easily worked, besides
possessing superior decorative value, it is not surprising to find it
forming both ornaments and currency.
There are three chief copper areas, to the north, the west and
the south-east of the Congo basin. The northern area includes the

Ubangi, and the upper bend of the Middle Congo, where copper
worked in most of the villages on both banks. Bopoto was a
1
The suffix -let has here no diminutive sense.

is

PRIMITIVE

76

MONEY

distributing centre and the Bapoto specialized in copper ornaments

Mahieu (p. 33) illustrates
that were traded up and down the rivers.

Mupoto woman wearing

a neck-ring, and H. H. Johnston (1908,

same type from the same district.
These are both of brass which superseded copper on the main
trading-routes, having the same estimation as gold among the Congo
But the earlier examples are of copper, and some are of
natives.
incredible weight : a Bongo necklet from the Ubangi may weigh
over 20 pounds or 10 kilo. This would be worth 1,000 mitako,
with 30 mitako to the franc.
The Gombe (Ngombe) anklet on PL i, Fig. 2, measures some
6 inches (15 cm.) across and weighs nearly 5 pounds. Torday
illustrates (Causeries congolaises, opp. p. 38) a woman wearing a
brass collar of this type and adds that these may weigh 12 to 15 kilo
(25 to over 30 pounds) so cleverly forged OB to the neck that a woman
captured by enemies risks having her head cut off, owing to the
Weeks (1909, p. 99) assumes
difficulty oif disengaging the collar.
that this is the only method, but a less drastic procedure was described
to Grenfell (Johnston, 1908, p. 586).
The machicolated collar (PL i, Fig. 5) is a specialized product
of the Bateke near Leopoldville, with a doubtful claim to be classed
with currency (cf. Mahieu, p. 33 ; Johnston, 1908, II, pp. 589, 590 ;
a

Fig. 305, p. 588) illustrates the

Schmeltz and de Jong, 1904, PL 31, Fig. 4).

of the copper regions mentioned above is in the
West, in the Crystal Mountains of the Cataract Province, below
Stanley Pool, with its trade centre at Manyanga. Here the currency
was in copper ingots, 4 inches (10 cm.) long, and less than i inch
(2 cm.) thick (surprisingly like our own currency bars from Money
These were traded up and down the
Hill, illustrated on p. 290).
river by the Bateke and Bayanzi and by the Bangala farther north.
But they soon gave way before the mitako, which became not only
the currency but also the official money of the Congo Free State.
Originally the mitako were merely short lengths of copper (cf.
PL i, Fig. 4), but rings were handier for transport and became the
Figs. 306,

307;

The second

'

'

popular jform, varying in thickness, in weight, and in size, sometimes

single, sometimes interlinked, sometimes in bunches, sometimes
elaborately laced in bundles with cane, all formerly of copper, but
later of

The

imported brass (PL

2,

Fig.

i).

ordinary brass wire sent out to Africa in coils was cut up

into lengths to suit local prejudices, and traded in rods, loops or
The Bangala standard mitako was a length of
rings as required.
20 inches (50 cm.) in 1890 with a value of 15 centimes, but the
brass workers cut an inch or half an inch off each rod, so its length
and consequently its value lessened and lessened as it passed from
hand to hand. Still everything was reckoned in mitako, from a

AFRICA

77

basket of manioc worth 10 or 12 to an ivory tusk, worth several

thousand. The price being fixed in mitako, payments would be
made in beads, cloth or any approved goods (Overbergh and de

Jonghe, 1907, i
52-3 6 )Brass rods
'

Weeks, 1909,

p.

107

Mahieu, 1924, pp. 29-30,

'

under various native names became the ordinary

of
the
whole
of the Upper Congo, and everything was
currency
One egg, i brass rod, i fowl, 10 brass rods, 2 yards
priced in them.
of cloth, 20 brass rods, up to a slave 600 and a female slave possibly
over 2,000 brass rods. But the length was always variable, owing

sweating '. The Lower Congo rods, which were

27 inches long (70 cm.) in 1884, shrank to 10 inches in 1894, and
barely 4^ inches (n cm.) in 1909 (Bentley, 1900, II, p. 398 Weeks,
The introduction of coins did not interfere much
1909, p. 107).
with the traffic in brass rods, which maintained their usefulness in
barter, and were at the same time, material for making native
ornaments.
Neither the Bapoto nor the Cataract copper areas can rival the
riches of the Katanga region, one of the most famous in the world.
This is the boundary of the Congo basin to the south-east, and is
to the process of

marked by the projection of the Belgian tongue into Northern

Rhodesia, with its modern commercial centre in Elizabethville or
Kambove, or perhaps, by the time that this book sees the light,
at some other place not yet marked on any map.
Here were made the well-known Katanga crosses also called
St. Andrew's crosses, saltires, croisettes, &c., with still more variable
and less-expressive native names, 1 which may be found from the
Cape to Cairo and from Mombasa to Boma.
The one illustrated on PL i, Fig. 3, weighs rather more than a
kilo, (2 pounds 3^ ounces) and measures 9 inches (23 cm.) across.
This is the average size for currency crosses, though they are very
variable and in the old days many were several times this size and
'

'

weight, while there were little ones with knobby arms, dwindling
to only a couple of inches across, compared by Mahieu to
knife rests (p. 27).
The larger ones usually show the characteristic

down

rib across the centre,

and being

cast in

sandy moulds have a rough

surface flattened on the under side.

Arnot, who was in the Garenganze district just north of Katanga
from 1886 to 1888, describes the native copper- working, a business
handed down from father to son for generations. He noted how

and the
one place the copper was cast in the form of a capital
2
are
At
mines
cast
in
this
other
it
was
of
'.
figure
perfect
angles
at

'

is

Often the native names mean merely copper or ring.

A soap-stone mould from Zimbabwe, with a cast of an ingot of this type,

in the British

Museum

(cf.

Mahieu,

p. 27,

upper

figure).

PRIMITIVE

78

MONEY

the form of a Maltese cross, 1 the mould being made in the sand by
the workers with their fingers ; and out. of twenty casts from such
moulds scarcely a fourth or an eighth of an inch difference is
discernible' (1889, p. 238).

Cameron, crossing over Lake Tanganyika to its western shores

into the country of the Warua in 1874, found that his trade-beads
which had served him well up to the borders of the lake (singo-mazzi,
of opal glass, as large as pigeons' eggs) were of no further value,
to use the Urua crosses, here called handa.
These were
larger than the average type, 15 to 16 inches (38-40 cm.) across
diagonally, and weighed from 2^ to 3 pounds.
Many of these
he illustrates one of them have a raised rib along the centre of
each arm, as if the man, in preparing the mould, had traced its
skeleton in the sand 2 (Cameron, 1877, r P- 3 J 9)But the handa
were not acceptable everywhere, and at rNyangwe on the Lualaba,
a trading station of the Zanzibari, with a large market every fourth
day, no purchases could be made save for slaves, goats and cowries
Cameron, having neither, was utterly stranded (1877, H> P- ?)
and his difficulties have been described above (p. 6).
The value of a cross of about 600 grammes (nearly i J pounds)

and he had

quoted as being, at Katanga, worth 10 kilo of native flour"; 5 would

buy a fathom of cloth or 4 fowls, and 10 a gun. In the Kasai region
is

in 1910 the value was fairly steady.

One cross would fetch 5 to 6
fowls, 2 lengths of good cloth, 3 or 4 kilo of rubber or 6 axes ;
4 to 6 would purchase a she-goat (Mahieu, 1924, p. 28). But

elsewhere the value appears to be very variable. The Babengele

of the Lualaba make one cross into a manilla or bracelet, and this
is worth a
for a
she-goat
5 or 6 would be the average

payment

Their northern neighbours the Bakusu, along the Middle

Lualaba need 2 crosses for a she-goat, and 2 manillas, made from

wife.

crosses will buy 4 goats or a slave (Mahieu,

Mahieu
1924, p. 124).
quotes a typical bride-price
paid for a Basonge bride in the
copper district. It consisted of 14 large crosses, i large she-goat,
i
The
piece of indigo drill, i flint-lock gun, and i female slave.
total was estimated at 100 crosses of a local value of
to
350
400
francs. 3
Two slaves or 6 goats would be paid by a simple mortal,
says Mahieu, but for one of the great ones of the land 200 goats,
100 slaves and 300 crosses were claimed, as well as powder and
shot (P- 35)*

'

1
More Greek than Maltese, with equal arms at right angles, but without
indented ends (Fig. 38), these nyambu are still current in Katanga and
Northern Rhodesia.
2
Monteiro illustrates a cross with a still more prominent ridge, suggesting
the junction of two bars ; this was brought down to Benguella by caravan

(1875, P. 190, PI. XIV, Fig. i).

*
The market price was calculated as between 3 and 4 francs.

AFRICA

79

Montpellier d'Annevoie, who was pioneering in Katanga with

the Benedictine Mission between 1910 and 1912, places the centre
of the copper-cross industry at Kabinda on the Lomami, to the east
of Luluaberg, but they were no longer being made in his time
(1921, p. 155).
They were a convenient and easily recognizable
trading medium, but were valued by the natives mainly for the sake
of the copper which they made into weapons, tools and ornaments,
though some were stored for emergencies and they are still valued
and still used for making wire bracelets and anklets, and are also
made into bullets for native muskets (W. Ff. Fisher). As currency,
A local magistrate finding on
their main use is in
bride-price '.
his table a pair of suspenders, some pieces of madiba (raphia cloth)
"
and a pile of copper crosses recognizes the signs at once,
Hullo,
a dowry returned. Another divorce."
Crosses are the one form
;

'

'

Cattle may die, cloth will rot,

of currency that is never refused.
but neither misfortune can happen to copper, so many of the natives
still insist that marriage payments should be made in Katanga crosses

(Norden, 1924,

p.

177).

Besides the crosses, copper was used in two other forms, both
very popular, and widely distributed. One, as is expected, was the
the other was the
ring form, and these were also ornaments
or
and
this
was
U-form,
equivalent to rod or ingot
croquet-hoop
;

currency.

The Katanga rings, such as the nsambu in the Lukafu district,

north of Elizabethville, may be in the shape of actual rings, worn
usually on the ankles, or they may be coiled copper wire or bangles.
(Mahieu, 1924, pp. 29-35).
Along the Sankuru and Kasai copper rods are bent into croquethoop form with blunted ends. These, called boloko by the Bushongo,
and konga or kunga by the Basonge, together with shokas and woshele

form the ordinary trading currency as

has been described already (p. 65).
The value of these rods is very variable. In some districts, one
will buy a fowl or a dog
in others it takes 6 or 8
a male slave
be
the
a female
between
while
Batetela
and
10,
may
anything
3
among
slave
of guaranteed fecundity can be bought for 2. They are
(incipient throwing-knives)

'

'

important also in marriage payments. The Olemba (Batetela)

youth approaches the girl of his choice and says, I love you.' If
she is willing she replies, All right, bring the money.
The first
payment is usually a dog, followed by 8 copper rods (kunga), more
*

dogs, and also fowls (Torday and Joyce, 1922, pp. 52, 67, 167,
186).

Copper was abundant down the West Coast, but was ornament
rather than currency.

Andrew

Battell, at the

beginning of the i7th

century, was impressed by the wealth of copper.

'

The women wear

PRIMITIVE

8o

MONEY

a ring of copper about their necks which weigheth 15 pounds at the

least, on their legs rings of copper that reach to the calves of their
'
But in his time he expressly states that they
legs (1901, p. 18).
take no more than they wear for a bravery '.
His trade was by
'

He

barter.

carried

commodities fit for that country as long glass beads, and round blue
beads and seed beads and looking-glasses, blue and red cloth and Irish rugs
which were very rich commodities
all

and he exchanged these for ivory palm fibre, cloth and elephants'
tails.
These were to be traded again, the elephants' tails in particular fetching a high price, 50 hairs being valued at 1,000 rets and
one tail being equal to 2 or 3 slaves. 1 So the trade was very profitable
as Battell proved
I bought 20,000, which I sold to the Portugals
for 30 slaves and all my charges borne J (p. 58).
The last class of Congo ornaments to be mentioned represents
veritable currency and provides another comparison with Bronze
Age (and later) ornaments in Europe. These are the coiled arm- or
leg-rings called minkata, by the Wangata between Nouvelle Anvers
and Coquilhatville. Those worn by chiefs are of iron, and the one
with a dozen spirals in the Tervueren Currency Collection is enorm2
When Chief M'Kuba was asked
ously heavy (ill., Mahieu, p. 33).
if such a weight on his leg did not make it awkward for walking,
he replied that it suited the dignity of a chief to have a slower and
'

heavier walk than that of ordinary mortals (Montpellier d'Annevoie,

1921, p. 155).
This long catalogue may end with the cakes of red powder which
represent money in the Congo beige.
Dapper, in his Description de VAfrique (1686, p. 367), speaks of
red wood in pieces about a foot long taking the place of money in the
West. This refers to the cakes of tukula (nkulu, nguld) which,
besides being in daily use, are popular in present-giving (especially
at funeral ceremonies), in barter and as money, and are traded along
the Sankuru-Kasai in the south, and from the Upper Congo to its

mouth.
Various redwood trees (especially Baphia nitida or camwood)
grow abundantly in the Congo forests, but are not found everywhere.
The wood, of a beautiful deep-red colour, is hard and heavy, which
1
Elephant hairs and bracelets made of them are common as charms
and amulets from the West Coast to the East, and as they were popular in
barter they are sometimes found in currency collections as at Vienna (Loehr,
*9Zf>9 P- 20) and Buffalo (Mosher, 1936, p. 30, PL VIII).
2
Weeks (1909,
Cf. Schmeltz and de Jong, 1904-16, PL 35, Fig. 18.

how

these leg spirals are made by the Bangala across the

type of ornament being made of commercial brass wire
has an exchange value in East Africa also.

p. 107) describes
river.

The same

AFRICA

81

discourages transportation, but when it is rotten it is easily ground

down with a stone and water, and the powder made into cakes.
The flat cakes stamped with patterns suggest comparisons with brick
The powder is mixed with oil
tea, though the uses are different.

and smeared over the body, it is used for stiffening the coiffure, for
dyeing cloth, both native and European, and for colouring woodwork
and pots. The red colour appears here as elsewhere to have special

FIG. 19.

Tukula paste block, Congo

and it is tukula that provides much of that general reddish

so
The tukula
characteristic of West African material culture.
tinge
cake from the Bushongo between the Sankuru and the Kasai, illusvirtues

19), is fresh and red, but after much handling, the

become black and shiny, and scarcely recognizable (Torday
and Joyce, 1911, Fig. in, pp. 129, 165; Maes, 1920; Mahieu,

trated (Fig.

cakes

1924, pp. 39-40).

B.

NIGERIA TO SENEGAL

Travelling westward from the bewildering jungle of currencies

Congo, those of Nigeria appear scanty, and there are scarcely
a dozen different types in the Cambridge collection. Modern coins
are supplanting earlier forms here as elsewhere, though there are still
many districts off the trade-routes, especially in the eastern provinces,
in the

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

82

where cowries,

and iron

salt

bars,

gin

(illicit)

and tobacco are

preferred.
The natural reluctance to accept European coins was actively
fostered by the Royal Niger Company (1886-1900) because it was

believed that barter was more profitable, so any money that found
way up the rivers had to be returned to the Coast before it could
purchase goods. Under the Protectorate the policy was reversed
native currencies were discouraged, if not suppressed, as a hindrance
to trade, since it was recognized that no stable rate of exchange
its

could be maintained with such fluctuating values.

Cowries had been in circulation for centuries, and were almost

universally current, but had depreciated so much owing to unlimited
entry that they were useful only for very small payments. Salt was
also long established, and formed the usual medium of exchange
from the Sahara to the Coast, but it was bulky and inconvenient,
and prices shot up and down with the fortunes and misfortunes of
Iron bars, though always serviceable, were
the camel caravans.
heavy and awkward, and transport was a difficulty, so their price
increased unsteadily from the Coast to the interior.
After 1900, therefore, English silver coins were introduced, which
achieved such unexpected popularity that they were speedily with-

drawn.

The

natives accepted

them

eagerly but

personal ornaments, and headdresses of

shillings

made them into

became the latest

Coins in substituted alloy possess less ornamental appeal,

and are everywhere in official use at the present day. They are not
fashion.

always accepted in outlying districts, and this is especially the case

with coins that are worn, or those dating from earlier reigns. Money
is supposed to die with the sovereign, and after the Queen's death,
'

dead money '. l

part played by cowries, and their depreciation
to
owing
importations from East Africa, have been described above
In 1860 a bag of 20,000 cowries cost from
i to
2 at
(p. 32).
the Coast.
Inland an average of 40 went to the string, and 50
strings to the head and 10 heads to the bag (Talbot, 1926,
Victorian coins were refused as

The important

'

'

'

'

'

'

P- 875)-

To

the West of the Niger C. annulus was the kind preferred.

the East of the Niger in Iboland the Indian ones were worth
twice as much as the East Africans (Basden, 1921, p. 195). The
Ibo counted them in groups of 6, called ekpete, they collected these
into groups of 10, to form the ukwa, or string
20 of these strings
or 1,200 cowries made the akpa or bag ', which was a man's load.
This was worth about a shilling. The native was extraordinarily

To

'

'

'

belief is recorded by Mahieu on the Lomami (1924, p. 66)

does not affect the popularity of the Maria Theresa dollar, which
acceptable over a third of the continent.
1

The same

although
is

it

AFRICA

83

European to make
adept in calculations, but it was
a quick estimate as to whether a fowl was worth 16 multiples of 90
cowries (when 90 equalled a penny) and the introduction of coins
was a boon. Cowries gradually faded away from the main trading
routes, and by 1923 had entirely vanished from such centres as
not easy for a

Kano and

Zaria.

in spite of Government exhortations and prohibitions the

When
dies hard.
It even seems to be reviving farther south.

But

cowry

the importations ceased in 1900 the depreciation also ceased, and

from an exchange of 20 to 25 ukwu to the shilling, they soared to
1 6,
And as they
15, even 12 to the shilling, in market quotation.
are still preferred in native trading many natives refuse to sell
except for cowries a buyer can often get better value for cowries

than for coins.

Even though a single money-cowry is only worth -^ of a penny

and a ring-cowry rj^, not a shell is ever wasted. Basden noted how,
should one fall on the road, the next woman passing that way would
deftly pick it up with her toes and store it in her bag (1921, p. 200).
The trading in the markets is all done by the women and the surprisGoods are sold for cowries not
ing fact is that there is no barter.
exchanged for other goods. A buys B's yams for cowries and B
buys As oil for cowries. There is no attempt at direct exchange.
But when it conies to accumulation of wealth, then the advantages
of metal over shells encourages the new introduction. Treasure
houses of cowries are like barns of newly threshed corn but natives
are slowly learning to appreciate the smaller bulk for banking
purposes.

Cowries undoubtedly owe much of their popularity to their

symbolic and ornamental value and they will still be worn as decoration and used in games and gambling (as with us) long after their
monetary use has vanished. The little red black-spotted peas or
crabs' eyes ', Abrus precatorius, are even more decorative than the
shells and had at one time almost the same value as cowries, being
current in Southern Nigeria and the Cameroons at the rate of 100
*

to the penny.

The general use of salt as a form of currency throughout Africa

has been discussed already (pp. 52 ff.). It has special importance
in this region.
The great salt trade-routes which also formed parts
of the great slave-routes both led to Northern Nigeria
the Great
;

Road of the West

Timbuktu

the route from Tunis through the

salt regions of Bilma and Lake Chad to Kano
and these were the
great distributing centres of a commodity more important than gold.
Jobson, exploring up the Gambia (1620-1), tells of the eagerness
'
of the Tawny Futtries to exchange their milk and butter, as good
as we have at home ', for salt.
The trading started with small
to

PRIMITIVE

84

but after they once saw and tasted of salt

was no other thing could so well please them, although

beads and poor knives

.

there

MONEY

were never so little (1933, p. 50).

There was a regular exchange of salt from the Coast for slaves
which
up-country but that salt was of a course and durty kinde
doth rather looke like durte or Sea-Coale ashes than resemble the
Salt we have in use and after they saw our salte no other thing
was esteemed amongst them* (p. 119).
The inland salt was dug out in large slabs, some 3 feet in length
weighing 50 to 60 pounds, or an average man's load. The price
naturally varied and a journey over difficult or dangerous country
would double its value. In Earth's time a middle-sized slab was
worth 3,000 cowries (about a dollar) in
Timbuktu, but the price always rose in
it

'

'

when the salt caravans became

on account of the number of bloodflies which infested the town and the
And prices naturally went up
river.
when, owing to tribal feuds, the routes
were particularly unsafe for travel. From
the spring,
scarce

Earth's account the tribes appear to have

been continually at feud during his travels
but the price did not ever exceed 6,000

cowries a slab.

Binger (1887-8) quotes

higher estimates. The price was
always calculated in cowries, but as
cowries were rare, salt was bartered for
goods, and a load of salt (about 25 kilo)
bought for 8,000 cowries at Salaga
far

i
FIG. 20.

Salt currency,

(Northern Territory, Gold Coast) would

be sold at Kintampo (Ashanti) after
crossing the Volta for 16,000, or about 10 francs (II, p. 142).
Salt is still currency in Bornu, and is a customary, if not an
Nigeria

'

'

essential part of the

bride-price in the hills.
in conical pots, evaporated, the pots are broken

It is boiled

down

and the cones form

the currency.
Fig. 20 illustrates the Hausa and Fulani mangul of
the Bornu-Yola caravan-route from Lake Chad.
The local price varies in direct proportion to the distance from
its place of origin, and also reflects fluctuations in money values.
The price of a cake at Madagali in recent years was 6d. at Mubi,
50 miles farther south, 15., and at Yola, 100 miles south of Mubi, 25.
Of the cakes sold in the markets in the pagan area of the Northern
Cameroons only a small proportion is immediately broken up and
used as salt. Most of the cakes are bought as a means of locking
up capital, and are freely used as currency in local transactions.
;

AFRICA

85
*

These are an almost invariable item in any marriage negotiations ',

and are collected for this purpose, the father or guardian of the girl
reserving the cakes paid for her, to provide for the marriage of a
son or nephew (D. F. H. MacBride).
In the interior of Nigeria among the people of Bornu and
Adamawa cloth currencies still thrive. Brass bracelets or bangles
are used also, one is illustrated Fig. 21, but cotton thread, a strip of
cloth or a gown all have their trading values.
Ten rolls of thread
equal a strip of cloth (kuntu) ; 10 strips of cloth equal a gown (bul)
and a gown is worth 5 brass bracelets (Meek, 1931, p. 144).

FIG. 21.

The

Brass bangle,
Nigeria

of cloth illustrated in Fig. 220 (with detail) is a long

strip of very loosely woven cotton, rolled up like a tapemeasure, to form the unit. This is chiefly used in marriage transThe larger roll (Fig. 226) is the langtang, woven in Sensiactions.
dong, used as currency by the Mumuye in the extreme south of
Adamawa Province. In 1929 a strip was worth about 4$. or a
medium-sized goat or 16 currency bars (taji). Neither bars nor
roll

narrow

were used as much as salt, but cloth was necessary for brideNot that it was used, as the men wear goatskins and the
price
women green leaves. In Benin the pawn l originally a cloth worth
about 2., was taken as the standard of value and figures largely in
'

cloth

'.

'

'

local trade (Talbot, 1926, III, p. 875).

1
Usually assumed to = Fr. pagne or loincloth. But there is some doubt
about the derivation of the word and it may not be as simple as it looks.
Possibly it represents the head ', i.e. paume, of tobacco (cf. Ling Roth,
'

P-

:i2^1r?2^^^&^
^i
,^^=^<^.''c?

FIG. 22.

J^ck^Ir- v

Cloth currency, Nigeria

AFRICA

87

Currency bars of iron are found in different forms

Some are merely rough bars of a foot
or less in length, with no distinguishing features
some have a slight twist here or there
some
are splayed out in the middle
some at the ends.

in different

districts.

The

bars called by the Eastern Fulani name

losol, or the Western Fulani tajere (more commonly in the plural, taji) of the Batta of the
Benue Valley and the Mumuye to the south of
them, are more distinctive in shape. These bars
are carefully finished, and have usually a flat
expansion in the middle and slight twists at both
The one illustrated (Fig. 23, and PL i,
ends.
comes
from the Mandated Area, Adamawa
Fig. 6)
Emirate, and the local price in 1934 was a penny
or a little less.
Their ultimate use is for making
hoes and other implements, but they are much
used for currency both among the non-Moslem
tribes and in the Moslem markets where the

pagan

tribes

come

to trade.

(MacBride).

development of iron bars or rods

across West Africa is the Y-form.
Typologically
they may be attenuated spearheads, cutlasses,
special

throwing-knives or any other weapons, or they

may be merely local fashions in currency bars.
These bars are definitely Y-shaped on the
Ubangi (Schmeltz and de Jong, 1904, PL 63,
Fig. 12) and in Southern Nigeria (PL i, Fig. 10)
where they are popularly called Ogoja pennies ',
although their value ranges from a penny to less
than a halfpenny each. Their native names here
are iyayaw or akaju and others.
Westerly extensions of more irregular shapes may be recognized
in the
sombies of the Ivory Coast, some 8 to
10 inches (20-25 cm.) long with one projecting
end, worth a penny, or the well-known Kissi
of Liberia and Sierra Leone (PL i,
pennies
*

'

'

'

Fig. n), but these are usually described as degenerate or conventional hoes (cf. p. 92).

Brass wire cut into lengths of about a yard

in croquet hoop form (PL 2,
the
common currency from the
Fig. 2) provided
Coast inland, one length being worth about 3^.
"uWenc^ Nigeria'
Importations were stopped after 1904 and the
*
brass rods or Calabar bars that played so large a part in early

and usually traded

'

'

'

PRIMITIVE

88

MONEY

Cheetems l are
trade ceased to be legitimate currency after 1907.
bunches of finer wire, usually 9 or 10 to the bunch (PL 2, Fig. 3),
which take their name from their inventor, Captain Cheetem, who
introduced them as small change,
at 18 to the

'

bar

'.

Southern Nigeria has a queer

little iron currency of its own, called
by various names in Nigerian diaIn curlects as well as in English.
rency collections it may be labelled
or
needlearrowhead ',
axe
'

'

'

money ', its native names being aiyu

(ieyu\ ozala,

umumu, and

others.

The Bank of West

presented

FIG. 24.

'

the

Africa, which
specimens to the

Needle money

',

Nigeria

FIG. 25.

Munshi axehead

British Museum, gives the value as 3$. a pound, and calls them
arrowheads, but N. W. Thomas, recording their former use (at
Awka, to the south-east of Onitsha) says that the local name means
'
needle '. They are barely
inch (12 mm.) long, as is seen in the
illustration (Fig. 24) and 50 of them weigh less than a halfpenny,
so it would take about 5,000 to make a pound weight. The exchange
1

The word

is

sometimes given an African form and spelt

chittim.

AFRICA

89

value was reckoned roughly at 45 to the penny, or twice as much as

a cowry, though cowries were not accepted in exchange (Basden,
(
Basden describes this Awka currency as resembling
1921, p. 201).
'

squashed tin-tacks and says it was used for buying slaves, though
how many hundreds of thousands would have to be counted for
such a transaction is not mentioned.
PL i, Fig. 8 and Fig. 25 illustrate a Munshi axe-head', from
Northern Nigeria, said to have been used as currency.
The Slave Coast is, as one would expect, the home of the manilla
currency which, as its name implies, is closely connected with the
'

Portuguese or Spanish slave-trade. Originally of copper or brass,

later of iron or a mixture of metals, this became the dominating
currency from the Gold
Coast to the Lower Niger,
and though no longer legal
tender, Manillas are

still

met

up-country, with a
trading value of about $d.
(Cowan, 1935 and 1936).

with

Pacheco Pereira, whose

Esmeralda is a guide to the

commerce round the coasts

of West Africa at the end of
the

1
5th century, says that
Sierra Leone, the Gold
Coast and Benin * the ex-

at

is in manillas either
of brass or of copper, with
fluctuating values, 8 or 10 for
a slave being regarded as a

change

FIG. 26.
i,

2,

Manillas

Bronze Age, Ireland.

3, 4,

West

Africa

(Kimble, 1937, pp. 105, 107, 132, &c.). Barbot at New

Calabar in 1699 bought up 500 slaves at two copper rings apiece
(1723, p. 460), but most of his trading was done with iron bars.
fair price

Rings and bangles worn as ornaments, or used as currency and

we cannot always discriminate are found in all metal-using countries
but the West Coast manillas are especially interesting, as they are
believed to perpetuate an ancient type, and their resemblance to
prehistoric penannular rings, perhaps themselves a form of currency,

remarkable. Tons of manillas used to be exported annually from

England, and the mischance of a wreck of these on the Irish coast
in 1836 led to the comparison of the product of a Birmingham foundry
with the Bronze Age bangles in the Dublin Museum (Fig. 26).
is

1
Coffey drew attention to the 16th-century bronze castings from Benin,
showing Europeans and natives holding large manillas in their hands (1913,
PL VI, p. 70 ; cf. also Ling Roth, 1903, Fig. 147, p. 142).

PRIMITIVE

90

MONEY

An

attempt was made to cheapen the product and improve the

by turning out manillas in cast iron. But it
was a failure. They would not ring when struck, as all good manillas
The natives would not accept them and the loads were
should.
returned as worthless. The best-ringing quality was obtained by
The rough edges, both
a due proportion of copper, tin and spelter.
inside and out, were a flaw from the manufacturer's point of view
but, if filed down, rendered the manillas useless for .trade (cf.
profits of the trade

W. Hawkes, Arch.Journ., XII, 1855, PP- 179-80).

The manilla, like the mitako, is merely one form in which a length
of metal can conveniently be shaped for trading purposes, and all
curves, sizes and patterns are found, from the impressive
King
'
manillas over a foot long, to tiny ones weighing only a few ounces.
The varying shapes represent waves of fashion in different districts
and at different times. The commonest type is worth about 5 or 6
c

FIG. 27.

'

King manilla

',

Nigeria

Southern Nigeria, but with a change of fashion

'
are
they
King manillas (PL i, Fig. 14
immediately worthless.
and Fig. 27) are thick curved bars with slightly splayed-out ends,
to the shilling in

and represent high values, being worth 100 of the smaller ones.
They are made of iron, copper or a mixture of metals and were

commonly the price of a slave. One of these in the Wilberforce

House Collection at Hull, which was used in this traffic, is said to
have been worth

14 in the old slave-trading days. But

slaves were very fluctuating, and
traders of the Coast will tell you that a King would purchase a
hundred slaves (R. P. Wild).
There are Queen and Prince manillas also, worth 75 and 50
smaller ones respectively, but there is very little information about
them. The large ones were undoubtedly highly valued along the
Coast and inland, and were used in funeral offerings.
large
number were found in the Andoni country in Southern Nigeria in
values of

'

12 to

King manillas

'

and of

'

'

'

'

AFRICA

91

a fetish hut which was destroyed by order of the Government in

offered there.
The
1905, in consequence of the human sacrifices
'
hoard of skulls and ivory and King manillas are in the British
'

Museum.
If the
'

'

King

common manillas are derived from Bronze Age bangles,

may be compared with Bronze Age torques (cf.

manillas

Johnston, 1908, p. 794, Fig. 452). But perhaps, as old Coasters

will tell you, they are nothing more than the bolts of early wooden
ships, broken up on the shore.
The Slave Coast lies next to the Gold Coast, a juxtaposition not
without significance in West African history, which lends itself to
metaphorical application and moral exposition.
proverb of the
Gold Coast, There is no market wherein the dove with the pouting
breast is not traded,' preserves the memory of the cowry as currency
and cowries are still in ordinary use in the Northern Territories.
But the chief medium of exchange here was gold dust, used either
in grains or by weight.
The dust permitted of almost infinitesimal
division, and Burton and Cameron describe how even a farthing's
worth could be paid by balancing a grain or two on a knife tip

'

(1883, II, p. 144, i 54 ).i

Barbot describes the weighing of the gold by means of seeds
'
'
taccoes with little pease, black on one side and red on the other

and dambas with

'

red berries with black spots weighing 2

taccoes (or 2 dwt. at Almina)
12 taccoes made the akye (ackie)
and 16 akyes the ounce Troy. (Churchill, 1732, Vol. V, p. 234). 2
But weights as well as measures were adjustable by bargaining with
chiefs or kings.
The small money was also in gold, but in gold
adulterated
with several ingredients and of little value, cut into
small bits called krakras (which Barbot illustrates on PI. 22).
little

'

'

'

Bosman
Fetiches,

describes these

about the worth of

little
i,

2,

bits (spelt kakeraas) cast into

or 3 farthings.

'Tis a common Proverb That you cannot buy much Gold for a Farthing,
yet even with that value in Gold you may here go to Market and buy Bread
or Fruit for your Necessities. The Negroe Women know the exact value of
these bits so well at sight that they never are mistaken ; and accordingly

they tell them to each other without weighing as

(1705, p. 82).

we do

coined

Money

Bowdich described the revenue and currency of Ashanti in 1817.

gold, a royal perquisite, was valued by weight, with two sets
of weights, heavier ones for the King and lighter for current use.
The ackie, TV ounces av. was then worth 55., and theperiguin(z ounces)

The

1
They also refer to the earlier money consisting of holed quartz stones
described above (p. 60).
2
Damba is a common name for Abrus precatorius on the Coast but
both names and seeds are often confused.
8

PRIMITIVE

92

MONEY
'

'

was worth 10. Tribute, fines, compensations and bride-price

were all reckoned in penguins and ackies. The King's son was
redeemable at the price of 20 penguins, a commoner at a few ackies
murder cost 20 ounces of gold dust and a slave, but accidental killing
a captain would pay
only 5 ounces and the funeral expenses
a penguin or 10 for a wife
a poor man, 2 ackies or 10$.
damages
for adultery in the former rank was 10 periguins, in the latter i \
ackie, and a pot of palm wine (1873, pp. 209-10, 243).
All along this much-harried coast from the Slave Coast itself
;

'

'

to Senegal, trading through many centuries spread the use of cowries,

trade-beads, iron, brass or copper rods or rings, cotton, cloth and, of

But one
coins, so any traces of native currencies are rare.
distinctive form of native money is still current on the borders of

late,

Sierra

'

Leone and

pennies', (PI.

i,

Kissi
Liberia, in the shape of the well-known
Kissi
Kisi
the
so-called
because
(also spelt
Fig. n)

and Ghisi) use them, though the local name is kilindi. The length
is variable, with an average of some 16 to 18 inches (40 to 46 cm.).
The stem is usually twisted, and the ends are hammered out into the
ear nileng, and foot kodo.
These are still the common currency
'

'

'

used, not only by the natives, but by all polite travellers in the
hinterland, as it is considered a compliment to the local chieftain
to use his local money.
Now that coins are beginning to penetrate

money-changer in the market, who

the
in front of him, and exchanges
of
irons
pile
them, at some 46 or 48 to the West African shilling though a
Two irons
shilling is seldom seen, as it represents a mine of wealth.
will buy a score of oranges, a large bunch of bananas, or several
kola nuts.
They may be seen as offerings made on the death of a
into the interior there has to be a

sits

on a mat with a

chief, first broken, then stuck in the grave ; and they

essential part if not the whole of the
bride-price '.
'

provide an

This may

consist of only a few bundles, or, in the case of a favoured maiden,

may make a large pile. Among the Gbande of Liberia the man
'

'

on the woman's head, saying This is my wife as

he hands over the first instalment of his payments to her father.
places an iron

(Earthy, 1934, 180

iii.

1936, 271).

NORTH, EAST AND SOUTH AFRICA

North, East and South Africa have been for so long the

home

of

cattle-keeping peoples that cattle, whether in the form of camels,

1
sheep, goats or cows, but chiefly cows, are the standard of value.
1

The connexion between

'

'

'

'

'

cattle and chattels and capital or chief

property has often been quoted to emphasize the fact that wealth in Europe
in early days consisted in cattle.
When dealing with examples of such

AFRICA

93

The larger animals are rarely and reluctantly sold, but everything
and are
calculated on a cattle basis.
They constitute real wealth,
*
such
as
in
transactions
with
bride-price ',
parted
only
important

is

or under compulsion, as for fines and compensations (cf. Ankermann,

1929, pp. H4jff.)Still, though cattle provide the dominant occupation and subsistence they can rarely support the whole group
they cannot
flourish in fly-infested areas, and in fly-free areas they are often
So grain and
the privilege of the rich or of the overlords alone.
vegetables support the non-pastoral and semi-pastoral groups and
a subsidiary standard of value is set up in the essential African
implement, the hoe. In Bechuanaland a man could have as many
for the price of
wives as he liked, or rather as he could purchase
a wife was 10 head of cattle among the wealthier cattle-keeping tribes
and large hoes or spades among the poorer (cf. Gordon Gumming,
Native hoes in East Africa may be regarded as the
1850, p. 232).
local form of iron ingot, for they were exchanged for goods by the
tribes in the districts where iron was plentiful, and worked up elsewhere into other implements, weapons and ornaments by the local
smiths.
As the country was opened up, cowries, beads and cloth advanced
along the trading routes, but throughout the greater part of this
eastern side of the continent, native currencies are scarce compared
with the west, and often entirely lacking, all trading being by barter.
To begin with Egypt. Egypt, in spite of its skill in the working
of metals for thousands of years, does not appear to have developed
a coinage before the 4th century B.C., when coins with Egyptian
devices were struck in imitation of the Greek gold staters.
Before
this time gold and copper, and silver which was more highly valued,
circulated as currency here as elsewhere, with values determined by
weight.
Rings (Fig. 28) are usually accepted as currency, and Plato
speaks of engraved stones of which a Spartan could make no use
which may refer to scarabs (Eryx, 400^).
The wealth of Rameses III, the Croesus of ancient Egypt, was in
grain, cattle, silver and gold, the gold depicted in reliefs being in
the form of rings, bags of gold dust and solid ingots.
From
the XVIIIth dynasty onwards articles were valued in terms of
weight, the dbn or deben (1,400 grains) and the ring or Ty of the deben.
> or
But the hieroglyph of the standard weight (deben) is <_
which represents a bent metal strip or rod, and this may have been
the native currency, the far-away precursor of the larins of the
;

'

^>

wealth and its use in actual exchanges or payments, it is unfortunate that

the English language has no singular neuter form for animals of such con'
'
'
'
trasted sex, and the collective word
cows in Africa, must like pigs
in Melanesia, be stretched to include the male of the species.

PRIMITIVE

94

MONEY
'

'

Persian Gulf and the forerunner of the brass-rods or mitako of

the Congo, though material evidence is lacking.
Maspero describes how the dull and sleepy towns of ancient
Egypt woke up completely only three or four times a year for the

These attracted crowds from far and near, some

religious festivals.
'
for religious
travelling great distances in caravans and in boats
sentiments did not exclude commercial interests '. The religious
exercises ended, the market began.
Peasant folk with their cattle,
market gardeners with their vegetables, fishermen and hunters with
their spoil, potters and small tradesmen all offered their wares.
Business was mostly carried on by barter. The purchasers brought
with them some product of their toil, a new tool, a pair of shoes, a reed mat,
pots of unguents or cordials
often, too, rows of cowries and a small box
full of rings, each weighing a tabnti, 1 made of copper, silver or even gold,
all destined to be bartered for such things as they needed.
;

FIG. 28.
(i)

Egyptian.

Gold

rings

(2) Abyssinian

XXth dynasty) can be seen,

pickaxes and clothes make up the
price of a bull or a she-ass, and Maspero, taking his illustrations
from the Saqqara tombs and contemporary market scenes, gives a
lively description of Egyptian trading, but no money enters into the
Lists of the goods exchanged (in the

in

which beds,

sticks,

honey,

oil,

picture (1910, pp. 223-4).

The gold rings from Abyssinia (Fig. 28) form a link with those
of Egypt, and rings or bracelets or bangles of various metals from
Nubia, the Sudan and Uganda trace their spread up the Nile
2
Tin rings were the only currency at El Fasher, in Darfur
Valley.
called
tarneih) ; for higher values cloth, toukkiyeh, was used,
(there

and 30 pieces of cloth were the price of a good slave, i.e. one
measuring six spans from his ankle to the lower part of his ear
and 20 cows with a male and female slave were the usual price of a
;

wife (Ridgeway, 1892, p. 44). Brass rings strung on a leathern

thong were the currency farther south (PL 3, Fig. i), and copper
rings or beads were recognized as currency at Mapungubwe (Fouche,
i937> P- 109, Pis.
1

i.e.

XXXVIII,

Fig. 4,

XXXIX,

Fig.

i).

deben.

2
Earth noted that most of the gold brought into Timbuktu was in the
form of rings (1858, V., p. 22).

AFRICA

Among

warriors and

among

95

agriculturists iron is

more

desirable

than other metals, and over most of Africa provides, as has been seen,
the nearest approach to currency, sometimes in the form of ingots,
large or small, sometimes in rings, sometimes in weapons, more
often in East Africa in actual or potential hoes. 1
The hashshash (Fig. 29) from Kordofan and Darfur is tentatively
included with the hoes. It has been likened in shape to the cross
of St. Anthony, to the cross-section of a mushroom, to the semicircular knife used by leather-cutters, which is believed by some to
be the tool from which it is derived, or an arrowhead, believed by
others to be its prototype.
But it is more likely that it belongs to
the large class of hoe-currency.
The extinct Darfur hoe was of

shape (Arkell, 1937, p. 146, PL XX, Az).

hoe illustrated by Ratzel (1896, I, p. 91) was

The

this

The hoe-money

FIG. 29.

of the Western

Hashshash) Kordofan.

Sudan

(J size)

also,

typical

in the British

FIG. 30.

Kordofan

he says, currency.

Museum,

Sakania, Lake

the

Chad

hachdchah of Wadai (Ridgeway,

1892, p. 45), and the sakania

in
the
Pitt
form intermediate links. This
Rivers
Museum
(Fig. 30)
derivation is also supported by a note contributed by Dr. Hubert

Loewe, whose grandfather, a pioneer

specimen here illustrated.

in Egyptology, collected the

Hash-shash in the dictionaries of Lane and Belot is given only in the

conventional Arabic sense of a man who cuts grass fHashdsh) '. But
'

Dozy's Supplement, p. 289, adds Morceau de fer en forme de faucille et

taille* en pointe aux deux bouts, avec un manche au milieu, qui remplace
beche ou pelle, qui a la
dans le Kordofan tous les instruments aratoires
forme d'un petit croissant dont la partie concave offre un trou dans lequel
"
"
aciche
p^netre le manche en bois de rinstrument. Le mot espagnol
hachette
de
carreleur.'
en
derive,
signifie
qui
;

This second definition favours the leather-cutters' knife derivation.

1

De

Salviac, 1901, illustrates p. 159, Fig. 5, the iron currency of the

Ratzel, 1898, III, p. 37, that of the Jur, Azande and
;

Galla of Abyssinia
others.

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

96

Fifteen of these pieces were equal to the piastre, or about 6^.,

and 60 pieces went to the feogar or piece of cloth, some 9 inches
wide (23 cm.) and 18 to 20 feet long. This
compares with the values given by Powell
Cotton for his kokey ', a similar blade from
the Sara district near Lake Chad (now in the
British Museum) 15 of which were worth
'

franc.

The Bongo

spades provide an interesting

The Bongo live on the
evolutionary
of the Bahr el Ghazal,
the
south
land
to
higher
series.

in a country rich in ironstone, which is entirely

in the swamp region.
So the raw

unknown
iron

is

an important

article of trade

tribes to the north,

with the

exported in three
shapes: mdhee or spearheads, i or 2 feet
l
ill-formed spades
long
loggoh-knUutty,
with the characteristic antennae at the top (cf.
Fi g- l6
Thilenius,
Temple, 1899, pl
It is
'

'

lull

xx

1921, PI. I, Fig. 10) ; and loggoh, called melote

in the market, which are actual spades (Fig. 32).
*

The

loggoh'kullutty

the only equivalent

is

which Central Africa possesses for money of

any description ', said Schweinfurth (1873,
p. 279), but there are even simpler forms, such
as the Tula spade in the Pitt Rivers Museum
still, the flat iron pancakes of the Madi.
Among the Madi (Moru) of the Upper
Nile, wrote Felkin (1884, pp. 350-1)

(Fig. 32), and, simpler

form the chief wealth a rich man may have

many as 200, a very poor one only 3 or 4.
The nearest approach to money is seen in the flat
cattle

as

round pieces of iroA which are of different sizes,

from J to 2 feet in diameter and 5 of an inch thick.
They are much employed in exchange. This is the
form in which they are kept and used as money,
but they are intended to be divided in two, heated
and made into hoes.
Compensation for
killing a woman or any serious crime must be paid
for in cattle.
Payment for a wife must be
made in cows of a year old or in bulls of 2 or 3 years.
.

in

cm

FIG.

31.

Spearhead,

East Africa

The payment for a wife is still the feature which

from

illicit marriage in the

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan,
cash
often
though
supplements or is substituted for the cattle and

distinguishes
1

licit

Resembling the spearhead

illustrated, Fig. 31.

AFRICA

97

iron bars formerly demanded (Nalder, 1937, p. 47).

The iron bars
are destined, as Felkin noted, to be made into hoes, and there are
J
many other references to currency hoes in East Africa, though the
*

exchange

is

Temple

seldom distinguishable from barter.

figures hoes from the Dinka and Shilluk (PL

XX,

Figs,

Schmeltz and de Jong illustrate one from Tanganyika

(PL 63, Figs. 4, 5). It was in Tanganyika that a chief tried to buy
Grant's umbrella for a hoe, and only gave up bargaining when Grant
declared that he would not sell it for 20 cows, a currency the chief
Grant was told that travel through
really understood (1864, p. 87).
the unexplored land to the east of the Wanyoro would be quite easy

n,

12);

FIG. 32.

Melote, Central Africa

FIG. 33.

Tula spade money

if he were provided with a horn filled with charms, and carried 600
iron hoes for presentation, two by two, to each chief whose district

he wished to traverse

(p. 279).

The Wabena

of Tanganyika Territory, south of Iringa, at the

the
of
streams
Rufiji, trade among themselves mostly by barter,
upper
but have a clear idea of what is currency and what is not. Cattle,
goats, cloth and hoes are currency and are accepted as legal tender
and though
for any claim, while salt and fowls, rice and grain are not
these may be commonly used in exchange, no man is bound to
accept them in payment of a debt. So in disputes over marriage
I gave
payments (which are paid in instalments) the man will state
;

'

her father

15$.,

3 hoes, 2 she-goats and 4 kaniki [lengths of black

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

98

cloth] ', but will make no mention of the salt, rice or simsim oil
which were included in the contributions. Three hoes was the
recognized bride-price in the old days, each hoe being a separate
payment and fulfilling a special function. Some of these were made
specially for the purpose and were never used on the land, but were
stored away in the rafters as special treasures.
They might be used
if a son wanted a wife, but were often
kept in the family as treasured
heirlooms, called jembe la maboka, hoes of the spirits ', and handed
down from generation to generation.
'

'

'

Now that

native-made hoes are supplanted by imported ones

at

apiece, the hoe standard is going out of fashion, and payments are
mainly in cash, the average marriage payment being between zos.
and 60$., for public opinion, the influence of the chiefs and that
is.

of the missions
1935, Chaps.

all

unite in opposing extravagant

demands (Culwick,

XII-XV).

FIG. 34.

Brass bracelet,

Uganda

Among the Kavirondo, hoes are exchanged for cattle, a sheep

being worth 3 hoes and a cow 30 (Hobley, 1928, p. 248). Captain
Stigand mentions axes and hoes as sometimes used as money in
the Angoni area, Nyasaland, North-East Rhodesia and
Portuguese
East Africa. Large hoes (khasu) are equal to 4 yards of calico or
small hoes 2 yards or 6d. and axes the same
is.
(1909, p. 43).
'
Special marriage hoes ', too large to be of practical use, were made
'

'

payments to the father of the girl. One of these, from

Northern Uganda, is seen in PI. I, Fig. i. The value of this one
was about los.
The region of the Great Lakes and Uganda was reached by
influences from the Upper Nile and
Egypt, but communication can
never have been easy and, save on the slave-routes, it was
scarcely
explored by the Arabs before it was opened up by Europeans in
solely for

the latter half of last century.

more
tion

So

its

primitive currencies are the

easily traced, and Roscoe (1911, pp. 450^.) collected informaabout the earliest stages. The cow
formed the

naturally

standard of value, and ivory and slaves had their

equivalent in cows,
smaller values being expressed in goats or fowls. Brass bracelets

AFRICA
were

also

used as currency (Fig. 34) and,

99
earlier

still,

beads and

cowries.
It was probably in the time of Semakokiro, grandfather of Suna
(who died about 1857), that cowries were first introduced into
Buganda. He had many elephant hunters, and traded with ivory
in exchange for cotton goods (reserved for royal use) and cowries
brought from the coast at Mombasa. At this time two cowries
would buy a woman. Earlier still small roughly made blue beads,
mpeke and nsinda (Frontispiece, Figs. 3 and 4), were highly valued,
and, still earlier, disks of shell or ivory and strings of wild banana
seeds.
As trade with the Arabs increased and cowries came more

freely into the country a disk

or a blue bead was valued at

100 cowries. In Suna's time

a cow or a male slave was

worth 2,500 cowries, a goat

The
500, and a fowl 25.
larger blue beads were used
for fines on special occasions,
particularly for

any breach of

the marriage regulations. The

defendant might be fined one

bead, which was equivalent to

One
1,500 or 2,000 cowries.
suspects another royal monopoly here, to maintain the
high price of beads, for the
common people were officially
forbidden to traffic in them,
cowries being their current
coin '.
Farther to the west,
*

FIG. 35.

Cowries, Uganda

the Banyoro, cloth and beads had not yet arrived when Grant
was travelling through cattle and barkcloth were their currency with
cowries which had only lately become abundant. A middle-aged

among

man

could remember the time

when 10

cowries could buy a cow,

the reign of Mutesa,
During
(1864, pp. 229, 271).
son of Suna (1857-84), beads dropped in value, and after the introduction of the rupee cowries were exchanged at 1,000 to the rupee. 1
But when the rupee was firmly established, mainly owing to the
building of the railway, and trade goods were current throughout
the country, bride-price ', fines and compensations for injuries had
And even today, although tribal
still to be paid in livestock.

and 30

woman

'

The memory of the cowry-currency is picturesquely preserved in the

postage stamps printed by the mission press in Uganda, with denominations Pf 5 and 10 cowries (Hobley, 1929, p. 247).
1

first

PRIMITIVE

ioo

MONEY

payments are in cash, they are referred to in terms of cattle. The

bride-price will be quoted as 4 cows, even if it is paid in rupees
'

'

cow (Hobley,

or florins, at the recognized market-price for a

1929,

p. 248).

The use of strings of shell and other disks as money is interesting

comparing the similar development in Oceania. Here in East
Africa there were strings of ivory, ostrich egg shell and snailshell
as well as seeds (Figs. 36, 37) which were valued as ornament, and
are all included by Roscoe in currency ', even single disks having
high values (191 1, pp. 412-13). Ivory came first in Buganda, and as
in

'

FIG. 36.

Discs of ivory and

shells,

FIG. 37.

Uganda

Banana seeds,

Uganda

most of the ivory belonged to the King, and most of the skilled ivory
workers were in the royal service, there was a certain restriction on
1
its output, though it was not a royal monopoly.
Ostrich egg shell disks, which are found again among the Bush-

men

of South Africa, are characteristic of many tribes on the eastern

borders of the Victoria Nyanza, though their use as money is not
established.
They are not accepted for bride-price ', which has
'

to be paid in cattle (Northcote, 1907, pp. 59

1

ff.).

doubtful if worked ivory, apart from tusks, was ever used as

money, for the strings of disks had special significance, and could only be
worn by unmarried girls (J. H. Driberg).
It is

AFRICA

101

Strings of snailshell disks are found as ornaments among many

Upper Nile peoples such as the Shuli, Makaraka, Bari-speaking
people and the Madi, and are occasionally used as money. Grant
noticed the large white spiral shells bleaching on the housetops in
the Bari and Madi country. The natives cut them into circles the

of the

and strung hundreds of them to be worn as

girdles round the waist.
They formed the
ordinary coinage, and if beer or fowls were required, they were used
in the purchase (1864, p. 356).
But all of these East African strings
are primarily ornament, and rarely developed into
shell-money
for general commercial use, as they did to the west of the Great
size of shirt-buttons

ornamental white

'

'

Lakes.

Kenya and Tanganyika Territory have little to show in the way

of primitive money.
Cattle provide the standard of wealth and
medium of exchange, with salt and iron in worked or unworked
shapes for ordinary barter. Iron could be used in purchase of slaves
or negotiation for wives, for paying taxes and fines, and had an

The Kavirondo hoe was worth

accepted, if not a fixed, price.
The hut
hoes
of
and
beads,
15 strings
pink
3
equalled i sheep.
tax could be paid in hoes, sheep or rupees, but the tax collector had
to take what he could, and near Victoria Nyanza he collected it in
crocodile eggs (Hobley, 1929, p. 247).
Towards the end of last
century imported iron was one of the main articles of exchange,
used by the agricultural tribes for making hoes, for the Masai for
their

enormous spearheads, and by

all

for

ornament (Stuhlmann,

1910, p. 73).
In the Tabora district of what is now Tanganyika, Speke and
Grant found that our coinage of gold, silver and copper was there

represented by brass or copper wire for sovereigns, calico for silver

and beads for coppers. But not all beads. Goolabee (golabio),
rose-coloured beads, were very popular, but when they ran out,

everything doubled in price

sea-green beads, magee bahr (maji
and pure whites, kanyera, were refused point blank, and
Indian reds, kuhunduguru, were rejected as only fit for uncivilized
peoples to the north. Everything was, however, valued in cattle.
Cows were always at hand to be paid over for services rendered,
for repairing a gun, for curing a chief of blindness, mending a split
ear or extracting a bullet (Grant, 1864, pp. 86, 96).
Cowries were brought in by traders (C. annulus following C.
monetd) though they never became so common a currency as in
Uganda, farther from the sources of supply. The Indian cowries
were brought by the Arabs to Lamu, their trading emporium, and
shipped to Mombasa, the string of 100 being called simbi.
Trade-beads were among early importations. In the i6th
century small red glass beads made in the Kingdom of Cambay
;

bahari),

'

PRIMITIVE

102

MONEY

were used as money in the Kingdom of Monemugi, 1 gold not

being valued (Pigafetta, ed. 1881, p. 124) and beads are still in
common use. The blue and white beads in the frontispiece came
from Ujiji at the end of the notorious slave-route to Zanzibar. Fifty
years ago a string of 20 of these was the unit, and it took 100 strings
to buy a length of white calico.
The string is the kete, which is
'

'

Swahili for cowry, 2 strings are a timba, a bunch of 10

is

a fundo

(a knot).

Maes described the trade-bead currency of the Wania- (or

Bania-) bunga south of Lake Kivu, far in the interior. There the
usual trading medium consisted of strings of red and blue beads.
The red string was worth about a penny. Blue beads were estimated
by weight, and were worth 6 times as much as red ones. But every-

cow was worth 500 bunches (of

thing was valued in red strings.
10 strings)
a large goat or sheep 8 or 10 bunches, 2 lengths of
indigo drill, or i small goat and 2 lengths of americani '. Two
strings would buy 5 eggs ; 3 strings, a fowl ; 4, a stem of bananas.
One string would buy a small pot ofpombe beer, and a bunch a large
;

'

pot (Maes, 1911, p. 64).

In the Tabora market Captain Stairs noticed that the food was
set out in small quantities equivalent to a string of beads.
Thus for
i
string you could buy 7 small pieces of dried manioc or 10 fresh,
an ounce of bhang (hemp), 3 large sweet potatoes, a small cup of
ground nuts or beans, or 2 spoonfuls of native salt. The highest
unit was the shuka, 30 strings of beads or a length of cloth.
This
would buy a native hoe or a dozen eggs. The beads were exchanged
for cloth as soon as a seller had collected enough, just as we exchange
our coppers for silver, and the cloth was used for purchases of higher
values.
Two pieces are the doti, 8 pieces the jora and 20 the korja

Mahieu, 1924, pp. 124-5).

(cf.

In the Rhodesias and Nyasaland currency can scarcely be said

to have existed before the coming of the whites.
Cattle, sheep,
goats and hoes were the recognized values for bride-price and
'

'

fines.
All trading was done by exchange, and still is, except where
there are towns, or natives returned from the mines or otherwise
influenced from outside. Arab and Portuguese traders introduced
cowries and trade-beads, blue and white representing different values,
measured in teaspoonfuls or dessertspoonfuls for small amounts, and
handfuls for large. Beads were the popular trading-goods of the
Swahili and Chikunda slaving and ivory parties up to the end of
last century in Northern Rhodesia, and large translucent barrel-beads
about i X | inch (28 X 17 mm.) were used in exchange. A girdle
sufficient to encircle the slave offered for sale was the price of a male
1

Monemugi,

in Pigafetta's

map,

Zanzibar, perhaps Unyamwesi.

is

mountainous country due west from

AFRICA

103

or female, and a long necklace was usually added to the cloth paid
for a tusk.
The beads were used by the natives for fines, especially
as damages in action for adultery, and could be paid by a chief to

ransom a

slave (Brelsford, 1937,. pp. 74-7).

Together with cattle, slaves and ivory, the handsome impande

ornaments of Conus whorls were regarded as wealth. These, as
well as pieces cut from the sides, were worn as charms and as insignia
of office or rank. Long cylindrical beads, ^\ inches (6-7 cm.) long
or large round beads nearly i inch each way have been handed down

many generations and are used in presentations and exchanges

over a wide area.
According to tradition it was Bulongo, the arch-demigod in the
Ba-Ila pantheon, who first brought these shells and beads into
Northern Rhodesia.
In the old days you took a string of beads,

for

'

long enough to go round your neck

and down to the navel, and bought
an awfully nice girl with it (Smith
and Dale, 1920, II, p. 195, cf.
'

illustration, I, p. 100).

The Ba-Ila

have no idea of the value of gold,

and men return

from Kimberley with the belief
silver or copper,

that the white people are digging

there for impande shells.
Cattle

are used for wergeld, 20 for homicide,

and misdeeds other than

witchcraft, are atoned for

fines.

in

by lesser
Impande shells figure largely

chico

or marriage payments,

FIG. 38.

Katanga cross, N. Rhodesia

together with cattle, salt, tobacco,

beads and, nowadays, shillings (ibid., II, p. 50). Salt may be called
a form of currency.
It is obtained, as in the Congo, by evaporating
saline earth, and is collected in long, cylindrical baskets, 5 of which
are the price for a male calf, 3 for a suckling calf, and 20 for a heifer
(ibid.,

I,

p.

148).

crosses of Katanga type (cf. pp. 77 ff.) are not unin the Rhodesias
they are found in ruins associated

Copper

common

with Zimbabwe culture in Southern Rhodesia and are still current

in trading in the North.
The usual form here weighs about
ij pounds and lacks the typical central ridge (Figs. 38, 118 (^)and
Fig. 3

on PL

i).

Ingots in lumps and bars are also of local origin.

Copper was
of
Northern
districts
in
the
rich
worked
formerly extensively
Rhodesia, and the conquering Kasemba (Lunda) extorted tribute
from subjugated chiefs in the form of copper bars. These were

PRIMITIVE

io4

MONEY

given as presents and used in exchange for salt, flour and other
provisions (Burton, 1873, pp. no, 125, &c.).
One of the roughly smelted bars now in the Livingstone Memorial
Museum measures 3 feet 10 inches (i m. 17 cm.) long by 4 inches
(10 cm.) thick, it weighs 70 pounds and consists of 98 per cent pure
slightly smaller example in the Hamburg Museum
copper.
case
is just over i m. long, shaped like an exaggerated
currency
I ', spreading out over 15 inches (39-5 cm.) at top and
capital
bottom. 1
Cowries and beads lingered on in parts of Portuguese East Africa,
though cattle, especially goats, provided the standard of value and
Other goods, such as
the chief items in lobolo or bride-price '.
barkcloth, hoes, beads or rings, used in exchange for goats thereby
acquired a definite lobolo value.
Junod gives the sequence of the objects used for lobolo among the

'

'

Thonga.
consisted in mats and baskets, in those remote times when White
made their appearance. The large iron rings were
produced by barter from sailors who anchored off the shore, and were
employed for the purpose. Later on white traders settled in the country.
'Beads were bought from them (nkarara) especially large ones (mubathvana).
chief used to lobola with 10 handfuls of them, a subject with only 5.
Large brass rings [some weigh more than 2 pounds] were also used in old
times.
They were called litlatla y and were very much sought after.
One was enough to buy a wife (1912, pp. 258-9).
First

it

people had not yet

Cattle here, as among the Zulu, were the regular means of getting
a wife, but when, early in the igth century, the Thonga were raided
by the Angoni, all their cattle were taken, and they had to fall back
on hoes and beads. Ten oxen were the usual lobolo, and 10 hoes,
unless oxen were available.
This was from 1840 to 1870. But
when the natives began to work in the mines and coinage was
introduced (about 1870) 10 hoes were equivalent to
i, and the
chiefs fixed the lobolo money at
8.
Later it went as far as
20
for

an ordinary

to

Junod

and 30 for a chief's daughter.

enter into fines and wergeld.
It was explained

girl,

Oxen and hoes

:

killed a man by accident in a hunting trip, for instance,

will try to arrange matters directly with his relatives if you were good
friends ; your relatives will give them a girl. . . .
They will accompany

Should you have

you

her with 10 hoes and an ox, saying

'

This

is fat

to

smear our daughter.'

The girl is not regarded as a life for a life but as a means of supplying the deficiency caused by the accident. As soon as she has
borne a child, she is free (1912, p. 415).
'

'

1
The Horniman Museum exhibits a piece of copper in the form of an
elongated axe-head neatly finished and polished as Northern Rhodesian
currency.

AFRICA

105

In Gazaland white beads (tshifula) were probably introduced by

the Arabs or by early Portuguese settlers, and these are worn in
initiation ceremonies and were exchanged for goats for lobolo.
Bright
blue beads of Dutch origin came later and these are still of intrinsic
Metal
if not of currency value, and are worn by medicine men.
Zulu
of
are
brass
solid
of
or
probably
(Fig. 39)
titlatd)
rings (tibbetu
the
of
mother
The
dances.
ritual
in
used
are
as
Ngoni
they
origin,
held aloft one of these rings bemoaning the loss of

bridegroom
The bridegroom would
cattle which her son had paid for lobolo.
the
middle of it, at the
in
coin
a
the
with
nowadays
ring,
present
These rings, together with all the other gifts or
feet of the bride.
payments, would have to be returned if the marriage negotiations
were broken off or the marriage dissolved; They are kept tied up
in a bundle, and the father of the bride would use them to lobola
another wife for himself or for one of his sons (Earthy, 1933, p. 137).

FIG. 39.

Brass lobolo ring, Portuguese East

Gold bar,
Mozambique

FIG. 40.

Africa

Gold ingots

are rare in currency collections, so attention may

to the barrinha (or little bar) of Maria II from Mozambique
These were issued in 1835, weighing about 222 gr.,
(Fig. 40).
and worth 7\ maticaes. The star, which shows that it is genuine,

be called

was added over the M. for Mozambique^ after 1851. The gold
comes from the Sena district up the Zambezi, and the pieces were
still

legal tender,

with the value of 6,600

reis,

in 1892 (Numismatic

Chronicle, 1892, p. 330).

Before leaving North and East Africa, a word should be said

about the most popular money, the talari* or Maria Theresa dollar
of 1780, even though it is not primitive currency. Quite why this
particular coin should -have such a widespread popularity is not
It went out of use in Austria in 1854, but the issue was
clear.
continued for export, and over 2,000,000 were minted between
1891 and 1896. The demand still exceeded the supply, and in

1936 the Royal Mint was authorized to strike these coins to assist
and issued 150,000. In The Times (30.5.38) we read

British trade,

Perhaps the most picturesque coin issued [from the Royal Mint] in
1937 was the Maria Theresa thaler or dollar. This coin which bears the
1

talari

Arabic form of thaler.

PRIMITIVE

io6

MONEY

effigy of the Empress Maria Theresa and which is dated 1780, circulates
freely in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the Colony of Aden, and the Arab
territories along the Red Sea.
During the past year or two the Royal Mint,
for some reason, has been called upon to strike large quantities of this historic
coin.
The Italian Government has also struck large quantities of this
same coin for use in Abyssinia.

As a

rule coins of dead sovereigns are not acceptable, as the coins

considered
dead '. Maria Theresa certainly died in 1780,
are
too,
so it is curious that it is the coin of that date which has continued
'

more than a century and a half. At

Upper Sankuru in 1920, the Albert I francs

in circulation so generally for

Kanda Kanda, on

the

were worth

100 little blue beads, mitunda

but the francs of
Leopold II, he being dead, were worth only 80. The Sower, being
an immortal symbol, might be expected to maintain a steadier value
than a coin of Maria Theresa, but the natives, being accustomed to
busts, called it makulu, the legs ', looked on it with disfavour, and
estimated it at only 60 little blue beads (Mahieu, pp. 66, 71, 130-1).
Maria Theresa, 1 however, supplies the trading-currency all across
Africa, and is met with even in the markets of Nigeria and the Gold
Coast.
But values are very variable, ranging from zs. to 6$., and the
coins are used by the traders rather than the natives, who, even in
;

'

them altogether.
Major Powell Cotton started from Addis Ababa
1,500 Maria Theresa dollars,

Abyssinia, often reject

in 1899 with

but the natives were most particular about the look of these coins and the
farther one got from the capital the more difficult they were to please.
Every piece offered was carefully scrutinized, generally in consultation with
one or two friends.
new one or one that was much worn, or on which
the ornaments of the neck, especially the points of the star, were not clear
was at once rejected. I had as many as thirty of these coins refused out of
fifty, but fortunately no two men agreed, so that when I reached Asmara

only twenty-five out of the fifteen hundred remained unacceptable (The

Times, J7.6.38).

Officially the Maria Theresa dollar is doomed in Abyssinia, as

the patented rust-proof Acmonital steel coins, issued on October 28,
1938 (i7th anniversary of the Fascist March on Rome), were intended
to replace all earlier issues.
But a people who still use salt and
1
Barth gives the value of the dollar as worth 2,500 cowries in Kano,
3,200 in Bornu, though they were not accepted in the market there (1858,
II, p. 311) ; Binger in 1887 found it worth 5,000 cowries (or the equivalent
in gold) at Salaga in the Gold Coast (1892, II, p. 104).
2
The same suspicions and, it may be noted, the same preferences for a
portly female on the coins, may be seen in many other parts of the world,
and Queen Victoria shares the popularity of Maria Theresa. Le May tells
how a whole consignment of King George rupees had to be returned by
road and rail to Bangkok, as the coolies refused to take them.

AFRICA
l

107

cartridges
may not be quick to recognize the
of
superiority
patented rust-proof Acmonital steel over the handsome
Maria Theresa dollars, with a silver content of over 83 per cent.
Some of the Congo currencies trickled over into South Africa,
as their currency

and copper crosses and iron gongs have been found in early gold
workings or settlements, while cowries, beads, and iron bars were

common

in coastal trading here, as in the rest of Africa.

There is one form of native currency which has, so far, been

found nowhere save in the Palaborwa district of the North-East
Transvaal. This is the KraK which may be described as a copper
9

ingot arrested in making a rod or bar.

common method of making copper rods was to choose a reed,
cover it with clay, with a clay funnel at the end for the molten metal
to pour in.
When the metal was cooled the clay and reed were
broken away. The lirali consists of the long copper rod, still
attached to the runner or mass of copper in the funnel, from which
there still project (in most examples) a varied number of short rods
or
root-like bars '.
The first specimen to attract attention in
was
the
one
exhibited and described by Bartels (1893,
Europe
p. 320, ill.) which was obtained from the Makwapa (Thonga) nicknamed Knobnoses. The projecting rods were taken to represent
air vents in the original funnel, but this interpretation is not altogether satisfactory, and the origin and significance of these projections is so far unexplained.
Haddon procured two specimens of marali in 1905, one of which
is illustrated on PL i, Fig. 9.
These rods were used in former times
in bride-price for wives of chiefs, and were worth 10 cows, but
reduced later to 2 cows and 3 she-goats. Copper ore is abundant
in the North-Eastern Transvaal, but the low-lying area is infested with
tsetse fly and unsuitable for cattle, so it is suggested that the marali
(probably the work of the Balemba) were used instead (cf. Haddon,

'

'

'

'

1
;
,
908, 66 ; Lindblom, ibid. , 1 926, 90).
the
Hottentots
the
and
Bushmen no native money is
Among
met with, though rings had exchange values among the Hottentots,
The only claimants for admission to a collection
as among the Zulu.
of currency are the strings of Bushman beads.
These are made of
ostrich shell which is chipped into disks like the shell-money of
Oceania. And, like the shell-money of the Gilberts and Malekula,
these white disks are interspersed with black, the contrast being
provided here by disks of skin instead of coconut. These strings
were traded, as well as pelts, for tobacco and iron, a string 12 feet
long, taking 3 months to make, fetching a handful of raw tobacco,
worth 2$. or 35. (Goodwin, 1937, p. 189).

Man, 1 908, 65 Hemsworth, ibid.

1
T*(T

The

cartridges

of the dollar.

must be new, with paper band

intact,

when they

equal

Chapter

VI

OCEANIA
i.

iv.

and Melanesia in general.

it. Polynesia.
Hi. Micronesia
Australia,
Micronesia, v. Melanesia : A. Bismarck Archipelago ; B. Solomon
Islands to New Caledonia ; C. New Guinea ; D. Rossel Island
i.

His best

AUSTRALIA

riches, ignorance of wealth.

GOLDSMITH

OCEANIA provides illustrations of all the stages in the evolution

of money, for it includes Australia and Polynesia, in which no native
currencies developed
and Micronesia and Melanesia, in which
we can recognize all the human gradations from present-givers and
barterers to communities of commercially minded traders, with
:

monetary systems more complicated than our own.

Australia is one of the largest areas occupied by man with no
native currency.
This blank may be attributed to several causes,
among which geographical isolation and uniformity, together with
a lack of acquisitiveness among the inhabitants, are recognized as
the most conspicuous. This lack of trading instinct is primarily
due to their mode of life, for to a wandering folk property has little
When an Arunta man decides to move camp he picks up
appeal.
his spears, his wife snatches up the household goods, grinding-stones,
'

'

babies, puppies, and digging-stick, and in three minutes they are

ready for the journey. The woman, being the carrier, does not

encourage her husband to acquire extra property. This may to some

extent account for the absence of all inquisitiveness and eagerness
to trade noted by many early travellers, especially when comparing
the Australians with their Melanesian neighbours.
The Australians
were not even interested in beads and gew-gaws, though iron and glass,
substituting stone for their implements, were greedily welcomed.
There is, however, organized trading in the North of Australia,
where the natives may in this as in other ways owe something to
influence from Melanesia.
And the dependence of trade on inof
natural
equality
products is clearly seen in Queensland.
The principal trade articles are shells, only procurable on the
Coast ; ochre for personal decoration
stone for implementfrom
the
most
and,
making
important of all, pituri
Selwyn Ranges,
'
or wild tobacco leaves, 1 which are chewed as a narcotic.
Man
;

1
Not Duboisia hopzvoodii, as
Cleland, 1933-4, pp. 280-2.

commonly
108

stated

cf.

Johnstone and

OCEANIA
must sometimes seek

relief

from

his

109

memory

and

',

this

means of

producing a pleasantly voluptuous dreamy sensation was widely

appreciated and traded in quids which could be stuck behind the
ear.
Shells found their way down to Merion Downs and beyond
In between, ochre and stones travelled
pituri returned to the Coast.
north, south and west, and various articles were made specially for
;

here a special type of boomerang or spear ; there fishingnets or throwing-sticks, but none of these developed into what can
be called money. 1 This may be described as trading and attributed
to the natural working of the laws of supply and demand, but it

exchange

probably owes its inception to the system of present-giving or giftexchange, which is prominent in the Northern Territory where it
has been specially studied by Stanners (1934, pp. 156 ff.). The
system of delayed economic exchanges here called merbok, may
be compared to the kula cycle of the eastern end of New Guinea,
in which certain articles
in Australia red and yellow ochre, white
'

hair

clay,

ornaments

boomerangs, spears, beeswax and pearl-shell

These
travel along definite routes in friendly exchange.

belts,

are supplemented nowadays by imported trade-goods, of

trade tobacco is the nearest approach to currency.

which

'

'

McCarthy has mapped the surprisingly extensive trade routes

in Australia and notes the special significance of red ochre and of
pituri, which are not uncommonly found in collections of primitive
money, but he insists that no [native] medium of exchange or
'

measure of value was or

is

employed anywhere

in the continent

(i939> P- i?8).

ii.

POLYNESIA

At first sight it appears surprising that the Polynesians, the most

advanced people of the South Seas, never developed a currency,
while most intricate systems were evolved by their less advanced
neighbours in Melanesia. Money is a curious companion to pottery
and the bow and arrow, which appear to have been lost on the way
But geographical conditions and the
to their ultimate island homes.
systems supply the explanation.
man does not work, neither shall he eat is unintelligible in
Bountiful nature encourages careless giving, rather than
Polynesia.
niggardly hoarding or commercial keenness, and although presents
social
'

'

If

'

here, as elsewhere, expect a return, native currencies are

'

unknown.

When all that a man wants can be had for the asking, or taken without
explanation, there is no need for money, and in the social system of
Polynesia, with strong kinship obligations, money plays no part.
1

See Ling Roth's map, 1908, opp. p.

2.

PRIMITIVE

io

MONEY

There was no money or any articles which could be used as a standard

The communistic customs according
of exchangeable value in Samoa.
to which every member of the family could beg without fear of refusal
any articles belonging to a member of the same family practically prevented
any great extension of trade. Each household supplied itself with almost
everything that was necessary for common use, or for the purchase of
.

imported

articles

(Brown, G., 1910, pp. 304-5).

Firth has made a special study of a people without money, and

with no need for money, in Tikopia (cf. p. 7), and describes how
their economic activities are admirably managed not only .with no
medium of exchange, but without markets or organized barter.
Fiji stands midway between Polynesia and Melanesia and shares
the characteristics of both, but no development of commercial
activity can be expected, first, because of its natural endowment, next,
on account of Fijian social customs.

The Fijians have no spur to the acquisition of money except the desLe
for some particular luxury.
The earth need only be tickled to laugh back
in harvest.
Most of the necessities of life are produced equally in every
When a native takes produce to the market it is for no abstract
village.
desire for the possession of money ; he has in mind a definite object upon
which the proceeds should be spent ; a new sulu [cloth], a lamp, or a conIf he has no such object, he will let
tribution to the missionary meeting.
the surplus produce of his garden or his net decay rather than undergo the
trouble of taking it to the market (Thomson, 1908, p. 83).
Neither does Fijian society provide a stimulus to money-making.
*
Present-giving is exalted into prominence but the prevalent communism discourages individual enterprise.
The commoner reckons
his wealth, not by the amount of his property, but by the number
of friends from whom he can beg (p. 79).
Present-giving attained such prominence that the borderline
between presents and currency is very faint. Certain objects used
in presentations acquired a conventional value and were used also
in exchanges, and hoarded as wealth
Fijian tambua are found in
almost all collections of primitive currency, and orange cowries, tapa
and feathers are equally admissible or inadmissible. Tambua
(Pis. 4, 5) are traditionally derived from wooden banana-like objects
which were later made in cachalot whale ivory. They were bartered
for sandalwood by early traders, but their chief function was, and
still is, to serve in ceremonial
youth when courtpresent-giving.
ing a maiden will take a tooth in his hand, and its acceptance implies
a sacred obligation on her part similar to that of an engagement
'

'

and no important official reception is complete without presentation of tambua.

The larger and redder the tooth the higher
the value, so sections were joined together to make abnormally sized
ring,

'

The

Fijian solevu

is

'

described above, pp. 15-16.

OCEANIA

in

tambua a foot and more in length, and a deep orange colour was
produced by turmeric dye.
The orange cowries, Cypraea aurora (PL 5), were ornaments of
high value, usually worn on the chest. A Fijian chief told Baron
A. von Hugel that one of these was worth many whale's teeth, and
but neither shells
whales' teeth are carved to represent the shells
nor teeth were used as money.
Plaited mats are often called currency in Samoa, and may be
seen in company with African mat-money in museum collections. 1
artificially

Mats were evidence of wealth and position ; they were security for house
or canoe building
they were part of the bridal dowry, especially for
they secured adherents in battle and rewarded services
daughters of chiefs
rendered. They played their part in political alliances and in peacemakings, and were presented or exchanged on all important occasions. The
fineness of the plaiting, the age and history of the mats all contributed to
their estimation, and the older ones, darkened with age, with red feathers
or fringes of red along the edges would be up to a hundred dollars in value.
Their function in mercantile, social and political life gives them a claim to
be considered as the nearest approach to currency in Polynesia (G. Brown,
;

1910, p. 304).
'

'

Pieces of Samoan tapa have been described as paper money

as they are used not only for presentations but also for interchange
of property. These were small bits worth is. or 2$., with larger
Pieces
sheets for mosquito screens, valued at four or five dollars.
of tapa served the same purposes of present-giving and exchange in
Fiji, and there the value was enhanced by a stamp, the purple circle
associated with chiefs.

The

early traders fostered the use of whales' teeth, shells and

this justifies their inclusion in

mats in barter with the natives and

collections of primitive
its

development.

iii.

money

as illustrating a transition stage in

MICRONESIA AND MELANESIA IN GENERAL

In a world map showing the distribution of currency many

thousands of square miles covering Australia and the Polynesian
Islands including New Zealand must be left blank.
In direct contrast Micronesia and Melanesia show the most
abundant, most varied and most complicated forms of money, the
In some
delight of the collector and the despair of the cataloguer.
parts, notably New Britain and the Banks' Islands, money and
1
There is a fine collection in the Hamburg Mus.
Mosher illustrates one at Buffalo (1936, p. 42).

The

below

(p.

f.

Volkerkunde, and

string of flying-fox teeth collected as currency in Fiji

128 n. t Fig. 48).

is

noted

H2

PRIMITIVE

MONEY

money-making are more all-important and absorbing than in

communities, and the complexities of the monetary system
of Rossel Island, though (or for some readers because) described
by economists by means of mathematical formulae, are not easy
civilized

to grasp.

In any chance collection of currency (ignoring those of special

spear ', axe ', or hoe
areas) the commonest labels (if any) are
money from Africa or shell-money from the South Seas '. And
it is perhaps significant that these two areas are the eastward and
westward limits of the Negro or Negroid race. Also that while iron
is one of the most valued
products of Africa, there is none available
in Oceania, and shell takes the place of metal for use, and far more
successfully for ornament.
Cowries and olives may serve as money here, as in Africa,
though their appreciation is less commercial than artistic. The
ordinary cowries are not counted in thousands, but are back-broken
for threading and stitched into decorative strips
olives are not
valued by the basketful, but in necklaces.
Further comparisons between African and Oceanic currencies
may be made. Iron is not evenly distributed over Africa, and the
smiths form a special class, if not a special caste, the mystery of their
craft enhancing the value of their products.
Similarly, although
shells are abundant in Oceania, they are not always easy to collect in
'

'

'

'

shark-infested waters
craft,

requiring

skill

'

'

and the making of shell-money is a special

and training as well as magic, and usually

shrouded in such secrecy that even those who habitually used it for
trading knew nothing of its origin.
Lastly, in Oceania, as in Africa, the development of currency is
attributed to a clash of race and culture.
The modification of a
stock
infiltration
a
negroid
by
higher
produced the Bantu in the
West and the Melanesian in the East and some of the objects used
as money gained their prestige from their association with intrusive
;

culture.

lively trade, elaborate currencies,

keen traders and grasping

The islands are

pictured as being naturally supplied with all the
necessaries of life
roots, fruits and vegetables &c. on the land
turtle
&c. in the sea. But while this may serve for
molluscs, fish,
a description of much of Polynesia, or even of Micronesia, closer
investigation shojvs that it is rarely true of Melanesia or New Guinea.
'
Islands, in spite of their double larder advantages, cannot escape
the comparative poverty imposed by isolation, and it is the smaller
Foodstuffs
outlying coral islands that supply most of the currency.
here are not superabundant, sometimes there is no soil or space
all provision comes from the sea,
for gardens or even for pigs
money-makers seem out of place

in Oceania.

commonly

'

OCEANIA

113

There is no superfluity to be used in

actually scarce.
nothing will keep for long to provide for hungry times.
So some form of storeable wealth is desirable and shell-money
or its equivalent provides the obvious durable, portable, divisible
and easily recognizable form. Its social and religious uses increase
its significance.
For when not only life in this world, by rising in
social grades, but happiness in the next, depends on accumulated
wealth, money attains an exaggerated importance, and the love of
and food

is

exchange

'

the despair of missionary effort.

Rivers when discussing Communism and Money ascribes the
change from communism to individualism to the effect of immigrants
from Polynesia into Melanesia.
it is

thoroughly communistic people can have no use for money among

If they possess anything which can be regarded as currency
can only be used in transactions with other peoples (1914, p. 385).

themselves.
it

There

is evidence of various streams of migration into Melanesia,

a kava-using people with secret society cults and special
of
especially
burial rites, and a betel-using people with different forms of burial.
The intimate connexion between shell-money and secret societies
shows that they belong to the same culture, and suggests an explanation of the use of money in an area which formerly had no need of it.
This need was primarily the purchase of wives.
It was suggested in an earlier chapter that a main factor in the
evolution of money was the custom or necessity of making presents
or payments on marriage.
In Melanesia the immigrants arriving
in canoes would bring few if any women with them and the necessity

was urgent. Sister-exchange being impossible some substitute had

to be found and some bribe offered.

The custom of paying for a wife [says Rivers] would result as the need
of the immigrant men for women among whom they had settled.
The
origin of payment for a wife and the beginning of the use of money in
Melanesia may thus form two aspects of one and the same problem (1914,
.

PP. 384-9).

Admission

and steps up in, the secret societies were accompanied by money payments which emphasized its importance.
Money was also essential for burial rites. So it is easy to see how
its acquisition could develop into an obsession.
Shell-money is the popular name for the strings of disks which
form the principal ornaments and currency in Oceania, and Shellmoney, South Sea Islands used to be considered an amply descriptive label for all the varieties of the Western Pacific.
Further
into,

'

'

'

'

classification is beset

with

difficulties.

The

identification of the shell itself is complicated by the loss

of its characteristics in the process of shaping into disks, especially

when

these are very small

and

artificially

coloured.

The

source

is

PRIMITIVE

ii4

MONEY

discover in objects passing so readily from hand to hand

to island, and specially made for distribution.
For
are
shell-strings
rarely currency, though they may be prized as
ornaments, in the places where they are made. To enhance their
difficult to

and from island

value, as has happened with beads and cowries, the secrets of their
source and their manufacture were carefully guarded, information
to obtain, and where obtained from the natives has
often been intentionally misleading. This is the more tantalizing
since shell-money has special significance in theories of distribution
is still difficult

and borrowings. Those who are impressed by the similarities,

assume the spread of an invention from a single centre throughout
the Western Pacific.
Others, more struck by the contrasts, and
especially by the variations in the methods of manufacture, cannot
recognize this unity, and claim that this diversity and the occurrence
of similar types in Africa and also in America, point to separate
1
origins and independent invention.
Fortunately both shells and shell-money have attracted considerable attention, and the labours of Schneider, edited and
amplified by Ribbe (1905), of Lewis (1929) and of Petri (1936),

name but a few, have cleared the way for the cataloguer.
Schneider, with 13 plates and a few text figures, illustrates over 70
different types
Lewis has 25 plates and about 70 types also. But
the casual observer finds it difficult to recognize
overlaps, and the
confusion of names, the contradictory statements of competentobservers, besides the absence of colour in the illustrations, all make
classification the work of a specialist.
Strings that to the unpractised
eye look exactly alike may be made of entirely different shells, and
belong to different island groups, if not to different cultures, so that
any attempt at identification by means of book-illustrations is unwise.
Labels on museum specimens add to the confusion. Shellto

strings were used by the early traders and spread by them

'
'
to island.
mixed the products and
Black-birding
upset the culture of Melanesia, as the slave trade did in Africa,
only on a smaller scale. Red strings were bought for is. in the
Solomons at the end of last century and traded for 25$. worth of

money

from island

gold dust in New Guinea. Travelling in the contrary direction a

string of New Guinea sapi-sapi in the Cambridge collection is marked
Santa Cruz
on
Ulawa, Solomon Islands on one label and
another.
The name of one kind was transferred to another kind
and became the pidgin-English for shell-money, or even, like
'

'

'

in America, for money in general.

Hence such names
as sapi-sapi in New Guinea, tapsoka in New Hanover, diwarra or
tambu in
Britain, pele in Duke of York, arangit or kokonon in

wampum

New

Cf. Schurtz, 1898, p. 164

PP- 55I-4-

Heine-Geldern, 1932,

map

Petri, 1936,

OCEANIA

115

New Ireland, som in the Banks' Islands, &c. &c., are very loosely
used and have often lost their original significance.
It Mill simplify descriptions and avoid repetitions if shell-money
strings are roughly classified, not according to the shell, which is
often unidentifiable, but according to the technique, which is obvious
to all.
For convenience the four main types may be called
:

1.

South-Sea or sapi-sapi type. Disks strung parallel like ordinary beads in a necklace (Frontispiece, Figs, i, 2).
Edge-to-edge or pig-money type, PI. 15 (detail in Fig. 71).
Diwarra type, when the backs of Nassa shells are broken and
the mouths strung parallel (like beads) typically on stiff
cane (PI. 10, Fig. i and Fig. 55).
Tautau type, when the mouths are strung so that they lie
'

'

2.
3.

4.

or overlap (Figs. 69, 70).

flat
'

The South-Sea

'

or sapi-sapi type is found generally throughout

the Western Pacific including Micronesia, the coasts (but only the
coasts) of New Guinea, and all of Melanesia,
Inside
attenuating towards New Caledonia.
this wide circle the diwarra type has its wellknown centre in the Gazelle Peninsula in the
Bismarck Archipelago. The tautau type is a
method of attaching Nassa shells in New Guinea,
but is often used for cowries also, and is more

common for ornament than for currency. The

edge-to-edge stringing, characteristic of New
Ireland, where hundreds of fathoms are made
up into birok or pig-money is found in ornamental dangles at the ends of currency strings
in the Solomons (PI. 16, Fig. i), and attached
*

to currency objects in

and

Fig. 71)

(cf.

'

New

Guinea

(Pis. 13,

Foy, 1913, pp. I34-4?)-

14

The methods of making shell disks are

naturally influenced by the size and shape of
the shell, but the methods also differ widely
from

island to island, if not from generation to

The central hole may be bored

generation.
laboriously

by means of a pointed

stick or stone,

FIG.

Shell

ham-

41.
sand and water
but the pump drill (PI. 13,
mer, Reef Islands,
Santa Cruz
Fig. 14) is used in Micronesia, the Bismarcks,
the Solomons and New Guinea and as far south
as the New Hebrides and New Caledonia.
Men or boys usually
collect the shells, but the disk-making is woman's work.
;

It is

tions of

seen again in currency strings in Borneo (PI. 24) and in decorajewel feather baskets in the New World (p. 297 n.).

Pomo

PRIMITIVE

ii6

MONEY

The usual plan is to break up the pieces of shell into suitably

small fragments roughly circular, 1 which are then pierced for stringWhen threaded, the whole string can be ground down between
ing.
two stones, to make it even. This is suitable for the finer pieces of
shell, but thicker pieces need to be ground down before stringing.
This may be done by fixing the fragment in the end of a stick or
piece of wood, which is rubbed on a stone and the shell ground
down to the right smoothness, first on one side, then on the other.
Each disk may be ground separately, as in the Bismarcks and the
Banks' Islands, or several may be stuck on to a large piece of wood,

FIG. 42.

Rubbing stone and

shells,

Reef Islands, Santa Cruz

as in the Admiralties, New Guinea or the Solomons, or into

depressions in a block of soft stone, as in the Reef Islands, Santa

Cruz

(Fig. 42).

Small pointed shells such as conus do not require drilling, and

2
Codrington's account of sow-making in the Banks' Islands describes
another process.

The body of the shell is broken, and the tip rubbed on a stone by means
of a pointed stick inserted in the broken end till the hollow of the shell
1

Steps in the process can be seen in PL 6.

Codrington collected his information in the Banks' Islands between
1863 and 1887. When Rivers was there in 1908 the method of making
sow was slightly different, and is described below (p. 165).
2

OCEANIA

117

reached ; into the hole thus appearing at the tip of the shell the stick is
then inserted, and the broken base ground smooth on the stone. There
is thus a shell used for each disk, and no drill is needed, as indeed none
is known (1891, pp. 325-6).
is

Shell-strings are vanishing from most of Melanesia, their place

being taken commercially by trade-tobacco and coins, and as
ornament by European beads, so that the manufacture is almost
a lost art.
It is still lively in the Bismarcks, but in the Solomons
persisted lately only in a few outlying islands.
Fifty years ago Elton
noted how tobacco and axes were used by the traders in the Solomons,
for paying the natives who had no idea of the value of coins.
One
man, being paid a sovereign, paid it away to another trader for a
box of matches (1888, pp. goff.). Shillings were accepted in most
The standard
parts, but tobacco was necessary for small change.
Melanesian stick is 7 inches long (18 cm.), \ inch wide and J inch
thick, and this is the official payment for carriers in the Bismarcks
2 sticks per man per day in New Ireland. One stick
a copra
Three sticks
a shilling in
string (of 10 nuts) in the Solomons.
the New Hebrides. 1 Nevertheless, for all-important transactions,
for buying pigs, and above all, wives, native money is essential.
In
:

the Admiralties, where dogs' teeth are the money most highly valued,
many a young fellow returning from the plantations rolling in riches
is unable to marry owing to his lack of dogs' teeth (Biihler, 1934, p.
4).
Shell-money is practically indestructible. Coloured disks may
lose colour, and strings often break, but value does not lessen with
The Southern Solomon Islanders, however, think differently.
age.

In Malaita

may be
Auki

is

all

important payments must be in

new money and

it

that this necessity has preserved a flourishing industry here.

a small island off the South- West Coast of Malaita and the

centre of the shell-making industry for the eastern islands.

The
island is an artificial one, and is almost covered by the village, with
no space for gardens, so that the people are forced to obtain their
food from the mainland. Although constantly at war, there are
regular market days two or three times a week when a truce is
declared and the people meet in some neutral spot on the mainland
shore.
The women advance towards each other, offering a fish or
a yam, as the case may be, while behind each stands her husband,

with poised spear (Woodford, 1897, p. 32

1908, 43).
The women (and the baby) in PL 6 are engaged in money-making
First the shells (Spondylus) are broken up into bits of
at Auki. 2
convenient size, by pounding with a stone hammer on a stone anvil.
;

1
Miss Cheeseman found tobacco sticks indispensable on Malekula as
no one could otherwise be induced to work (1935, p. 45).
a
The photograph was taken by Mr. Templeton Crocker, by whom
some handsome strings, together with the manufacturing outfit, were
collected and presented to the Cambridge Collection.

PRIMITIVE

ii8

The

MONEY

put in indentations on the flat face of a wooden

which has been covered with paste to keep them in place,
and rubbed down with sandstone. The bits are then drilled,
threaded and ground down evenly between two boards, making a
bits are next

block,

noise (as

Woodford

describes

strings

still

it)

how

It is difficult to decide

like a

far

wood-sawyer's yard.
ornaments made of shell-money

retain their exchange value.

The

strings are looped

round the neck, but are also ordinary currency, a length being
detached or added as necessity arises. When the strings are made
up into necklets, it may enhance the money value (as in the case
of the samakupd) or it may relegate them to the class of mere
ornament.

A good illustration is provided by the necklaces or girdles, forehead or arm-bands made of parallel strings of shell-money with
spacers, treasured from Micronesia to Sant.a Cruz, that may be regarded as either the most valuable of ornaments or the most decorFinsch illustrates 2 made of gau and tekaroro
ative form of money.
from Ruk (1888-93, PI- VIII, Figs. 23, 24), Lewis figures 4 from New
Ireland (1929, PI. XI, Figs. 3, 4, and XII, Figs. 2, 3), McCarthy
figures i from the Solomons in his currency collection (1935, Fig. 8).
Speiser illustrates a similar one (also currency) from Santa Cruz,
where it was not worn as a girdle, but kept wound on a wooden
winder (1916, Fig. 40). Two larger girdles of this type collected
by Woodford as Santa Cruz currency, still wound on their wooden
'

'

1
frames, are in the British Museum.
There are certain areas in the Western Pacific where native money
is especially developed or especially abundant, and it will simplify
our review if these areas are taken separately. At least five centres

may be
1.

2.

3.

recognized

in the Western Carolines, linked commercially with the

Pelews, 400 miles to the west, and less closely linked with
Eastern Micronesia.
The Bismarck Archipelago, with its diwarra centre in the
North of New Britain, and abundant currencies throughout.
The Solomon Islands (a prolific centre of strings of shelldisks) with their southernward neighbours Santa Cruz and
Banks' Islands.

Yap

1
Beaslcy (1936, pp. 382-3) draws attention to the similarity between the
'
terminations of shell-money girdles and the ends of the feather-money,
and finds in the similarity support for his belief that the feather-money is
merely an elaborated belt. Shell-money made up ir.to belts, which are
used as money units, have been noted in the Belgian Congo in the cowry
belts (kamba-barakuta) of the Mobenge, 10 of which were the price of a
wife, and the Bubi belts (made of Achatina) of Fernando Po (cf. PL 3,
*

Fig. 5).

OCEANIA

New

Guinea, with
D'Entrecasteaux
Rossel Island, 200
has developed a
that it has to be

4.

5.

its

119

easterly extension to the Trobriands,

and Louisiades.
miles south-east of New Guinea, which
shell-currency of such special character
treated separately.

These will be dealt with in turn, but some of the objects used
as currency generally or sporadically throughout the Western Pacific
may be considered first. These are rings, teeth, mats and feathermoney.
Rings are money or something like it, from Micronesia to the
Hebrides, but they vary so much in material and in shape
that although certain generalizations can be attempted, detailed
descriptions must be relegated to the special areas in which they

New

belong.

Teeth pass for money throughout Melanesia

New

boars'

Guinea
especially the artificially deformed ones, in
East Melanesia, with teeth of dogs, porpoise, cuscus ('
bat (Pteropus or

and

flying-fox

'),

fish

tusks,

and South-

opossum '),
and cachalot whale scattered here

there.

Woven

mats are currency in San Matthias and Santa

mats in the New Hebrides strings or cord in Matty
Island, New Guinea, Santa Cruz, New Caledonia and the Loyalties.
Feather-money has its special home in the Banks' Islands and

Cruz

strips or

plaited

Santa Cruz.
This warning should, however, be noted.

The

frequent state-

rings, teeth, mats and feathers were used as

in
and their inclusion in currency collections, are
Oceania,
money
explained by the fact that after the coming of the whites, traders and

ments that

shells,

natives adapted the articles used in gift-exchange, in payment for

services rendered, in marriage-payments and in fines, for secular

and commercial transactions

'

primitive

of

its

money

',

these articles cannot properly be called

illustrates a stage in the history

though their use

development.

The

close relationship between rings and money has already

been noted (p. 52) and it links together Europe, Asia and Oceania,
for rings have presentation and exchange, if not actual currency
In Europe and Asia stone preceded metal
value throughout.
in
Oceania stone is usually replaced by shell, which is still in use.
The Stone Age rings of China or Annam, and the shell-rings from
the ruins of Ponape and Kusaie in the Eastern Carolines may have
been merely ornaments, but they were evidently ornaments of
special, if not ceremonial value, and it is legitimate to presume that
;

their use in presentations is not a modern development.

The earliest reference to rings in Micronesia is in the picturesque

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

120

'

Order of the Bone by Captain Wilson of the

Antelope, who was one of the first Europeans to make a protracted
(though involuntary) landing on the Pelews in 1783. The ring or
klilt was of bone, the atlas vertebrae of the Halicore dugong, but
there were rings of stone and shell as well, used as currency (PL 7). 1
description of the

Petri, 1936, p. 298, Fig. 7).

Ratzel, 1896-8, 1, p. 247
century later Kubary dispelled much of the picturesque
mystery surrounding the klilt. The dugong was rare in the Pelews,
and a chiefly perquisite, but the bone was not in his time the
It was only a
insignia of rank, or even a special mark of honour.
valued ornament, which could be worn by anyone who could afford

(Keate, 1789

'

'

the high price (1895, pp. 175 ff.).

In New Guinea, along the coasts as in the little-explored interior,
in the Bismarck Archipelago, the Western Solomon Islands, and
sporadically farther south, rings are often the recognized currency,
though fashions vary from group to group, from island to island,

and even from village to village.

The best-known types are
:

1.

2.

3.

The Conus

arm-rings or arm-bands of South-Eastern

Guinea.
The Tridacna arm-rings of the islands to the east of
Ireland especially Nissan and Tanga.

New
New

currency rings, also of Tridacna, from the New Georgia

or Rubiana (Roviana) group in the Western Solomons.

The

It will simplify a confused subject if these main types are singled

out here and local variations described later in the localities in

which they occur.

The typical New Guinea arm-rings which play such an important

part in the kula trade cycle (p. 18) are made of the larger shells
(either Conus millepunctatus or less often Conus maculatus) by simple
and while shell-money is usually women's
;
work, arm-rings are the work of the men.
Malinowski explains why the industry is restricted to a few
centres.
The shells are scattered all over the lagoon and fishing
or diving for them is not especially difficult.
The main reason for
the exclusive monopoly is the inertia of custom and usage, which
traditionally assigns the manufacture to the natives of certain areas,
who alone are in possession of the necessary magic (1922, p. 502).
The natives knock out the circular base of the shell with a heavy
stone, and also knock out a circle at some distance from the base
and parallel with it, by which means the broad band of shell is cut
The outside is polished by rubbing on a flat stone, and the
off.
and laborious processes

1
Wilson's klilt is in the British
exhibited in Berlin and Dresden.

Museum.

Similar

dugong

rings are

OCEANIA

121

on a long cylindrical stone

or a branch of coral fixed in a

inside

cleft stick (Fig. 43).

and

most

The largest

valuable

are

large

be worn on the upper

part of a man's arm, but few
attain this size, and value depends
as much on added decorations as
on dimensions.

enough

to

The main

centre of produc-

tion is in the Trobriands, and

the finished rings travel along the

coasts of

New

Guinea into the

area, being used in tradfor

ing
sago, as well as for wives

Papuan

and canoes.
Finsch describes
the making of them also at Port
Moresby, where the shells are
not abundant, and have to be
imported from the East. A good
ring would buy 300 or more
pounds of sago, and was worth
25*. to 30*. (1888-93, p.

314

cf.

Schneider, 1905, p. 68
Seligman, 1910, p. 513). Local variations in Conns arm-shell-rings
used in exchanges in the Fly
River and Torres Straits are
described below (pp. 172 ff).
To the east of New Ireland
lie the islands of Tanga, Aneri
and Nissan, in a row. Both
;

Nissan and Tanga (and probably

Aneri also) are notable for their
shell arm-rings used for trading
with the mainland, and although
the same on all
the processes of
manufacture and the products
are very different.

the material
the islands,

The

is

clam,

giant

Tridacna

gtgas, provides ample material,

one shell often being several feet

across,

and

several

weight in bulk.

On

hundredNissan the

FIG.

43.

Rubbing

stone for shell armring,

New

Guinea

PRIMITIVE

122

MONEY

thick piece
technique suggests that of stone rather than of shell.
chosen, broken roughly into shape, and the centre is pecked,
hammered or pounded out with hard stone or shell, or it may be
bored with a piece of pumice fixed at the end of a stick. The result
is a solid heavy ring, more like a holed stone than an arm-ring,
and of no possible use as an ornament. Pounders and rings in
various stages of manufacture are on view in the Field Museum
is

II cf. Parkinson, 1907,

at Chicago.
(Lewis, 1929, p. 10, PI.
pp. 495-6, PI. XXXV).
At Tanga another method is used. Here was the most important
centre for rings of high value.
The shell, after the preliminary
and
into
breaking up
pounding
shape, was bored by twisting on the
end of a stone shaped like a blunt-headed axe-head, fixed at the end of
a bamboo stake planted in the ground. When a hole had thus been
;

FIG. 44.

Tanga arm-ring.

(| size)

made

a special stone tool fixed in a piece of bamboo was used to

it out to the required size, and a
large round stone ground
down the edges. The Tanga ring was not yet finished. The outer
edge is not flat or convex, as in the Nissan or the New Georgian

grind

arm-rings, but has a deep groove made by rubbing on a stone shaped

This external groove is useful in the case of
smaller rings worn in the distended earlobe, but has no functional

for the purpose. 1

It is found again in the arm-rings of the

Solomons, (possibly influenced by the Tangan

value in arm-rings.

South-Eastern
type).

The multi-grooved or fluted Tangan arm-rings (Fig. 44) are of

a different shape, and of even higher value. These are wide or
narrow bands, i to 2, sometimes more inches (25-50 mm.) deep,
but ground very thin, only about J inch (5 mm.) thick. They are
distinguished by a number of conspicuous parallel grooves on the
1

used.

Lewis, 1929, p. 10,

PI. II, Figs. 4-8, illustrates

the set of implements

OCEANIA

123

1
McCarthy figures one (1935, p. 388, Fig. 8) which
would buy 500 pounds of sago in New Britain (cf. Parkinson, 1907,
p. 303, and Petri, 1936, p. 537).
Rings are synonymous with wealth in the Solomons, as in
Beowulf, and the more golden the shell the more valuable the ring.
Here, also, the material is provided by the giant clam Tridacna gigas.
Rings made of the yellower fossil shell are more highly valued, and
the yellowest parts near the hinge most highly of all.
The general name for these shell-rings is poata 2 which also
means money in the Western Solomons, and the most important
centre of their distribution is in the New Georgia or Rubiana

outer surface.

(Roviana) group of islands. The older and more valuable are called
bakia (PL 7), and narrower cheaper ones, either hokata or just
Smaller rings of the
mbokolo, the name for arm-rings in general.
type worn pendant on the chest are also bakia, if they are a rich
When these are mounted, bound round with red plaited
yellow.
3
these are ornaments, rather than currency, though Coote
grass,
calls them legitimate coins (1883, p. 146), and a fine one, collected
by Ribbe in Choiseul is in the Miinzkabinett in Berlin.
The plain arm-rings are used for buying food and articles of
ordinary daily use, but the older ones have exaggerated values.
single one would purchase a wife or 1,000 coconuts, and on Florida
Coote assessed a bakia as worth a head, a very good pig or a middling
'

'

youth.

The method

of making these rings is slow and laborious.

shell
of
is
piece
roughly sawn into a circle by means of a strip of fibre
on a bow ; cf. Schneider, 1905, p. 82, Fig. 27,
stretched
(sometimes
from Ribbe's sketch) assisted by sand and water. Nowadays wire
is often used instead of fibre.
hole is pecked or hammered out 4
nearer the centre, first on one side then on the other, and when made,
the cord or wire is passed through and the inner circle sawn out.
The ring is then placed on a horizontal bar and ground down with
sand and water or shark skin inside and out (Schneider, p. 84, Fig. 29).
Rivers brought back examples of arm-rings finished and

1
McCarthy also figures on the same plate an extraordinary Solomon
Island currency arm-ring (Fig. 2), with an outline like a large cotton-reel,
There are five of them in the
5 inches high and 5 \ inches in diameter.
Australian Museum, probably from Ulawa.
a
The names of these Tridacna shell-rings are often confused. Compare
the accounts of Coote (1883), Schneider and Ribbe (1905), Rivers (1914)

and Hocart (1922).

3

Schneider's illustration (p. 89, Fig. 32) is upside down.

Schneider figures (p. 83, Fig. 28) a stone hammer fastened by rattan
'
withes to a flexible wooden handle, used for making the rings a typical
Stone Age implement ', as he terms it.
number of these were collected
'
by Rivers, but they are all labelled nut-crackers '. The stone hammers
used for arm-ring making are heavier and are held in the hand.
10
4

124

PRIMITIVE

MONEY

half-finished from

(Narovo) in the
(Rubiana) group.

Eddystone Island
New Georgian
Fig. 45 shows

a small ring fixed in a cleft stick

for the sawing process, and the
strip of fibre in place.
(If neatly
sawn out, the centre makes a convenient ear-plug.) For currency,
the inner edges are left squared,
but when the rings are to be worn
on the arm the angles are ground
down on a cylindrical stone similar
to that used for grinding the Conus
rings (Fig. 46.)
The *ings are very varied in size,
symmetry, thickness and values, and

though they are not associated with

secret societies, they enter largely

into the

FIG. 45.

Shell arm-ring construction,

Solomon Islands

FIG. 46.

economic and ceremonial

Rubbing stone for arm-ring,

Solomon Islands

OCEANIA

125

life of the natives, as gifts, payments for services rendered, presentations to the living and more particularly to the dead, besides being
amassed as wealth. Their abundant variety can be seen in Hocart's

illustrations of offerings at skull

houses on Eddystone (1922, pp.

71-112).
Farther south, rings lose any currency use with the exception
of the Erromanga navela in the New Hebrides (PL 7).
Farther south again, in New Caledonia, Conus arm-rings of the
New Guinea type were formerly worn, and decorated with strings
of the flying-fox fur associated with money
but, although Sarazin
calls them Geld- Surrogate there is no evidence of their ever having
been regarded as anything more than valued ornaments, and their
use even as ornaments has by now almost entirely disappeared
;

'

'

(1929, pp. 171, 183).

Throughout almost the whole of Melanesia the pig, and especially

the male pig, 1 is the most highly valued and treasured beast. All the
thoughts, cares and aspirations of the native centre round it, for by
its means he can satisfy all his desires.
He can therewith clear an
the
out
of
he
can
enemy
way,
buy many wives, he can rise to the
highest social grades, and he can, with enough pigs, secure Paradise.
No wonder that it is thought an honour for little girls to be called
pig-nose, pig-tail or pig's-trotter.
The place of pigs in Melanesia compares naturally with that of
cattle in Africa.
They are a symbol of wealth, possession gives
prestige, they play a large part in atoning for offences and in payments for wives.
Pigs so often form part of the price paid for
valuable
any
object,' says Scligman (1910, p. 517), that they may
'

almost be regarded as currency.'

In Africa cows' tails are proudly worn and horns have magical
In the Pacific pigs' tails are less decorative, but they are
virtues.
added to adornments as well as to shell-money strings. These are
the ordinary tails of undistinguished pigs.
Boars with tusks are

on a far higher plane and tusks are artificially deformed to increase

the distinction.
The upper canines are knocked out and the tusks,
to
having nothing
stop them, keep on growing and curving spirally.
In time they may pierce the animal's jaw forming one complete spiral
and start off on another. The more spirals, the higher the value.
double- or triple-circle tusker is renowned far and wide, and

people make long journeys and pay entrance fees to see the sight.
These animals are destined for sacrifice in connexion with the men's
societies, and
lesser grades

although a circle-tusker is usually beyond price, the

have relative values depending on the growth of the
tusks and the prospect of the animal's longevity, ranging from
about 4 up to
20.
The lesser tuskers are essential in
15 or
1

See

fn.,

pp. 92-3.

PRIMITIVE

126

MONEY

'

bride-price ', in fines and compensations and in death ceremonies ;

they are paid to skilled workers, especially rainmakers and sorcerers,
who can increase the crops; they are also used as currency in
exchange for special products of neighbouring islands (Layard,
1940, Chap. X).
In the
Hebrides only the live animal can be considered
as money, and though, after its death, the tusks are preserved and
may be worn as ornaments they have no commercial value. Farther
north, in the Torres Islands, the jaws with tusks in situ are an

New

accepted form of currency. The tusks are not only ornaments, they
have a trading value in New Guinea. They are carried along the
Gulf in the pottery trade and they form part of the price of a canoe
An unusual
in the Massim district (Seligman, 1910, pp. 534-6).
ornament of split, though not artificially deformed, tusks was a
medium of exchange on the Sepik in Mandated Territory. 1
Other teeth used as money are those of porpoise, dog, cuscus
opossum or kangaroo '), Pteropus or fruit-eating bat,
(so-called
called
flying-fox, cachalot (or sperm) whale and fish.
commonly
These are used freely for ornament, and usually have a barter or
currency value throughout Melanesia, New Guinea and Torres
Here and there they are used like shells or shell-money for
Straits.
'

'

'

ordinary daily purchases.

Each of these animals can be treated separately, beginning with
the porpoise.
Porpoise teeth have been collected as currency in the Gilberts,
and, together with dogs' and cuscus' teeth, in New Britain, and they
are used as small change in the Southern Solomons.
The string
here is usually 100, which forms the unit, and has the same name
Four-in-a-bunch is a convenient
(ha'a) as the shell-money string.
coin for small purchases, and a single tooth would buy 10 coconuts.
Hopkins (1928, p. 240) calculated their value in English money as
10 to the shilling.
Porpoise, cuscus, bat and fish teeth are often bound on to cord,
projecting at intervals, and such bands may be ornaments or curIn Buka, Northern Solomons, strings of the valuable imun
rency.
are made of porpoise and of bats' teeth (PI. 10, Figs. 2, 5).
The
porpoise is peculiar in having a large number of even teeth, some
80 to 100, so they are not difficult to collect and to match in bunches
or strings.
Dogs' teeth are more valuable, as only the canines or those immediately behind the canines are used. Finsch describes dogs' teeth
in New Guinea as equal to large silver coins (1888-93, P- 33)Coote goes further and calls them the gold of the coinage in the
Solomons, and gives the following scale
'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

Petri (1936, p. 544) denies

any currency value to boars'

tusks.

OCEANIA

127

10 coconuts = a string of white money or a flat stick of tobacco

'
'
'
10 strings of whits money = i string of red or one dog's tooth
'
10 strings of red ' money
40 poi poise teeth
'

'

'

(1883, p. 14?)

The ratio was very variable, depending on the whiteness and

condition of the teeth and their rarity in different islands.
Ivens
says that the teeth are extracted after death.
Hopkins describes how
the unfortunate animal was buried up to its neck in the sand, while
the teeth were hauled out.
He also reports the slump in value after
a rabies scare in Sydney, when all stray dogs were rounded up and
As
killed, and the teeth exported to the Solomons (1928, p. 249).
only 4 teeth are provided by the dog, the unit is naturally 4, and this
probably influenced the four-to-the-bunch unit of porpoise and
flying fox.

on the dogs'

In Northern
teeth, as

New

=a

FIG. 47.

Guinea the numeral system is based

8 = two dogs, &C. 1 Dogs' teeth

dog

Dogs' teeth,

New

Britain

were used for barter and trading in Torres Straits, taking part with
boars' tusks in the canoe trade (p. 17) and they were also prominent
in the kula trade of South-East New Guinea (p. 18).
They are
used along the North Coast of New Guinea in trading for sago,
2
Dogs are rare in the Bismarcks and their teeth
pots and pigs.
a string of 30 called rongei na gaunt (a portion
are of high value
of which is drawn in Fig. 47) comes from Sag-sag on the extreme
West. Their essential part in the bride-price in the Admiralties
has been referred to (p. 117) above.
Cuscus teeth are used singly or in bunches, like those of porpoises,
but more often they are made up into strings, firmly bound on to
Necklaces of these occur in the
a cord, and worn as ornaments.
South of New Ireland, and across Duke of York to New Britain, and
in the Blanche Bay district under the name of angut they are used
;

'

'

Hans Nevermann, 1933, cf. review in Anthropos,

P. J. Schmidt, Anthropos, 1923-41 P- 7^3-

1936, p. 289.

PRIMITIVE

128

MONEY

together with diwarra in trading. The teeth are also found inserted
singly at intervals to divide lengths of shell-money (Parkinson, 1907,
p. 494).

(1935, Fig. 3) illustrates a string in the Australian

collected at Bougainville.
fruit-eating bats, called from their foxy faces and colour

McCarthy

Museum
The

flying-foxes, have only 2 teeth more than Man, but they are all much
the same in shape and size and are used as ornament, while teeth
The teeth are easily
as well as hair figure largely in currency. 1
recognized by the flattened-out crown and marked longitudinal

grooves.

In

New

Ireland strings of projecting bats* teeth

bound

on a cord called agut or angut, are used for buying nets and weapons,
and Petri illustrates a string from Nissan (1936, p. 543). In the

FIG. 48.

Flying fox jaws,

Fiji

Solomons the teeth are pierced like those of dogs and porpoises, and
bunched in fours for small change. They are also strung with

porpoise teeth or with fish vertebrae.

string of the latter has not
only currency value, but is used in ritual, being worn on the arm
as a sign of peace at a peace-making ceremony on San Cristoval
(H. Drew).
Fish teeth, being very small, are usually bound on to a cord,
like porpoise, cuscus and bats' teeth, either in short
strings of
necklace length, or in long strings like shell-money.
They are of
low value, 4,000 being quoted, together with pigs and shell-money
as the price of a white man's head in the Solomon Islands some
years

ago (Hopkins, 1928, p. 241). They are useful for distribution, as

coppers with us the boys of the bridegroom's village have a custom
;

A string

of the jaws, with some of the teeth in place, was collected as

currency in Fiji, and is now in the Pitt Rivers Collection (Fig. 48).

OCEANIA

129

of shooting arrows at the wedding party from the bride's village,

just to frighten and annoy them, until bought off by payment of a
fish's tooth (Codrington, 1891, p. 238 fn.).
The more valuable
1
imun, the native money of Buka and Northern Bougainville, is made
of fish teeth as well as of small porpoise teeth, bound on to a length
of cord, and covered with red ochre.
The sperm whale or cachalot has a number of large teeth, maybe
50, in its lower jaw, and these were among the most valued ornaments
and presents in Eastern Micronesia. Bored as pendants, they are
found among the ruins of Ponape and Kusaie, belonging to the
same early culture stage as the shell-disks, and tongue-shaped pieces ;
and they are so frequently attached to fathoms of the valuable red
shell-money that they have become associated with money trans-

Owing to this association and to their use throughout

Melanesia in present-giving and exchange they have been collected as
money in the Gilberts and the Solomons, as well as
in Fiji (Pis. 4, 5) where tambua play so important a part in native

actions.

ceremony and

'

social

life.
'

The white man's toast Women, wine and song is rendered by

the hill men of Fiji as Tambua, yangona [kava] and pigs
*

'.

Brewster describes the place that tambua take in Fijian eyes.

With constant oiling and polishing they assume a very handsome appearance and in the eyes of the Fijians, unacquainted with gold and precious
When Great
stones, they seemed the most beautiful things in the world.
Britain assumed the reins of government the native officials were paid regular
One of these [officials] requested
salaries in sterling coin of the realm.
that his recompense might be made in tambua as in his estimation they
were much more chief-like than mere money. He added that in the days
of his unregenerate youth he had assisted in the capture of a trading brig
which had a certain amount of gold coin on board. Not understanding its
value then, he and his companions utilized the coins in matches at ducks
and drakes ', which the Fijians play in the same way as we do, thus dissipating their fortune according to our own homely proverb (1922, p. 17).
*

The shell-money commonly

called diwarra, which dominates

and thought in New Britain, is there called tambu, the
Melanesian form of the familiar tabu of Polynesia (which we have
and tambua is the
adopted, limiting its scope, in our word taboo)
These teeth
Fijian equivalent, meaning something holy or sacred.
of
are surrounded with a subtle aura
mystery and
breathing

native

life

religion'; they are treasured, kept in special baskets, only taken

out occasionally to be oiled and polished and admired.
Hardly any act of ceremony is possible without the exchange of

Portions of the strings collected by Miss Blackwood are reproduced

with her permission in PL 10 from Both Sides of Buka Passage, 1935, PL 67.
McCarthy illustrates a similar string from the Australian Collection, 1935
1

(Fig.

i).

i3

PRIMITIVE

MONEY

When

a youth seeks a wife, the request must be accomthe

presentation of a whale's tooth, and its acceptance
panied by
Should it be desirable
constitutes a binding contract of marriage.
to get an obnoxious person put quietly out of the way, tambua are
employed to effect the purpose. Their acceptance implies consent
to the request and then the bargain must be carried out with the
strictest honour.
They are associated with primitive cults and
offered at the tambutambu or Holy of Holies in the ancient stoneenclosed nang-a dedicated to ancient rites. Nowadays they are

tambua.

But, as explained above

distinguished visitors.
in primitive money.
are
not
included
properly
(pp. uo-n), they
The use of cloth as currency in Oceania shows no likeness to its
use in Africa, save that it is sporadic in both areas.
to

presented

In Africa native cloth was a common object of barter, and here

and there developed into token-money before the coming of tradegoods. The loom was an early introduction, and there was no
obstacle to

its

In Oceania

spread throughout the continent.

its progress was very different, and weaving only

gained a precarious foothold in a few islands. Its conjectural route

from the mainland to Micronesia and Melanesia is by way of the
Pelews and the Carolines and then southward through the Mortlocks to San Matthias and Squally Island to the north of the Bismarck Archipelago. The native loom vanished from the Pelews and
most of the Caroline Islands, though fine woven strips are worn as
girdles in Kusaie in the east and the mats of Yap (p. 147) may mark
a stage in the migration. 1
It did not establish itself on the main
islands of the Bismarcks 2 or the Solomons but proceeded by marginal
islands to the east of the chain to Santa Cruz and the Banks' Islands,
and trickled on to the most northerly of the New Hebrides, where
traces of its former existence can be detected (Rivers, 1914, II,
p. 444, and PL VIII).
In spite of their novelty or rarity in Oceania woven mats or
The
strips can seldom be included in a list of primitive currency.
beautifully made girdles of Kusaie, the finest to be seen in Oceania,
were made for presentation and exchange rather than for use, for
the idea of money had scarcely been born in these scattered Eastern
Micronesian islands (Sarfert, 1919, p. 197). The idea was already
familiar on San Matthias (also called Musau Island), north of the
Bismarck Archipelago. San Matthias is best known by currency

money made of the

of the Buprestidae family

collectors for its effective strung beetle-leg

brilliant
1

peacock-blue joints of a

Cy. Finsch, 1888-93, PP- 343~7

member
5

Ling Roth, 1917, pp. 356^., with

map.
*

from

There

New

is

a loom in the British

Britain.

Museum, which

is

said to have

come

OCEANIA

131

strung either on stiff fibre (colour plate facing page 184) or on softer
two-ply twine. One fathom equals a mark or a chicken.
But San Matthias also has a form of

currency in woven girdles (PL 8, Fig. 3),

similar to those of Kusaie, though with less
elaborate patterns, very finely woven with
thread-like

Pandanus

fibres

dyed red and

Parkinson describes and illustrates

orange.
these girdles (1907, p. 320, Figs. 3-5, PL 55),
but does not suggest that they were ever

used as currency.

The loom

established itself firmly in the

Santa Cruz group and the plain currency

mats, which are never opened, and the simple
apparatus for making them, together with the
narrow variegated strips like book-markers,
of no practical use, are

commonly found

museums.
Trading

V\YMl.

in
L_

in these islands

is

-^jl^-

-T

mainly by

barter, notably the exchange of Nitendi sago

for Reef Island girls to be trained as village
prostitutes, yet there is a variety of currency,
more varied than in many of the larger

groups.

The feather-money (PL

'

'

9)

is

the best

frt,

known, and the most effective the woven

mats and strips are unique but shell-money
;

strings are also used, besides tooth-money,

turtle shell-rings, and rolls of sinnet.
The

mats are made of banana stem, beaten out

like barkcloth, scraped, the fibres dried in
the sun, and combed out. They are about
a yard square, but they are never unfolded
or used. Neatly folded up and tied, with
the fringes tucked inside, they form units of

currency

Speiser, 1916, p. 192, Fig. 38).

strips for smaller change have
characteristic patterns in overlaid wefts of
(cf.

The narrow

blackened banana fibre. These are very

varied with fringed ends, and one of average
size and pattern is illustrated (Fig. 49).
FIG. 49.
Mat-money,
The loom may have reached as far
Santa Cruz
south as the New Hebrides, but it has
long ago disappeared. In the north-eastern islands where there
is

no feather-money and

little

or no shell-money, plaited mats

PRIMITIVE

i 32

MONEY

These are long and narrow, made of

Pandanus leaves, plaited in various designs, mostly in
diagonal stripes and chevrons, dyed with red, and on Maewo (Aurora)
and Oba (Aoba) they have fine openwork patterns at the ends
resembling Indonesian technique. As the women are the matmakers and mats represent wealth the number of a man's wives
adds to his prestige, though in some islands mat-makers may be
It is not always easy to distinguish between
hired to add to the store.
mats made for use and mats made for exchange, but in many of the
are the recognized currency.
finely split

money-mats are entirely distinct. They are made solely for

and
used in trading, for buying pigs, for buying wives, and,
money
with pigs, for buying steps in the secret societies
they are essential
islands

in ceremonial presentation besides being used in funeral rites.

The mats, their estimation and their uses differed in different

In Raga (North Pentecost) finely made mats (bwand) were

5$. and 100 would be equal in value to a boar with
In Oba (Leper's Island) size mattered more than
circular tusks.
the
and
actual condition of the mats was of no importance,
elegance
islands.

worth about

the ancient and rotten ones which have long hung in the house are very
rich man will
choice, though the value still goes by the number of folds.
keep 50 mats and more in his house, hung up and decaying, a proof of ancient
uealth.
Mat money is also lent at interest, and so becomes a source of
wealth ; there is no fixed rate of increase, the lender gets what he is able
to insist upon up to a double return (Codrington, 1891, p. 324).

Some

of these mats

may be 100 fathoms

long and worth some

12.

In Maewo (Aurora), where the mats with openwork ends are

made, there are special huts in which these are kept and allowed to
rot.
Coote describes them (1883, P- 65)
:

From the roof of the hut were suspended 8 or

hung down from the beam being about 2 feet by

10 mats, their sizes as they

15 inches.
They reached
within a foot of the ground and under them a small wood fire is kept ever
In course of time the mats become coated with shining black
burning.
incrustation, which gradually accumulates in such a quantity that it hangs
down in stalactic forms called by the natives ' breasts '. The fire, it will
be seen, requires very constant looking after for if it becomes at all large,
the mats would be set alight, and if it went out, the process of coating them
would be arrested.
man has therefore always to be watching these curious
moneys and it is the time thus spent on them that makes them of value.
This kind of money is, as far as we could learn, only current in the matter
of club advancement.
fairly old mat is worth as much as a large boar
with finely curved tusks. Of all the forms of money which I have seen this
is certainly the most curious, for it cannot be carried about, and is never
moved, even when it passes from one owner to another.

form of mat-money made in the same way and smoked over

mangau on Vao, ni-mbwen on Atchin) is used also in the
Small Islands off the North-East Coast of Malekula and on the
adjacent mainland. These mats are also used for wrapping up dead

fires (called

OCEANIA

133

bodies for burial.

Speiser records that when (after some months)
the flesh has decayed the mats are dug up, rolled up and used as
money (1923, p. 274, PL 75, Fig. 6). These special mats are quite
plain and very narrow, only 6-8 inches wide, with fringes 2 or 3 feet
long, like those that the women wear on their heads when mourning
for their dead husbands.
For currency they are tied up with coconut string with the fringes hanging down on either side (PL 8, Fig. 2).
In the Small Islands off Malekula these mats are inferior in value to
pigs and are used in the lesser types
of ritual exchange and as small change
in cases where payment in pigs would
be too high. They are never undone

and pass from hand to hand until

the fringes have worn away and
the mats are considered valueless

W.

Layard).
or plaitwork provides
currencies of somewhat similar type
in the Marshalls and in the Solo(J.

Matwork

mons.
In the Marshalls

it is in the form
of a long tube, ihrik, of fine cylindrical plaitwork in black and white

palm leaf strips in checker-work patterns alternating with bands, over a

foundation of twisted coconut fibre
This is measured
50).
by the fathom and many fathoms
may be worn coiled round the waist

cord (Fig.

as a girdle.
off

Short lengths can be cut

in exchanges of small

and used

value.

The same technique of cylindrical

plaitwork in short, stiffer lengths and
FIG. 50.
Ihrik, plaited belt,
in gaudier colours is used in the
Marshall Islands
Solomons for nose-sticks or small
change. These are illustrated by Dupuy (1927, p. 753) and McCarthy
(i935> Fig- !<>)
The most familiar example of plaitwork currency is the shield
used as the equivalent of a wife or 5 on Guadalcanar (PL 8, Fig. i)
(cf.

Ling Roth, 1908, Fig. 5).

girdle in the form of a hank of

currency in
(Fig. 51).

says that

soft black cord is used as

to
the
Island
south-west
of the Admiralties
Matty
Chinnery who gave this to the Cambridge Collection

it is

very rare and expensive, being worth about

5 in

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

English money. The soft two-ply

foundation is bound spirally with very
fine blackened coconut fibre wound so
tightly that it makes a cord of only a
millimetre thick, and the spirals are so
nearly parallel that the effect is almost
that of a string of tiny black beads. 1
A coil of red cord, dorei, made in
the same way is currency in Dutch New
Guinea. The foundation of soft fibre
is the same but the spiral strip is slightly
wider, made of a leaf, red on one side,
and the effect is that of bright shiny red

string.

In Santa Cruz

rolls

of sinnet are

units of currency. 2 The coconut fibre

is plaited in a three-ply plait, and wound

diagonally as balls of string are usually

in European fashion, making a
solid block some 7 inches (18 cm.) across

wound

and 4 inches (10 cm.) deep.

In New Caledonia and the Loyalties
string
eating

made of
bat

the fur of the fruit'

or

flying-fox
regarded as currency, as it

may be

not only
short lengths, but is
invariably attached or added to heads
of money ', shell-money strings, strings

used by

is

itself in

It is made
of beads and purses (PI. 17).
the
under
fur
from
bats'
by twisting
ears in between the strands of a fine

FIG. 51.

Matty Island

belt

two-ply cord, the whole making a fluffy

or woolly looking string (cf. Codrington,
1891, pp. 324-5)Barkcloth represented wealth in Fiji,
whether piled up in the owner's hut,
or wound round and round his person.
Pieces were also used for presentation or
exchange there as in Samoa. Pieces

were also used for presentation among

the Baining in New Britain. These are long narrow girdles
decorated with bold patterns in black, yellow and red worn by
1

They

similar string in the Homiman

c
are used in payment for the

pp. 6, 551-2).

Museum
woman
'

is labelled Aua Island.

in Tikopia (Firth, 1936,

OCEANIA

135

candidates at the end of the initiation ceremonies, and also

worn

at dances.

The predominance of mat-money in the Northern New Hebrides

attributed to Polynesian influence and the feather-money of the
Banks' Islands and Santa Cruz is probably due to the same culture

is

contact.

Feathers are so generally used in the decoration of uncivilized

that they are common objects of organized barter in many
parts of Oceania, though they scarcely cross the borderline into
currency save in two or three areas. Cassowary feathers and bird
of Paradise plumes are presents in the Torres Straits canoe trade
they are traded widely in New Guinea, and are added to the shell
ornaments in the bride-price (cf. Seligman, 1910, pp. 94, 535).
Feathers are still more highly valued in Polynesia and are conspicuous in present-giving from Hawaii to New Zealand. This
explains why feather-money is found only on the islands nearest
to Polynesia, the Banks' and Santa Cruz, possibly spreading to the
nearest islands of the New Hebrides.
Codrington described the wetapup of the Southern Banks'

man

'

'

'

'

'

Islands.
In Santa Maria and Mcralava, where the som shells are not found, featherof a special kind is in use.
The little feathers near the eye of fowls
These are used
are hound on strings and generally dyed a fine crimson. 1
as necklaces or anklets, by way of ornament and distinction, but also pass
very much in the way of money (1891, p. 324).

money

The red-feather-money

coils tan, ta or

tavan

(PI. 9)

of Santa
'

'

Crux are among the more sensational of the curiosities of currency

The
in the South Seas, and much has been written about them.
last word has been said by Beasley who minutely describes the coils,
the eleven grades of value, the process of making, and the accompanying objects, summarizing (and

criticizing)

earlier authorities

PP- 379-92).
In structure each unit of feather-money is composed of a long belt formed
of fibre rolled over two strong cords and two weaker middle cords as a base.
This belt throughout its whole length is composed of tile-shaped overlapping
scales of dove feathers, and these scales have again attached to their upper
The ends are bound with pieces of
surfaces delicate red feathers.
palm leaf and braided cord work running to a point which terminates in
bunches of fibre, and two cords which are themselves fastened to the spirals
of bark on which the coil is wound. Attached to the coil are pigs' teeth
and certain stones which have a religious signification, and are said to be
worth more than the money itself (pp. 380-1).
.

is

An average coil made of about 1,800 overlapping scales (lendu)

about 30 feet (10 m.) long, wound in double spirals of 6 turns each
1

Nowadays longer and

coarser feathers are used.

PRIMITIVE

136

MONEY

on to circular drums of bark. The little honey-bird manga (Myzomela

which supplies the red feathers is the size of a sparrow
and mostly black, with red only on head and breast, and 400 to 600
birds are needed to make a good coil. 1 This takes at least a year
In 1932 there were only
12.
to make and the value is not less than
10 natives on Santa Cruz who could make the coils, and as it is a
skilled art, descending from father to son, and sons can now make
money more easily by other means, the art will probably disappear.
Speiser, writing in 1916, believed that no new coils were being made
cardinalis)

even then.

Although

this

feather-money

is

prominent throughout the group

of islands and beyond, and the whole

life

of the natives

is

centred

used more for prestige and for ostentation than for trading.
The feathers themselves are articles of trade, and the small
But coils are too
pieces (lendu) can be used as small change.
valuable to be expended save in transactions of high importance such
in

it, it is

as the purchase of large ocean-going canoes (in earlier days), marriage

2
payments, and fines for fornication. On Vanikoro a good wife was

worth as much as a small canoe, that is 10 coils, possibly not all of

first-rate quality, but among outlying islands the price would drop
to perhaps half this.
There are no settled prices and a tremendous
amount of haggling goes on, the least sign of wear being hotly
When
discussed, and exaggerated by the prospective purchaser.
worn, the coils are of little value, small worn coils being worth no

more than

6d.

coils are objects which Beasley, for want of a

'
has not
better word, calls
stretchers 3 whose presence he says
so far been accounted for (p. 390). These objects found with the
coils appear to have no functional purpose, and their shapes are very

Accompanying the

'

'

varied,

broad

sometimes merely a pronged stick in Y shape, sometimes

of wood. The ones in the British Museum (illus-

flat slats

PL

'

unique in that they consist of a

boards decorated with tassels of [cotx] seeds 4 for use as
charms, and have typical Santa Cruz painted motifs in black, white
and red '. There is a similar pair of these with the coil in the
trated in

pair of

9) are described as

flat

Cambridge

collection.

The birds are attracted by call on to a gummed twig, but they are not
necessarily killed ; they may be plucked and released.
*
'
2
Nowadays bride-price is no longer paid in feather-money, but in
tobacco, the amount rising to as much as two chests, worth
14
1

(Speiser, 1916, p. 202).

3
The name * stretcher ' should, however, be reserved for the tenterhooks or gauges made of bats' bone, notched at the ends used to keep the
parallel cords evenly apart.
4
Coix seeds were also used as currency.
ton in the Pitt Rivers Museum.

Cf. those collected

by Codring-

OCEANIA

137

MICRONESIA

iv.

The Micronesian Islands speckle a stretch of more than 45 degrees

across the Pacific, from the Pelews and Carolines in the west, to the
Marshalls, Gilberts and Ellice in the east. Their early history is
vague and relics of former glories are largely unexplored and unexplained, but there is evidence that navigation and trade were highly
developed, and shell-currencies are found throughout. There is
naturally great diversity over the immense and scantily habitable

notable contrast between the eastern and western

While the eastern islands have shell-money strings
and little or nothing else in the west currency includes the famous
large stones (fae, fe), mysterious beads of legendary origin, motherThe Carolines, in parof-pearl shell, turtle shell, and perhaps mats.
ticular, appear to have been on the highway of cultural streams, and to
have formed stepping-stones for many adventurers into the Pacific. 1
When Kubary was exploring the islands towards the end of last
century he found that although everywhere trade goods were displacing the natural island barter of the South Seas, Micronesia, being
more isolated and less profitable, suffered less than Polynesia from
area,

and there

is

island groups.

the influence of European civilization. The usual native trading

was still going on with turmeric powder, ornaments of coconut shell,
and strings of shell-money, the latter regarded more as ornament
than as currency. Truk (Ruk) was the centre of trade in the Central
Carolines, as Yap of the western group.
Generally speaking the

needed no money
they were self-supporting and selfThere was little specialization in industry and no development of luxury objects. Nevertheless, on Yap money played a large

islanders

sufficient.

part.

As

far as the necessities of life are concerned, food, shelter

and clothing are abundantly provided by nature and man has enough
for his needs.
But if he wants to get a wife, to found a family, and
to become a member of the community, he must have money or the
local equivalent of it.
Marriage can only be achieved by payments
and interchange of objects of recognized value these are essential
in social life from birth to death
and the existence of the community
depends on the wealth of the heads of families which compose it.
On Yap, therefore, which lies in so favourable a position in the
Western Carolines, currency developed in many forms with a highly
complicated monetary system.
;

Broadly speaking, the shell-money in Micronesia, as elsewhere,

classed as red (which generally means orange-pink, and
fades sadly with age and exposure), and white (which includes
yellows and greys), the red being the more highly valued. This

may be

'

'

'

'

Cf.

'

map

Heine-Geldern, 1932.

'

PRIMITIVE

138

MONEY

may be due to the greater difficulty in collecting red shells

their consequent rarity (Spondylus and Chama pacifica are both
deep-water shells) ; it may be due to the universal human preference

estimation

and

and to red in particular ; or it may be

related to the world-wide appreciation of the colour symbolic of blood.
It is difficult, and certainly unwise, for a non-expert to attempt

for coloured over non-coloured,

between Spondylus and Chama

pacifica^ or any other

Schneider, 1905, p. 7), save by
noting that Chama pacifica appears superficially to be a little brighter
and a little rarer than Spondylus. The latter has three special centres

to distinguish

sources of the

'

red

strings

(cf.

in Oceania
Micronesia (especially Truk) where it dominates
ornaments almost everywhere
South-East New Guinea, spreading
north and south along the coasts and Northern New Ireland, including New Hanover but, owing to its popularity and its common use
in trading, it is found many hundreds of miles from its island homes.
Usually the pieces of shell are chipped and rounded in the
normal South- Sea or sapi-sapi pattern (p. 115), and gau and
But Micronesia shows a characteristic
sapi-sapi are easily confused.
or
for
preference
tongue-shaped pieces which are very comspademon in ornamental strings, and may be used for currency (cf.
Schneider, 1905, p. 6, Fig. i and PI. 26).
Red shell-strings in varying forms and under varying names, of
which gau 1 is perhaps the least unfamiliar, spread throughout
Micronesia, though they are now scarcely to be found. They were
:

'

'

already in existence at some unknown period on Ponape in the

Eastern Carolines, where the disks and the spade-shaped pieces are
abundant among the ruins.

may be

It

to the

possible to trace

them

farther back,

and

this leads

us

mainland of Asia.

In the caves of Minh-can in the Province of Quang-binh in

deposits have been found, including skeletons,
remains of pottery, stone axe-heads and abundant ornaments of

Annamrich Neolithic

The stone axes (Schulterbeilkultur) are of the Austroasiatic

shouldered type in the lower layers, and later, quadrangular (Vierkantbeilkultur) or Austronesian. The abundance of the worked shells
is striking.
Close to a child's skull were over 400 disks, 166 pierced
Nassa shells, 86 more with their backs broken off, and 10 pierced
shell.

cowries.
These were all still lying so close together that it was
to
the strings, and they are so closely allied to the
reconstruct
easy
Melanesian and Micronesian strings that their relationship can
1
In Ponape the shells and the strings are called pake ; in Yap gau,
kau, thauy &c. ; in Truk assang, asson, faubar ; in the Marshalls, aacht ;
in Uliai (Wolea) chamotsch, &c. &c.
Cf. Finsch, 1888-93, PI- VIII,
Figs. 7-11 in colour ; Schneider, 1905, pp. 4-6, PL i, Figs, a, c ; PL 2 ;

Petri,

1936, p. 197, 2-4, and for Ponape pake, la.

OCEANIA

139

The Nassa shells with their backs broken off

scarcely be doubted.
were prepared as for the making of diwarra the pierced disks would
;

make

the ordinary strings of shell-money.

These are not the only links with the mainland of Asia.

Heine-Geldern points out (1932,

p.

553)

how

stone-rings are

met within almost all deposits of quadrangular axe culture and the
mixed culture of Further India, and can be recognized in Yang-Chao
and Sha-Kuo-Tun. So it is possible that the rings of China and
Further India, which were not mere ornaments but had some cult
significance, and were used in presentations and as money, may be
linked with the stone, bone and shell-rings in Micronesia and
Melanesia, and the abnormally developed stone-money of Yap.
Thus the earliest and most widely spread forms of currency in
Oceania can be traced back by those in search of cultural origin
to the work of neolithic peoples of South-East Asia, and associated
with the elements of the Austroasiatic-Austronesian mixed culture,
which spread into the South Seas. Although little is known about
the early history of the Micronesian Islands they were within the
range of cultural influence from the mainland, and stone- and shellmoney, the earliest types in Oceania, may have travelled by the same
route followed later by the loom (Petri, 1936, pp. 553-4).

The

red strings were not used as

money

in its ordinary sense.

That would be

sacrilege.
They were treasured and hoarded by the
chiefs of the larger districts, and were essential to their fortunes
and prestige. They were only brought out in time of war or other
states of emergency, and were decisive factors in negotiations for
On Yap the strings were amassed and used as loans, interest
peace.
being paid in labour. A man, for services rendered, was privileged
to borrow and wear a string for a certain number of days.
Furness, who was there early in the century, was unable to buy
a good string as no one would part with one at any price. 1 But he
bought an inferior one for the staggering sum of seven and a half
dollars '.
To clinch the bargain the owner told him Here you have
the price of a murder.
Offer it to a man and tell him whom you want
killed, and it's done
(1910, p. '91).
The exaggerated value of the red strings was doubtless partly
due to the scarcity or absence of red shells, so that there was little
chance of local manufacture. This lack has been filled of late by
Japanese importations, and necklaces of gau strings are being turned
out abundantly by the Chamorro, who have settled in Yap (Petri,
'

'

'

1936, p. 196).
The red strings so highly prized in the Carolines and Marshalls
are seldom seen on the Gilberts, although or perhaps because
1

Schneider quotes a demand of the equivalent of 1,770 marks for a

string of

gau on Yap
IX

(p. 6).

PRIMITIVE

i 4o

MONEY

'

'

red shells, especially Chama pacifica, are fairly abundant there.

But the Gilbert Islanders have a partiality for tekaroro, the -effective
black and white strings made of alternate disks of Conus and coconut
(PL X, Fig. 6 and Fig. 52). The industry has its centre in the
southern Gilberts and the strings are the usual currency of the
northern Gilberts and the Marshalls (Schneider, 1905, pp. 9, n).
They are widely distributed, sometimes as currency but more often
merely as ornament, and the pleasing effect of black and white
strings on black skin goes far to explain their general popularity.
They were traded not only through Microthe

but to far distant islands as well. Or there

various centres of manufacture. 1
Finsch (1888-93, ? 35^) describes and illus-

nesia,

may have been

trates

(PL VII, Figs. 1-4) four

varieties.

One

was the regular currency on Tasman Island (also

called Le Maire or Nukumaru), north of the
Solomons, where, according to Parkinson, it was
made (Lewis, 1929, p. 32, PL X, Fig. 3). Krause
illustrates a string from Nissan (1906, p. 154)
;

similar strings, doubtless brought

by

traders, are

New Britain, and a

the Cambridge collection) indistinguishable by the unpractised eye from tekaroro

found on the mainland of

string (in

was collected

in Fiji.
disks that provide the black for
these black-and-white tekaroro strings have also

The coconut

a currency value of their own.

Strings are made
on Truk in the Central Carolines of a special
coconut which has no kernel, called losil (Petri,
FIG 52
Tekaroro,
shell-money, Gil1936, p. 203), and the strings are called sek or
bert Islands
These appear to owe their estimation to
their attractive appearance, and as they are tedious and irksome to
make they are not very common, and are highly valued and traded
from island to island. They find their way to Yap and take part in
the inter-insular trade with the Pelews. Normally the strings are of
small disks, no larger than those of shell, but there are also particularly well-made double strings of larger disks, nearly an inch across,
from the same area.
To-uba is the name of a very rare and attractive type of Conus
2
string from the Gilberts, formerly used as currency.
.

Schneider, 1905, PL 3, illustrates eight varieties, but mostly without

Vaterlandsangabe ; cf. also Petri, 1936, p. 199.
2
Illustrated by Finsch, 1888-93, P- 35, PL VII, Figs. 15, 16 ; EdgePartington, I, p. 174 ; Schneider, 1905, p. n, PL i, b, g; Petri, 1936, p. 200,
Similar strings are worn as ornaments in South-East New Guinea.
Fig. 6.

OCEANIA

141

The

strings are made of Conus eburneus apices of various sizes

inch to over i inch in diameter, and may be of girdle, necklace (Fig. 53) or only arm-band length.
The disks are not strung
like ordinary Conus tips through the central hole, but are drilled at
the projecting edge of the spiral, and bound on to a cord so close
together that the circles overlap.

from

These

which they
from
whom
his
but
the
trader
Schneider
obtained
undoubtedly
specimens said that they were in use as currency in the middle of
last century, though no longer procurable.
Finsch (before 1888)
was able to collect only a few, as shells of suitable size were then
strings are usually classed as ornaments,
are,

rare. 1

Shell-money strings, whether black-and-white tekaroro, or red

gau, were used in exchanges in both Eastern and Western Micronesia,

To-uba, shell-money, Gilbert Islands

FIG. 53.

but in the West there are (or were) many other forms, consisting
mainly of pearl shell and of turtle shell there are also the equivalent
of cloth currencies in mats and girdles, besides the perplexing
Pelew beads and the best known of all strange fashions in primitive
;

'

'

currency, the

stone

'

money

of Yap.

Pearl-shell currency played an important part in the social life

of the Carolines, for position depended on its possession and dis-

All services, such as the building of a house, or of a

the
or
canoe,
laying out of a field were paid for in money, and pay-days
were the occasion for feasts and for further distributions. There
was even a more or less developed credit system. And while other
currencies of the Carolines belonged mainly to the past, these pearltribution.

shell forms,

owing to

their social function,

living factor in native

Fae
1

were until

lately a still

life.

(fai or fe) is the

name

for pearl shell in Kusaie,

and foe

in

Two single disks of to-uba are set up obverse and reverse in the Dresden

Munzkabinett.

PRIMITIVE

142

MONEY
Kosa or
is

'

pearl shell of Kusaie

for the ordinary

name

the

This
piece used as currency.
a spade- or tongued-shaped

is

piece cut out of the central

part of the shell (Meleagrina
margaritiferd).
at the end and

It is

pierced
thick

hung on a

cord for suspension.

The

larger the piece, the

the
value, and as there
higher
is a limit to the size of the shell
it was imitated in stone
(the

same aragonite which makes

the stone-money of Yap) the
ridge of the shell being reproduced in the stone.
The
coin in shell and its imitation in stone from the Ham'

'

Museum

burg
PI.

are

1
Fig. 2.
these are the

seen

in

n,
As

same shape

as the taro spades of Tridacna

shell they may be related to
'

tool currencies

'

but, as has

been seen, small tongue- or

spade-shaped pieces of shell,
usually pierced at one end, are
found together with shell disks,
among remains of the early
culture in the ruins of

and Kusaie, and

if

stones

are

gigantic

ments

of

the

Ponape

the

latter,

be

Yap

developthese

abnormal

pendants may
enlargements of the former.
Pearl shell supplies a
smaller currency in actual or
fish-hooks.
These
were the most valued treasures
of the Ellice Islanders, used in
presentations to chiefs and
dedications to the gods, and

vestigial

FIG. 54.

-Fish-hook, Marshall Islands

often buried with their owners.

1

Sarfert, 1919, Fig.

115;

They
Petri,

acquired,

as conveying a

1936, p. 198, Fig. 8a.

OCEANIA

143

maximum of wealth in a minimum of space, an artificial value

approximating to the coins of more advanced civilizations (Hedley,
1896-1900, p. 226).
In the Marshalls (as in the Solomons) fish-hook money consists
in serviceable-looking hooks (Fig. 54), but in the Eastern Carolines
the series passes from the backs of fish-hooks (without hooks) to
breast-ornaments (fae metmet) with no obvious break. These are
'

made

of the hinges of the shell and belong to the same early culture
and the Conus arm-bands, but they were still
in circulation in the Eastern Carolines, and especially in Kusaie,
in recent years.
These fish-hooks illustrate once more the difficulty of separating
currency in the sense of useful articles used as media of exchange
and money, with merely token value. The Marshall Islands' fishhooks have been cited as the only form of Oceanic shell-money
coming under the head of Nutzgeld (Schneider, 1905, p. 10, Fig. 2).
The Caroline ka mudk, which means fish-hook money ', have no
hooks, and can scarcely be separated from the pendant fae metmet,
which are merely ornaments. 1
Pearl shell is less abundant in the Western Carolines than in the
Eastern, so these currencies increased in value in Yap and the Pelews,
as the red shell disks

'

'

and in Yap they are

still

in circulation.

In Kusaie pearl shell

is

called

z
yar or gar while the stones are fae (fat orfe).
The shell is ground at the edge into something of a spade shape,
a hole is bored near the hinge and the shell is bound on to a strong
cord.
These are often traded in pairs, the cord serving for the
handle, or a number are attached to a cord at regular intervals
PL n, Fig. i. Yar nu ao is a small local and lowly valued shell
5 or 6 are bound on to a length of cord some 5 inches (13 cm.)
Show
apart, and the whole forms the unit, called the botha a yat.
or
have
as
as
even
200
and
files
of
shells,
strings may
many
500
natives march along with them when presentations are to be made.
This kind is used for local purchases and is commonly regarded as
women's money while stone-money is that of men. Kubary recorded the payment for a pig made up of a small piece of stone-money
and about 20 yar, and the complicated barter was often concluded
by the additional make-weight of turmeric powder (1895, p. 6).
string of 6 shells is now worth about 100 coconuts, 10 packets of
cheap cigarettes or 50 matches.
Yar y en a vo-tsai means pearl shell-money from elsewhere ',
and describes the gold-lip shells (Finsch calls them Avicula

fae, but in Yap

it is

Sarfert, 1919, pp. 213-16, Figs. 115-19 ; Petri, 1936, p. 198, Fig. Sb.
Cf. also the series in the museums of Berlin and Hamburg.
*
Christian derives the Kusaie fae (fai) from the Hindustani pais, money,

introduced by Hindu-Malay pearl fishers

("1910,

pp. 236-7).

PRIMITIVE

144

margaritifera, Schneider, p. 8)
imported by white traders.

MONEY

no longer found

in the islands

but

'

Yar nu valeu or pearl shell-money from the Pelews ', consists

of shells with black rims, much more valuable, being worth 5 or 6
gold lips and 200 up to 500 of the Yap ones. These are valued
according to their size, measured from the finger-tips up the arm.
One of a hand's length is worth a row of botha a yar. Every finger
width beyond this almost doubles

its value (Miiller-Wismar, 1917,

pp. 127-8, PL 36, Fig. 3).
All these shells are used for the purchase of land, for payments
from victims to victors after a war, and in bride-price '. The
mespil, or village prostitutes, are always paid in yar, and it also
figures largely in funeral ceremonies.
*

Turtleshell, owing to its pleasing appearance and to its uneven

distribution, is prized by most of the Pacific Islanders, and it has
been called ' money ' among the Chamorro, the inhabitants of the

Mariannes (Ladrones) before the coming of the Spaniards. Small

disks were strung like shell-money and called alas. Arm-rings are
often classed as currency as well as the spoons and small trays or
saucers made in presses, which were valued possessions, given as
bridal dower, and used by the women in trading (cf. Meinicke,
Petri, 1936, p. 204).
1875, p. 409
The stone-money of Yap (PL 12) is the best known of all the
curiosities of currency though the largest specimens are
necessarily
;

'

'

absent from museums. The circular wheels or mill-stones, called

foe (variously spelt) or palan (the name in the Pelews), are made
of a kind of limestone (aragonite) and vary in size from a few inches
to 10 or 12 feet across (50 mm. to 4 m.).
The rock is found on
Babelthuap and other islands in the Pelews some 400 miles away,
and the quarried stones are ferried across on rafts to form the Yap
currency. Each stone has a hole in its centre so that it can be
carried on a pole.
Why these stones should have become not merely visible signs
of wealth but actual money is not clear. It has been suggested that

they represent an exaggerated and overgrown form (Wucherform)

of shell-money
that shell disks were first imitated in stone the
Kusaie stone imitations of pearl shell pendants are a parallel development and that these grew and grew, acquiring merit and prestige,
into their present size.
Or they may be a local development of ringmoney. Stone club-heads in disk form are still used as money in
the South- West of New Britain (Thilenius,
1921, p. 16, Fig. 16, a, b)
and with the central hole enlarged, the smaller Yap stones would be
similar to the older shell-rings of the Solomons. 1 The connection
;

1
In the Pelews the old disk beads as well as the
palan (Kubary, 1895, p. 7).

Yap

stones are called

OCEANIA

145

with rings

is supported by Heine-Geldern's recognition of stonerings as characteristic of the neolithic culture of South-Eastern Asia,
whence the Micronesian may be derived (1932, pp. 591 ff.) and the
two lines of evolution may be harmonized by regarding rings and disks

from the same

original source (Petri, 1936, p. 207).

in 1870 the large stones were rare
At that time there was only one
values.
represented high

as developing

When Kubary was

and

in

Yap

German trading firm in the Carolines, whose agents on Yap did not
take advantage of their favourable monopoly, and were merely
amused at the stone-money '. Some years later came a more sharp'

witted trader who, without capital and without much outlay, made
a fortune where well-established firms were working at a loss.
He
was his own agent and he was a practical man. This was the
notorious Captain O'Keefe, notorious in no better and no worse
sense than the rest of the traders who exploited the Carolines for
their own profit.
He saw that it was cheaper to help the islanders
to get their stone-money and to be well paid for it, than to leave this
to others and exchange trade goods for native produce.
So he
a
Chinese
had
a
keel
took
the
and
boat,
fitted,
bought
coasting
native Yappers across to the Pelews.
When Kubary returned to
Yap in 1882 he found the German firms powerless, and their agents in
deadly enmity with O'Keefe. They could do nothing while O'Keefe
fetched over thousands of stones until the whole island was in his debt.
Kubary himself crossed the 400 or so miles to the Pelews (with
62 native passengers on the 6o-ton schooner) and found hundreds
of men at work in Koryor, one of the most important quarries. The
deflation of stone-money led to appreciation of the larger stones
and eagerness for ever-larger and larger examples. Stones two
fathoms across were not uncommon, and the son of a Yap chieftain
worked hard at a three-fathom stone, but, unluckily for him, it
cracked before it was finished.
About this time a stone three hand span broad would buy a
good-sized pig or 1,000 coconuts. Ten years earlier a stone scarcely
twice as large was given Kubary's own name and travelled in great

honour from

district to district.
Later, overshadowed by its gigantic
sank into obscurity (1895, pp. 4^.).
It is not only size that counts.
Much depends on whiteness
and on shape, and certain old stones are more highly prized than
new. And values were very different on different islands. On
Guam, in the Mariannes (Ladrones), a stone only i foot in diameter
In the Pelews
15.
(30 cm.) was lately worth goods up to about
an ordinary waist-high specimen would be worth about 4,000
coconuts or 4. A man-high one would be worth a village or a
These would
plantation and a two-man-high one is beyond price.
never be owned by individuals, but would be communal.
rivals, it

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

146

Small and portable foe are used for buying fish and pigs, and in
the Carolines one the size of a plate would keep a family in food
for a month.
lady of rank, going to market, is followed by a
number of slaves, each of whom carries a large stone, some 2 to 3 feet
All payacross, supported by a bamboo pole across his shoulder.
ments for services rendered, material and spiritual, are paid in fae,
'
'
which is also important in bride-price negotiations and in funeral
ceremonies. The larger stones are stacked outside the house and
Not all of those exhibited belong to the
theft is said to be rare.
Some may belong to others, but being difficult to move
house.
the owner is content with his ownership, and the stones remain

where they

are.

In earlier days the method of obtaining the stones was for the
chief of a Yap village to give permission to a number of youths to go
over to the Pelews and bring back a hundred or more stones, some
These were exchanged on their return,
large ones among them.
so many baskets of taro per stone, until they were exhausted, the chief
taking all the larger stones and a proportion of the smaller ones.
The larger stones would very rarely be parted with, their chief value
being the prestige acquired by the possessor. In this way all the
larger villages of Yap were provided with stones, and kept the
smaller ones dependent on them.
Having acquired the stones they
to
with
them.
Alliances
could be made, neutrals won
gamble
began
over, wars begun and ended by means of stone-money.
There do not appear to be any traditions about the origin of the
stones or of how and why and how long ago they first came over
to the Carolines.
Until lately they were still being quarried, but

although they are still in use, it was reported in 1936 that no

more were being made. The only tradition regarding them tells
of the stone of enormous size that is lying at the bottom of the sea.
This was being towed across to Yap some generations ago when a
storm arose, and raft and stone sank to the bottom. Public opinion,
however, concedes that its purchasing power is not thereby impaired,
and the family is credited with the wealth just as surely as if it
were gold stored in the bank. Many large stones are always stored
outside the bachelors' house (failu) to indicate the wealth and add
to the prestige of the village.
When the German administrators had
difficulty in enforcing labour for road-making they hit upon the
ingenious plan of marking the stones with crosses to indicate that
they were confiscated until the work was done. This was equivalent
to utter bankruptcy for the owners
the roads were soon made,
;

the crosses were eradicated, and

all

were happy again (Furness,

1910, pp. 97-100).

The stones are not the only curiosities of currency
There are also the pestles and mortars ma which
'

'

on Yap.
have no

OCEANIA
parallel as far as is

known.

147

These are often of enormous

size,

the

mortars over i foot (30 cm.) high and wide, made of soft wood
and thus useless as a mortar. The pestles are of Tridacna shell, 1
i foot to 2 feet (25-50 cm.) long and very heavy, the thick end just
fitting into the mortar to which it is firmly bound (PI. n, Fig. i).
Thilenius and Miiller recognize this as an exaggerated development
of an original areca nut stamper, belonging to the earlier culture,
for that also had a pestle made of Tridacna shell, though only a few
inches long. Miiller ranks them as wealth (Geldwert) though not
as circulating media.
They were held in high estimation and were
used in distributions at funeral feasts. They probably have some
symbolic meaning, as they, as well as the stones, are carved on
house boards and house posts of club houses, as can be seen in the

Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin. (Thilenius, 1921, p. 16, Fig. 15 ;

Miiller- Wismar, 1917, p. 126.
Cf. Petri, 1936, p. 211).
It is curious to find in Micronesia this love of the abnormally
large, shown in the coconut disks, the
and mortars, and the stone-money.

pearl-shell currency, the pestles

These exaggerations are not

may be seen in the stone axe-blades of New

Guinea or the spearheads of Africa, but it is nowhere so remarkable

unknown

in currency as

as in the tiniest of

all

the scattered island groups of the Pacific.

Mats and woven

strips are used in Micronesia as gifts, in

'
as
payments in tribute or fines, and in bride-price
presentations,
'

In Yap special
Petri, 1936, pp. 214-15).
(Sarfert, 1919, p. 213
mats called mbul, ambul, &c., are described as currency, but, says
He describes
Christian (1899, p. 237), they are seldom bartered.
them as coarse, shaggy and white, resembling a goat or dog skin,
made from the beaten-out bark of the kal or lemon hibiscus tree.
They are not used, but are kept always rolled up in a safe corner,
;

Furness, however, says that they are

usually in the club-houses.
'
1
woven of extremely fine soft threads of banana fibre, with loose
ends sticking out all over them, almost like fur (1910, p. 104). Both
say that the mats themselves were not visible as they were kept
2
up and enclosed in matting and were never exposed to view.
When used in exchange their value was estimated by diameter
rolled

measured by span between thumb and forefinger, and they ranked

with large sized pearl shells or good white stones. The large bundles
were worth from 7 to
10.
been
has
called
a lost art on Yap, but it seems
Mat-making
doubtful if mats were ever made there. The high value attached to
these rolled-up treasures indicates an importation of unknown date,
1

The

shells are

not found on Yap, but are fetched

like

the stones from

the Pelews.
8

One
f.

is

illustrated, Pis. 36, Fig. 2,

pp. 99, 132.

and

47, Fig. 3,

Muller-Wismar,

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

148

they have never been properly seen and the technique

useless to attempt to link these cryptic examples with
the mat currencies of the New Hebrides or Samoa.
On Kusaie both plaited mats and woven strips are made for
presentation rather than for use, and these can be used in exchanges.
The Russian captain Liitke, who spent three weeks on the island
in 1827-8, before the coming of the American whalers upset native
economy, said that the inhabitants had as a rule no notion of trading
nor even of barter, and he and his companions found it impossible
to negotiate exchanges.
The natives gave generously, but without
return
a
This present-giving was the
apparently expecting
present.

though

if

identified

it is

and welcoming visitors, and,

was entirely dissociated from
Nevertheless, trading in pearl shell and in mats was not

normal way of testifying friendship

as in the Nicobars and in Polynesia,
trade.

unknown (Sarfert, 1919, p. 213).

The Pandanus mats for ordinary use, which every native carries
about tucked under one arm or hung on behind, are the stitched not

and these are too humble for presentation or exchange.

But plaited mats are less common and the better made ones (saki)
are often designed more for gifts than for daily use.
These are the
plaited variety,

feasts, and, folded up, serve as pockets for

including pearl-shell money. They are often decorated
along the edge with Hibiscus stitching in patterns which appear not
to have altered in the course of a century.
It was these saki mats
which Finsch records as tribute. They were paid to the King at
full moon, and might not be used by commoners (1892, p. 469).
Woven girdles, of the same type, but even better craftsmanship
than those of San Matthias, were also made for presentation only

customary presents at

other

gifts,

(Sarfert, 1919, p. 197).

The bead-money, andauth, of the Pelews is another mystery of

the Pacific.
The collection made by O'Keefe and Kubary is in the
Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin, and Kubary described 15 types
and illustrated 54 beads in colour (1895, pp. (>ff.). These are distinguished by material (stone, baked clay, glass) sizes, shapes and
patterns, but the varieties are too many to make a general description
1

possible.

Captain Wilson of the Antelope,

in 1783,

and was the

first

who was wrecked on

European

the Pelews

to reside on, if not to visit the

some he
Some he calls cornelian
made by the islanders of baked earth some they made
by grinding down pieces of glass from broken bottles off the wreck.
They were used for ceremonial presentations, and he himself was

islands,

mentions the beads.

says were

Andree recognized a chevron among these beads as identical with one from
Gold Coast, and, noting the juxtaposition of beads and cowries in both
areas, suggested that both were distributed by the same agency (i 885, p. 1 10).
the

OCEANIA

149

strings, one (which he illustrates) a handsome girdle of

red
beads a coarse sort of cornelian '.
graduated
The different types of beads are used for different purposes.

given two

'

Some are for ordinary buying

are never in the possession of

some
and selling in everyday life
commoners, but are only owned by
the richest families, carefully guarded and never exhibited.
Specimens of these are said to be worth as much as 1,500 marks, but it
is useless to speculate on their value, as they are
above price '.
The Pelew Islanders regard their bead-money as something sacred
and derive it from supernatural sources.
Non-native theories of its derivation are various and are summarized by Petri (1936, pp. 210-1 1). Kubary traced the beads to an
earlier culture formerly existing both in the Pelews and in Yap,
derived from an Asiatic source possibly due to Malay adventurers
some 300 or 400 years ago. Andree connected them with the worldwide distribution of the mysterious old trade beads found in Africa,
North America and also in Merovingian graves. He traced these
He
to Egypt and attributed the distribution to the Phoenicians.
regarded the similarity between the Pelew baraks (yellow) and bunans
(red) and the old Japanese Usi-isi beads (which he calls a variety of
aggry) as an indication of Japan as an intermediate link or secondary
Schmeltz rejected Japanese intervention, and
starting-point.
attributed them to early Buddhist pilgrims from Asia.
Niewenhuis
;

recognized the identity of these beads with the old beads treasured
by the Bahau and Kenyah in Borneo (cf. p. 261). The same types
are found (he says) in Flores, and in the string of islands to the
Roffeaer derives all
south, Sumba, Timor, Allor and Timor Laut.
these beads from the Indian factory of Cambay, north of Bombay,
which was exporting beads to Greece and South Africa four centuries
B.C., and maintains that the same were carried into Indonesia by

Malay

traders.

Petri accepts this last possibility, but with caution. 1

v.
A.

MELANESIA

BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO

The second

of our commercial centres in Oceania defined above

Britain, in the Bismarck Archipelago, and much has
been written about diwarra (or tambu)? which here enters so largely
into the religious, social, and economic life of the people.
(p. 1 1 8) is

New

If philological evidence is any guide it gives support to an Indian origin.

for beads is mutt, Malay mutija and Sanskrit mutja.
2 Diwarra is
not its name in
Britain, where it is called tambu or
palatambu ; it is called diwarra in the Duke of York group of islands and
the name has spread with the currency. For literature see, among others,

The Indonesian name

New

PRIMITIVE

150

MONEY

Unfortunately the name has been used to include other, and

indeed any, shell-money of Melanesia, and the label occurs on many
museum specimens.
True diwarra (PI. 10, Fig. i and Fig. 55) is made from Nassa
camelus a small shell, about | inch long (8-10 mm.), with a cowry-like
y

hump on

its back, which makes it nearly as high as long.

These little molluscs thrive in the mangrove swamps that surround the islands, and are especially abundant along the coast of
the Nakanai district, at the north-west end of the Gazelle Peninsula.

In the spring, after the north-west monsoon has subsided, men go

out to collect the shells in palm leaves or sections of bamboos, and
in spite of the stink (this is summarized from Schneider's account,
When the
pp. 15 jff.) they keep the decaying wealth in their huts.
south-west monsoon has set in and the sea is calm to the north
and north-west of New Britain, a flotilla ofccanoes comes from along

Cape Stephen and Cape Lambert and the neighbouring islands to fetch the palatambu. They get out their largest
the coast between

FIG. 55.

Diwarra,

New

Britain

outrigger boats, for the journey lasts a month or so, and they stack
one end with trade goods, axes, knives, spades, cloth, and above all,
special kinds of shell-money pele or tapsoka.
They travel day and night, hugging the shore, for it is unsafe
to land save on an uninhabited island, and the trading is done in
an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust. Sometimes the exchange
is made from boat to boat, out at sea, and the Nakanai people always
try to pass off too large or too small shells

among the right-sized ones.

Somethe bargaining is over the laden canoes return home.
times the shells are buried for a year, to destroy the occupants and
improve the colour, for colour is important. To prepare the strings
the shell is stuck in the cavity of a coconut shell to keep it firm,
the back is then broken off with a knife (formerly with a hard shell)
thus making a hole for threading and the skilled worker can prepare
20 to the minute. The shell, if it has not been buried, is still grey
or brown, so it has to be bleached or scoured, until it is white. Then
comes the hard task of making the finished diwarra. Each shell
has to be forced on to the stiff strip of rattan with much patience and
with fingers as hard as iron. The strips are from i foot to 20 inches

When

Romilly, 1886; Parkinson, 1907; Banks, 1888; Stearns, 1889; Schneider,

1905; Stephan, 1907; Brown, 1910; Foy, 1913; Lewis, 1929; Petri, 1936.
For theories of its origin and distribution cf. Heine-Geldern, 1932, pp. 553 ff.

OCEANIA

151

(30 to 50 cm.) long, and joins are made by slipping a shell over a
sliced junction, and so the fathom lengths are made with 300 or 400
shells to the fathom. 1
The shells must not touch, but must be evenly spaced a little
This is important, as it enables the shells to be easily counted,
apart.
it enables short lengths to be broken off, and it also distinguishes
true diwarra from mere ornament.
Short lengths obtained by work 2 or by trading or by less equitable methods were stored in decorated coconut shell bowls, with a
preference of late for glass bottles, through which they could be
more easily seen and more constantly gloated over. But the great
ambition of every man was to collect enough to make a ring or
loloi.

9
.

For

hundreds of fathoms were all joined into one

round and round and bound with leaves and
The loloi might contain 40 to 50
rattan, looking like a stout life-belt.
fathoms up to 100 or 200. A chief might have rings as large as a
cart-wheel, and so heavy that they had to be slung on a bamboo
pole, with two men to carry them like the stone-money of Yap.
Schneider noted how handy the shape was for transport, the ring
could be put over the head, and a woman fleeing from hostile attack,
would fling away her children rather than her loloi.
Diwarra can be called a true currency, as everything purchasable
could be bought with it, from wives and canoes, for 100 to 150
fathoms, to pigs, from 7 to 10, fowls, half a fathom, or vegetables
for smaller fractions, market prices naturally varying from place to
It never formed the currency on Nakanai
place and time to time.
Its
itself, though it was used there for barter, and for ornament.
use as money spread over the Gazelle Peninsula, and the Duke of
York group, and over parts of New Ireland.
this tens or

long string coiled

Tambu or dhvarra was the national currency just as much as the coinage
of any civilized country.
man Wanting betelnut would twist off a few
shells and tender them as recognized payment.
Fish, yams, taro, lime,
bananas, puddings, birds, pigs, canoes, slaves, turtle-shell and wives all had
their recognized value, and were paid for by twisting off the required number
of shells or measuring off the number of fathoms agreed to as the price of
the purchase (Brown, 1910, pp. 196-7).

This recognized value was, moreover, affected by the law of

supply and demand as in more civilized communities, and in the
1

The

and the spacing varied in different parts, hence

numbers of shells to the fathom counted by different collectors.
A man might earn 50 fathoms during his fishing season and make
10 or 13 from his plantation (Danks, 1888, p. 315).
8
Properly a loloi. Finsch says the ring is called tambu a loloi, the latter
word meaning chief (1888-93, p. 94).
the varied
8

size of the shells

PRIMITIVE

i S2

MONEY

recognition of this law New Britain shows a marked contrast to

Samoa. When the price of cotton rose during the American Civil
War traders gave a high price for cotton. After the War, when the
price fell, the Samoans let their cotton rot on the trees rather than

accept a lower price. But the New Britain natives always noted
the state of the market, and regulated their prices accordingly.
With the coming of the whites diwarra did not immediately suffer
The German Government
eclipse like so many native currencies.
wisely forbade its use by European traders, seeing that modern
fishing methods would flood the market with the shells, destroy the
and although it was officially
industry and depreciate the currency
prohibited in 1900, it was too firmly established in native estimation
to be easily discarded.
For the native conception of money, differs
in many ways from ours.
Its main use was not as a circulating
medium to facilitate exchanges ; it was not for spending, but for
;

keeping.
All this greed for diwarra, which fills the kanaka's whole life, is all for
one end, not for possession, not for comfort and luxury in this world, or
to enrich his family but for distribution at his death, so that men should
bewail, praise and honour him with feasts (Schneider, 1905, pp. 36-7).

As much

might be distributed at the death of a

Finsch saw 20 loloi at a funeral.
There are millionaires among the savages of Blanche Bay/ he says,
and each one
to
is
as
become
for
wealth
with
us.'
Wars
one,
here,
essays
power
are caused and settled by diwarra.
Theft of it, the greatest of all
crimes, is punished by death
though, in practice, life can be purchased by sufficient payment. With diwarra a man pays his fines,
condones adultery (3 to 5 fathoms), and atones for murder (50 or
more fathoms).
specially constructed loloi of colossal size was
brought as compensation for the four Fijian teachers who were
as 2,000 fathoms

wealthy man.

'

'

murdered on the

island (Finsch, 1888-93, p. 94).

The position of women is influenced by the dominance of diwarra.

'

'

It naturally provides a scale for bride-price which has a wide range,

from a mere 10 to 20 fathoms (the price of a fair-sized pig) to 100 or
150 (the price of a good canoe), while a chief might pay over 200

much other wealth for a choice specimen. As

The
the women make diwarra, they are a steady source of income.
wife may amass wealth, too, as long as it is by her own exertions ;
her husband is not responsible for her delinquencies and her fines

fathoms besides

by her husband, but by her own family. At the same

time the husband can often drain his wife's savings by trumping

are paid, not

accusations of adultery (Burger, 1913, p. 26).

Lastly, but this is the most important of all its functions, diwarra
*
is essential in all the activities of the
secret societies '.
candidate
has to collect several fathoms, perhaps 50 or 60, from his relatives-

up

OCEANIA

153

before admission. Often small boys are admitted, as the relatives

are afraid of their being fined for breaking spine taboo, or for some
inadvertent disrespect to the members, which would cost more than

Each successive step is usually accompanied by

and increased payments. All ceremonies, dances and
feasts are the occasion of further contributions by the members,
and often of extortions from non-members. The activities of the
dukduk of New Britain savoured so much of blackmail that to
outsiders its main purpose appeared to be the acquisition of diwarra.
These societies were the chief power in their communities, and
everything that was wrong in their eyes gave them an opportunity
to extort shell-money.
They represented public opinion, and were
a terror to evildoers, but in their lust for gain might was often
mistaken for right, and the weak, especially the women (who could
not be members) were the victims.
initiation fees.

successive

In petty cases the Tubuan (female Dukduk) simply goes to the home and
her spear into the ground, and squats beside it, perhaps to hide
'
'
her legs, which might be recognized by some mark on them, till some
'
'
.
shell-money is offered to her ', which, if not sufficient she rejects. .
drives

'

'

great deal of the society's income is from fines for various reasons, e.g.
'
'
speaking disrespectfully of the bird [masked figure] ... by calling its
'
*
'
dress leaves instead of feathers ', for speaking about it in the presence
of women, &c.
.
.
Any excuse is availed of to fine non-members, e.g. a
lad was fined 3 fathoms of shell-money for accidentally breaking a member's
pipe, which might have been bought for a finger's length (Brown, 1910,
.

pp. 60, 69-71, 81).

Even the fairies in New Britain are concerned with the amassing
of diwarra, and instruct lucky mortals in ways of making and increasing

it

by charms and

spells.

Parkinson (1907, pp. 83-4) describes how astute natives take

advantage of the superstitions with which diwarra is regarded, and
incidentally how women sometimes pay the men back in their own
coin.
He cites the case of a woman who claimed to be able, with
the help of the spirits, to double or even treble any sums of diwarra
entrusted to her.

Many

natives eagerly invested in this attractive

and easy scheme. But the spirits were not always amenable and
often had to be placated with further offerings. When an influential
investor became too impatient he would be repaid, while others were
kept waiting. When the place became too hot to hold her the

woman

started business in another part. 1

1
It is curious to note a parallel superstition in an unexpected locality.
few years ago a respectable shopkeeper in Cambridge sued a gypsy for
sums which had been entrusted to her to place under a stone in order to
bring money into his business. The first 5 did not have the desired effect,
and more and more was extorted, until the total added up to 60, the man's
patience was exhausted, and the case was brought into court.

154

PRIMITIVE

MONEY

In no other part of the world had money so powerful an influence

on savage life and custqms as in New Britain. All the energy of the
No service,
natives was spent in collecting it.
however slight, was given without demanding
The
payment, no present without return.
commercial spirit was everywhere uppermost.
Danks, who was a missionary for nearly eight
years in
diwarra.

Nassa shell
and cassowary quill

FIG. 56.

string, New Britain

New
He

FIG. 57.

Britain, deplored the influence of

regarded it as responsible for the

Navoi, arm-band,

New

Britain.

(i size)

'

Gratitude
and glaring ingratitude met with everywhere.
means expense, and is too expensive to indulge in
(1888, p. 315).
intense

To show gratitude is often bad form in Melanesia. It implies that you

regard the donor as a poor man whose gift involves a sacrifice. Cf. Coombe,
1

1911, p. 182, also Codrington, 1891, p. 354.

OCEANIA
Lack of

155

and general
commonly
"savages' in general and South Sea Islanders in
the Polynesians accused the missionaries of teaching
particular
them to be greedy. But in New Britain greed was already strongly
developed, and in missionary opinion the love of money was the
root of all evil.
attributed

thriftlessness

foresight

are

to

Diwarra itself has a limited range, including only the northeastern end of New Britain, the southern end of New Ireland and
the islands in between.
Strings or strips of Nassa, often called
'
false diwarra (the native name is eddi) with the shells close together
instead of separated, are found along the southern coast of New
'

Hansa Bay and Mowehafen (Schneider, 1905, p. 14, PI. 4,

Nassa shells, broken and threaded singly, eked out with

Britain, at

Fig. /).

of cassowary quills, J inch (15 cm.) long (Fig. 56), are

also currency along this coast (Finsch, 1888, PI. Ill, Fig. 2 ; Lewis,
bits

1929,

PL VII,

Fig.

i).

Ordinary shell-money of strung disks is either made locally, or

introduced in exchange from other islands. Thus pele strings from
the Duke of York group came in exchange for diwarra
and from
New Ireland tapsoka spread south, together with the common white
;

the Admiralties (Lewis, 1929, PL VII, Fig. 3).

At the western end of the island the general name for shellmoney is na ma yu yu, made of black (pa taw), white (bori borid)
and brown or grey (ra vali) disks, sometimes strung separately but
often mixed together, and decorated with cuscus or other teeth at

money from

Dogs' teeth were formerly used as currency here, as in

Guinea and the Solomons, and fetched high prices, as dogs

intervals.

New

were scarce.

From Sagsag at the westernmost end of New Britain comes a

form of currency not met with elsewhere. This is an arm-band
made of turtle shell called navoi, with patterns scratched on it, filled
in with white chalk (Fig. 57).
This is an importation from New
Guinea and is used as the local currency and forms one of the
principal items in the

Another

'

'

bride-price

(H. Sherwin).

form of

special interest and higher value consists

in the stone club heads of the south coast, and specially of MoweThese are flattish disks, some 4 inches to 6 inches (10 to
hafen.
local

1
cm.) across, made of fine-grained stone, and highly polished.
These have been recognized as a link between the stone-money
of Yap and the shell-money disks (p. 144), but they are little more
than valued objects of barter or exchange, like the flint strike-a-lights
from the same area in the currency collection in Vienna, or the
stone axe-heads, sometimes included in currency, from the Solomons.

16

'

Cf. Thilenius, 1920, Fig. 16, a,

b.

'

PRIMITIVE

156

MONEY
New

New

The Duke of York group, lying between

Britain and
Ireland, is the centre for manufacture and distribution of the pele
strings which are the general money of the area (PL 13, Figs. 6-13)
and are especially used for buying Nassa shells for diwarra (see
p.

150).

made

of many different kinds of shells strung in short

not
measured by the fathom, like most shell-money
lengths.
each string is only about 7 inches (20 to 25 cm.) long, with a long
end of string left, so that several strings can be tied together in a
bunch. The shells are broken up with a pounder of stone or shell,
often a stone axe-head is used, and they are chipped into a more
or less circular shape. The disks are bored with a sharp stone or
a shark's tooth bound on to a handle, or with the pump-drill
then threaded and ground down with pumice to make an even and
Pele

is

It is

well-polished string.
As the shells are thin, the disks are usually only ground at the
edges, though inequalities may be rubbed down with sand and
water, and in recent years the strings are often left rough and unSchneider describes and illustrates 12 kinds of pele
polished.
(pp. 52-4, PL 6) ; Lewis, 10 kinds (p. 14, PL IX) ; and Petri sketches
details of 4 (p. 521, Fig. n).
The orange-red munbun or biga of
Chrysostoma paradoxum is the finest and most highly prized, worth
25 pfennig a string on Mioko (south of Duke of York Island) where
it is made, and double that in New Britain.
The commonest dark brown strings are mbiu, of Modiola plume*
scens : mui is white ', made of Strombus luhuanum.
Pirr, made of

Cypraea,
surface,

is

white on the concave and purplish on the convex inner

is probably the best known, as its common use by

and

European traders gave it additional value. This is the favourite

and the usual Currency of the Nakanai district.
A light purplish-grey (lighter than pirr) is bingom, made of Conus
in the diwarra trade,

geographicus, a
pompilius, dark

creamy-white

brown

string,

lillie,

strings kalakalang

is

made

of Nautilus

murmuru minne of Perna

and kalakalang kambang of Perna ephippium. All these

strings, the shells from which they are made, the broken bits and
disks (Figs. 6-12), the stone pounder (Fig. 15) and the stone-tipped
vitrea

pump

drill (Fig.

14) are illustrated in

PL

13.

Crossing over to New Ireland we plunge into the most perplexing

and complicated of all the shell-money complexes. There are at
least a score of different kinds in use here, and there is little illustrative material in English museums.
Owing to the mountainous
character of the country, the unsociable nature of its inhabitants,
and the lack of communication between them, the currencies are
local and very varied.
Both here and in the Solomon Islands it
is difficult for a general
surveyor to avoid losing the way in a jungle

OCEANIA

157

of unintelligible names, for a string

may have

names (recorded

by

many

in different spellings

a dozen different

different observers) in as

districts.

Tapsoka is the best known here, as, although it is made on New

Hanover and smaller islands to the north, it travels widely in New
This is made of Chama pacifica
Ireland, and also into New Britain.
is
red on the outside and
and
shell
which
as
the
whole
imbricata,
white inside is used, the strings can easily be recognized by the
alternate and irregular patches of bright pinky red and creamy white.
Boys dive for the shells, which are broken up, and ground down by
the women, making small thin disks about J in. (3-4 mm.) in diameter, but the strings vary in fineness. The men bore the holes by
means of sticks with stone points iron nails are now preferred and
the disks may be baked on stones to improve the colour. A length
of 2 to 3 feet (60-90 cm.) was worth from 3 to 6 marks or more, but
much depends on colour. Five strings of the best kind was the
average price of a woman and 6 to 7 that of a pig of the best kind
'

'

'

Lewis,
Parkinson, 1907, pp. 301-2
(Schneider, 1905, p. 55, fn,
1929, pp. 19-20, PL XII, Figs. 4-6).
False tapsoka
is made of Spondylus, and shows a different
shade of red with more orange in it. These strings in Schneider's
illustration (PL 7, Figs, d, e) are as fine as the finer strings of tapsoka,
but were only valued at 25 pfennig a foot. Chinnery (p. 29) says
that Spondylus strings (levene dasilok) are the most highly prized
kind in the north where he equates them with sapi sapi, imported
from New Guinea. And as similar strings are found also in the
Solomon Islands, he attributes the spread to the blackbirding of
;

'

'

'

earlier days.

of

Kokonon seems to be a general name for shell-money in the north

Ireland, and in Finsch's collection at Vienna various kinds

New

can be seen,

all (including tapsoka) labelled kokonon

(cf. Finch,
1888-93, p. 128, PL III, Fig. 3). The commonest sort, kokonon
luluaiy is made of the tiniest of white Conus tips strung alternately
with equally tiny coconut shell disks (Finch, ibid., Schneider, 1905,

PL

8, Fig. k
Lewis, 1929, pp. 23-4, PL XIII, Figs. 8, 9).
of low value, but in constant use.
It is so necessary for
small purchases and for fines that some is usually worn in the hair
1
in case of sudden need or accident.
Arangit is a red string,
and
darker
than
finer
It
and
more
brown
than
red.
though
tapsoka
is found mainly in the central region where it is worth about 50 to
75 cents a fathom, though far more highly valued farther south

p. 59,

This

is

'

'

(Schneider, p. 56, PL 7, Fig./; Lewis, p. 20, PL XII, Fig. 10).

Other red strings are wait, which is finer than arangit, and
'

'

1
In the Finsch Collection in
are labelled arangit.

Vienna

'

white

'

as well as

'

red

'

strings

PRIMITIVE

158

MONEY

tingerib (the name is used for other kinds of shell-money also) which
finer still (Schneider, pp. 56-7, PL 5, Figs. g-i).
The difficulties of identifying shell-money in
Ireland are

is

New

increased by the custom of stringing several different kinds together,

and mixed strings are a special characteristic, the meaning of which
is unexplained.
There are many fine strings of white, whitish,
greyish, brownish, and reddish disks, the prevailing tinge being grey ;
ban is the name for the whiter kind and tikutkut and titpele for the
greyer shades, while the red-brown shades would be classed as arangit

Lewis, p. 18, PL XI, Figs. 7-8). Miu

(Schneider, PL 8, Figs, a-e
'
tikutkut or
black tikutkut is the darkest of all the strings, made
of disks less than 3 mm. in diameter. This is strung in short
lengths, measured across the breasts, and one length was worth
;

'

8 pfennig (Schneider, p. 57, PL 5, Fig. k).

Tapsoka, arangit, bau, tikutkut, titpele and kokonon luluai are the
only kinds in the Cambridge Collection at present (cf. PL 13,
Figs. 1-5), so whether mangin, lolat, (lollot) lideran, kemetas, pukheo,
kabon, kawas and others are variations in shell-strings or merely
in nomenclature must be left for others to decide.
The really interesting money of New Ireland is the birok or pigmoney (also called ntdpap) especially characteristic of the south,
and entirely distinct from any other kind. This consists in a
composite string made according to a general plan which is described
by Lewis (1929, pp. 24-5) and illustrated, by kind permission of the
Field Museum, Chicago, in one of his strings (PL 15).
First comes a fathom (or more) of shell disks, usually mixed sorts,
up to a rattan square a couple of inches across, usually red, black
and yellow, through which the string passes diagonally. After this
it bifurcates into
pig-money proper, consisting of a fathom or so
of edge-to-edge disks (cf. p. 115) in two parallel strings.
Dogs' teeth
'

'

'

and more shell-money separate this section from another stretch

of
pig-money in more numerous parallel strings, terminating
The whole string may be 15 yards long, conusually in pigs' tails.
The rattan squares are believed to be
taining 20,000 separate disks.
charms and to contain some special magical objects such as hair, &c.
But they are too valuable to destroy in confirmation of this belief.
One was opened by Lewis and contained nothing but the folded strip
of Pandanus leaf which was the foundation for the plaited rattan.
The meaning of the pig-money and of the pigs' tails at the end
'

of

it

lead into a

authorities. 1

The

maze of contradictory statements by competent

popular idea is, so many tails, so many pigs, and

that a string with 10 tails is worth 10 pigs.

Lewis (1929, pp. 26-7)
argues that this is improbable, as a string in the Field Museum
Collection in Chicago with 17 tails is not much longer than one with
1

Cf. Petri's

summing up

of reports and opinions (1936, p. 524).

OCEANIA

159

But

this seems an unnecessary appeal to reason, for the

oniy 5.
value of shell-money is fixed by custom rather than by common
sense.
more obvious explanation is that the number of tails repre-

sents the

number

of pigs which

it

has been used in buying, but

Some

travellers state that the strings were used

in purchase of wives as well as of pigs, and also at funeral ceremonies.

this lacks proof.

Some say they were never used for wife-purchase. Some doubt if
they were ever used for buying pigs. Some doubt if they were
money at all, or anything more than symbols of wealth imbued
with magic. And now that the generation that used these strings
is passing away, a clear solution of the uses and abuses of pig-money
cannot be expected.
The place of diwarra in native life as described by contemporary
writers nearly 50 years ago has already been noted (cf. pp. 1 5 1 ff.).
A
the
function
of
the
of
general survey
money throughout
archipelago
is given by Biihler (1934).
He claims that shell-money here really
deserves the name of money as it fulfils all the functions of a recogIt is convenient to handle, to measure or to divide,
nized currency.
and the values if not fixed are fairly steady within local groups
the supply is limited, either because of the scarcity of the material,
the tedious labour of manufacture, the small number of people
It is
qualified to make it, or by intentionally restricted output.
used in exchange, as a standard of value and for payment for services.
'

it differs from our money in certain important ways.

Not only
does the value vary from place to place, and district to district, and
also from time to time, more erratically than that of civilized currencies,
but it differs from the latter in its restricted uses, whereby one kind
alone is used for one purpose or purchase and another for another,
notably pigs or wives. Thirdly, it is far more commonly used as

Yet

mere ornament, and enters into necklaces, armbands and girdles,

and in the Admiralty Islands the shells are used to make whole
dance aprons.

The
shilling

transition from the old shell-money economy to the new

and tobacco standard was difficult. White traders were

forbidden to use the native money, as abuses could too easily result.
Though the shell-strings can scarcely be imitated successfully and
profitably, imitation shell-rings

and imitation dogs' teeth were im-

ported by Chinese and Japanese traders, and the teeth were very
popular as decorations in New Ireland, where the real teeth have
gone out of circulation as money.
The first trade with the natives was necessarily by barter, but with
the development of plantations, the payment of wages, and the
enforcement of a head tax by the Germans, silver marks came into
'
'
native use, and the Australian shilling, still called a mark by the
natives, is current throughout the archipelago.

PRIMITIVE

160

MONEY

In most parts of the world, in defiance of Gresham's Law,

good (i.e. civilized) money has driven out bad (i.e. uncivilized),
and native currencies have disappeared. In Melanesia the essential
'

'

'

money with important native institutions has necespreserved it, wherever the social structure and beliefs are still
maintained. Meanwhile, owing to economic changes, the value has
increased rather than diminished. The making of shell-money is
almost a lost art, as wages can now be earned by quicker and less
laborious methods, and the strings are more and more difficult to
The prices asked for diwarra in curio shops today would
obtain.
astonish traders of 50 years ago. Then a fathom roughly equalled
fowl was worth a quarter or half a
2 to 3 shillings or marks.
association of
sarily

fathom according to size, one fathom would buy a piece (2 yards) of

calico, and i to 3 fathoms an axe or spade.
Workers were paid a fathom a month, with food. Pigs, wives
and canoes fetched fancy prices according to size and attractions.
Wages are nowadays paid in money or in tobacco, and the value of
But for all ceremonial payments, especially
coins is appreciated.
for pigs to be sacrificed at feasts, for payments on marriages, or for
carvers of masks, or of dancers on various occasions, native money
alone suffices, and is indeed essential, no substitute being acceptable,
as

it

lacks the necessary religious content.

B.

SOLOMON ISLANDS TO NEW CALEDONIA

In the Solomon Islands, as in the Bismarcks, strings of shellmoney are met with everywhere, although their significance appears
There are three main
to be more ornamental than economic.
interests in life, women, pigs and money, but money comes last, not
first.
The making of the strings is usually, as far as can be discovered, the industry of the smaller less productive islands, where
the women are not able to support the family with garden produce,
so they use the strings for buying supplies from the mainland,
strings supplementing or supplanting fish in the ordinary interinsular fish-taro or fish-yam exchange.

The chief centres are in the smaller islands of the Shortlands,

south of Bougainville in the north ; and in the small islands south
of Malaita in the south.
But here as in the Bismarcks, strings pass
from island to island, acquiring new names in each district and
again, a list of the illustrated types and references to the literature
;

form the only non-controversial introduction.

It is usual to distinguish between
red ', white
'

'

'

and

'

'

black
of
either
or
three
colours
all
often
have
strings, although strings
the same name. The red disks are mostly of Spondylus or Chama
pacifica, and,

being more valuable, are seldom used in trading, though

161

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

short lengths are threaded in with white or black to enhance the

value of the commoner strings. The white are mainly Conus, and
the black may be very dark brown shells of various kinds they may
be coconut, or more often seeds.
To begin with the commoner white strings. Schneider
describes and illustrates (pp. 70-2, PI. XII, Figs, f-h and k) some
strings of Conus, perasali and salesak, made on Alu, circulating
through the Shortlands to Bougainville in the north, Choiseul and
Ysabel to the east and Rubiana and the New Georgia group to the
Moremore or mimisi of Spondylus or Chama
south, by way of trade.
;

'

'

pacifica are among the many names for the red strings, and series
of these reds are interspersed with whites and characteristically
c

'

1
separated by single black disks or seeds.
the
most
and
Bougainville,
formerly the least explored
northerly
of the larger Solomon Islands, shares shell-money strings with other
island groups, but has two distinct types of its own.
Biruan or beroan is best known in the North. These are white
Conus strings often enlivened with black disks that occur irregularly

FIG. 58.

Marnoai, shell-money, Solomon Islands

These can scarcely be distinguished from the Conus

from the Shortlands to the South, but Parkinson says (1907, p. 494) that they are made on the little Carteret
islands to the north of Buka, and the Buka natives believe that they
come from New Britain or even from the Admiralties (Schneider,
PI. XII, Figs. / and k
Lewis, 1929, p. 32, PL XXIII, Figs. 1-3).
Purple biruan takes the place of red money on Buka (PL 10).
To the south abuta (aputa) or mauwai can easily be distinguished
from anything in Oceania or elsewhere (Fig. 58). It is made of the
speckled tops of small Conus shells (either C. sponsalis or C. hebraus)
J inch to inch (5-13 cm.) across. These are broken up into bits
almost as long as broad, but not ground down into disks, so that
here and there.

strings such as perasali

'

'

'

the string of only 5 bits to the inch (25

beaten flotsam as Schneider describes

'

mm.)

looks

'

it

(p. 69,

'

like

weather-

PL XII,

Fig.

e).

better-made, ground and polished type of abuta is used for

pig purchase (ill., Petri, 1936, p. 521, Fig. 15). Abuta is measured
length oi
by the fathom and a fathom is worth about a shilling.

On

general.

Ysabel mimisi

is

the

name

for whitish strings, or for strings

ir

PRIMITIVE

162

MONEY

10 fathoms with a snailshell at each end is looped 6 times and firmly

for a few inches, leaving the ends dangling (cf. Thurnwald,
Ten of these strings, making 100 fathoms in all,
1934-5, PI- M)
are packed in a netted bag and placed in the sleeping hut as a pillow
for the ancestral ghosts (ibid., PL III).
Thurnwald drew up a fairly definite scale of values (1912,
quarter-fathom would buy a small carrying net, a
pp. 39-42).
basket or a pot. One fathom was equal to a good arm-ring, which
could also be used as currency, and would buy a large pot, a large
basket of taro, a large forehead shell, a club or spear. Ten to twelve
fathoms would buy a large pig. For the same price a man can hire
a murderer or purchase a widow. It needs 100 or more to atone for
murder and more still may have to be paid for a girl wife.
In a Buin song the lovesick girl appeals to her lover

bound

Buy me with arm-rings,

are many arm-rings
Down there at the mouth of
Where the men work on the
There

And in another song

the river
land.

the outraged lover upbraids a fickle

maiden

you did not want me,

did you tell me to give you a string of red shell-money
Your father demanded two hundred fathoms of abuta ;
That was your price.
If

Why

and he ungallantly adds

You unwashed scarecrow

You are as old as an opossum.
(Thurnwald, 1910, p. 120).

The other money peculiar to Bougainville is kuriri, a whitish

string that a conchologist (but only a conchologist) would recognize
as unique in this oceanic world in being made of land-snails
(Schneider, p. 71,

Guadalcanar

PL XII,

Fig.

i).

renowned for

its

'

plaited shield used in bridealso has strings of shell-money not found

;
price (PL 8, Fig.
elsewhere (PL 10, Fig. 7). These are made of thick heavy dark
brown coarse irregular disks nearly inch (10-12 mm.) across, which
is

'

Woodford

though they were already obsolete

was known about them (1908, 43, PL F,

collected in the island,

in his time

Fi g-

it

and

little

3)-

In the Southern Solomons rongo is the general name for shellmoney rongo pura for white strings, and rongo sisi for red, though
mixed strings are the commonest red strings with patches of white
in the middle are called sapi.
The white disks are made from Area
shell and the red from Chama padfica.
There is a very special
kind of brightest red, made from the very reddest part of the shell
;

OCEANIA

163

sometimes a whole shell provides only one disk, and a short string
measured from the elbow joint to the end of the middle finger may
take two years to make (Woodford, 1908, 43).
Codrington describes a very fine kind made at Haununu on
San Cristoval of disks only
inch (little over i mm.) in diameter
with about 50 disks to the inch (1891, p. 325, fh. Cf. Petri, 1936,

p. 526).

may be made from black Pinna shells more often

These are not strung by themselves but are mixed in
with white and red either for effect or to mark
Black disks

from

seeds.

divisions

for

measurement.

The

alternate

black and white in the middle of otherwise

white or red strings is a special characteristic
of the Solomons (Fig. 59 cf. Lewis, PI. XXIII,
The red shell-money is scarcely
Figs. 3, 5-7).
in circulation, though it is used for
brideIt is
price ', 60 strings being a fair average.
;

'

mostly owned by chiefs,

and only

who

store

it

in secret,

on great occasions such

as feasts, and as rewards for war service, distribution on the owner's death being a frequent
distribute

it

cause for quarrelling.

From the farthest south of the Solomons,
off the south-east end of San Cristoval, the
natives of the atolls of Santa Ana (or Itapa)
and Santa Catalina (or Aquari) make fine strings
to exchange for mainland goods.
These are
long strings, made for currency, not for orna-

ment, of the usual Solomon Island type, with

red and white separated by alternate black and
white disks (PL 16, Fig. 2), but some of them
show in their termination a curious likeness
'
to the pig-money
strings of New Ireland
The
unusual technique of
(PL 16, Fig. i).
or
two
more
dividing
strings and joining them
FIG. 59.
Shell-money,
is
the
same bits of shell are
Solomon Islands
together again
used at the junctions in place of the dogs'
More striking still are
teeth, and there are the same halved seeds.
the dangles of edged disks, the chief characteristic of pig money ',
while the terminating strips of cloth suggest an imitation of former
'

'

These strings travel far, as one was collected lately on

Guadalcanar.
Ivens (1927, p. 391) sums up the part played by shell-money in
the social life of the smaller islands Sa'a and Ulawa, and the larger
Malaita near by.
pigs' tails.

PRIMITIVE

164

MONEY

Strings are used for

the furnishing of the bride-price and the blood-money, the buying of canoes
[100 shell-moneys for a decorated canoe, 10 for a bonito canoe and 3 or
4 for an ordinary one], the payment of fees and fines including redemptive
offerings to ghosts : the buying of pigs and of food ; single strings of varying
lengths are in common use for making purchases. The one term ha' a is
used for a unit of shell-money of 4 or 6 strings, for the unit of porpoise
In the bride-price or the
teeth, 100, or the unit of dogs' teeth, 40. ...
blood-money each unit of 10 may include so many units of porpoise teeth
and of dogs' teeth. In the buying of pigs or canoes the shell-money is
usually generally the only one employed.

The Santa Cruz group

135)

(p.

also

used

to the South-East of the

Solomons

is

strips (p. 131) and its feather-money

strings of teeth or seeds and turtleshell rings (Fig. 60) are
as currency, but shell-money appears to have gone out of

famous for

its

woven mats and

It was in general use in

former days, made of white or greyish

fashion.

white strings like those in the Solomons, and, as in those islands, strung
with black coconut disks, black seeds,
fish vertebrae and European beads as
variations or decorations. 1
In between the Santa Cruz group
and the Banks' Islands are the Torres
Islands formerly famous for the
'

6o.-Turtleshell nose ring,

Santa Cruz

FIG.

made of

very

pretty little arrows which were used

in the
^f money
(Codrington,
o
1891, p. 327 ; Rivers, 1914, II, p. 386 ;
cf. specimen in Pitt Rivers Museum).

W^

Codrington noted the absence of

belts (te

'

shells

'

and of shell-money, but

bound on

to cane (Fig. 61) are a

Durrad). Boars' tusks, and jaws with the
tusks still in situ, are valuable in exchanges here, together with strings
of shiny black bead-like evodia seeds. 2
Continuing southward we reach the Banks' Islands where once
more shell-money reigns supreme. It is rough, white or dirtywhite, unpolished and unattractive (which may account for its rarity
in museum collections) but for the Banks' Islanders it is the
prime
necessity of life in this world and the next.
Most of it comes from Rowa near Vanua Lavu ; the largest
island of the group.
titi)

form of currency (W.

snail-shells

J.

C/. Speiser, 1916, p. 191, Fig. 39.

Cf. also Rivers, 1914, II, p. 397.
girdle of shell-money used in exchanges in Tapua, the central island
of the Santa Cruz Group, is referred to above (p. 118).
2
The occurrence of this tree prevents the round shiny black beads,
otherwise so popular in trading, from being ' acceptable '. The natives
have no use for them, as they explain ' all same trees '.

The

OCEANIA

165

Rowa

consists of 5 tiny islets on the bight of an irregular reef

One of the islets is the jagged point of a volcanic
5 miles long.
and
is
this
the
rock,
only one inhabited. It was believed that if
food
was
any
grown on this island there would be a famine on

some

Vanua Lavu, its nearest neighbour, also that if a sow were taken
thither it would devour the people, so they were obliged to support
themselves by exchanging fish and shell-money (PL 10, Fig. 8)
with the larger islands. It supplied the common money called sow,
made of tips of shells (as described above, pp. 116-17), and also
finer sorts

used only for ornament.

In Codrington's time som ta

Rowa was

so fine that 60 disks went to the inch (Codrington, 1891,

pp. 17, 298, 325-6).

FIG. 6i.~~Tetiti, shell belt,

Torres Islands

Rivers watched the som disks being made by a simple process on

Rowa, and collected the apparatus which is illustrated in Fig. 62.
The shells are broken up with a hammer of giant clam shell and the
pointed ends collected, sun-dried and washed. They are chipped
down till they form small pieces pointed on one side corresponding
to the outer surface of the shell and hollow on the other side, corre-

sponding to

its interior.

To

rub down the fragment, the

woman

takes a stem of Hibiscus about as thick as her finger, sliced diagonally

across, and fixes the little shell-tip with its hollow surface inwards
in the

end of the

stick.

The

tip

can then be rubbed on a stone

sprinkled with water and volcanic sand, until it is worn down and a
hole appears in the centre. The disks thus made are collected in a
*
coconut cup, and strung on Hibiscus bark string.
Nothing could

have been simpler and more expeditious than the conversion of the
fragments of shell into disks ', a woman working from sunrise to
sunset could make a fathom of money (Rivers, 1914, pp. 167-8).
This coarse kind of shell-money quickly and roughly made with the
corrugations still left, and not ground down after stringing, is of

PRIMITIVE

66

paramount importance

in native

New

MONEY

life,

taking the

same place here

used daily for ordinary

transactions ; a length of about 4 feet would buy enough yams to keep
a family of five for a week and it is essential in all important payments.
that diwarra does in

Britain.

It is

Social advance is secured by possession of shell-money because the steps

in the Suqe Club cannot be taken without it ; social eminence is maintained
by it, because the moneyed man has his debtors under his thumb, and by the
power he has of imposing a loan, he can make rising men his debtors and
keep them back.

FIG. 62.

Shell-money making, Rowa, Banks Islands

A debt is not only contracted by borrowing. A rich man may

impose a loan which his friend may not for his own credit refuse,
though he has to make a double return.
The

pressure put

demanded

is

upon a debtor who does not pay when payment is

effective.
All the men of the creditor's place come

admirably

and sit, bringing their wives with them, in the debtor's premises
the
debtor lights his fire and cooks food for them ; if the payment is not forthcoming they stay overnight, go home next morning and after a while repeat
the visit. The debtor's neighbours and friends pity him and help him with
food and money until he scrapes enough together to pay the debt (Codring;

ton, 1891, pp. 326-7).

From Micronesia down to the Solomons Schneider's monograph

has led the way through the mazes, but south of the Solomons
he himself goes astray. Not having seen the Banks' Islands

OCEANIA

167
*

shell-money, som, he was puzzled by Codrington's description and

assumed that it was the same as the shiny white shell-money which

found, though sparingly, in the New Hebrides (Schneider,

These latter strings
Fig. I* tf- PP- 82-3).

is

PI. 7,

ground and polished, are worn as ornaments

the more northerly islands, the string
(part of which is illustrated in Fig. 63)

in

was
in

collected

'

'

bride-price
p.

as

Santo

Espiritu

in

currency

woman

Aoba,
wears

and
her

round her neck (Speiser, 1923,

182).

The white

disks are often interspersed

black coconut, as in the fine string
(part of which is seen in Fig. 64) given to
Miss Cheeseman by King Ringapat of the
Big Nambas in the interior of Malekula, but
European beads are replacing shell-strings,

with

which are now no longer made (Speiser, 1923,

p. 270).

Pigs are the real currency of the New

Hebrides, and though shell-money is used
in the purchase of pigs or of wives in parts
of Santo, mats are the ordinary substitute
for money in the East (Maewo, Aoba (Oba)
teeth are more important
and Pentecost)
in Malekula and Ambrym
Erromanga is
noted (in museums) for its stone-rings, which
are not used as money
and Tanna has no
;

currency at

all.

The mats and teeth mainly boars' tusks

have been described above (pp. 126, 131)
the use of rings as currency in Melanesia
has also been discussed, and the navela or
FIG. 63
FIG. 64
navila of Erromanga is often included as the
Shell-money, New
last link in the chain of ring-money and
Hebrides
of stone-money stretching from Micronesia
through the Bismarcks and the Solomons. Robertson describes
;

these rings (1902, p. 389)

These navilahs they believe were not made by human hands ; they were
given to them as heirlooms by their forefathers, who, in turn, received them
from the spirits. When a man was dying, he generally sent for his son or
nearest male relative, and told him where the family navilah were buried,
1

Schneider found Codrington's description of som

verstandlich

'

(p. 49).

'

etwas schwer

Petri (1936, p. 527) follows Schneider.

PRIMITIVE

168

MONEY

for the ground was the bank of deposit where these precious relics were
Sometimes he died before he could tell this, or perhaps,
usually stored.
out of anger, he preferred to be silent, and thus deprive his successor of his
Thus these stones might be buried for years and then suddenly
heritage.
be found. There was no risk of a stone not being recognized by the family
to whom it belonged, for each navilah has its own name and history.
Some
bear a man's name, others a woman's. . .
The navilah is in the form of a ring or of the crescent moon, though
sometimes almost straight. They are of all sizes and when they are ringshaped, a man can easily crawl through the largest, which weigh from 40 to
50 pounds and are about 5 feet in circumference. They were also given
as purchase money for wives and often at their feasts a chief will present
another with a navilah, there being always an exchange of the compliment
at the return feast. 1
.

(1926, p. 164), who collected the navela illustrated

says that these rings can scarcely be classed as ordinary
currency. They are chiefly used in present-giving, though never
without expectation of a return gift in kind, and are used as presents

Humphreys

(PL

7),

in the purchase of a wife in the

same category with

boars' tusks

and

numpuri [cowry] shells.

A unique medium of exchange is found on Santo in the form
of bits of black coral (a Gordonid, probably Plexaura antipathes,
2
This is a very finely branching species and the shiny black
Esper).
are
treasured as charms, though rarely owned except by chiefs.
twigs
They are used in exchanges, a fragment of a colony, say a branch
7 inches to 8 inches (18-20 cm.) long with its. associated branchlets,
having the exchange value of half a dozen pigs the staple wealth
of the island

or a wife (Richie, 1913).

Throughout New Caledonia and the Loyalties trading is almost
all by barter, and money
rarely changes hands save in the more costly
purchases such as canoes .and valuable ornaments. Nevertheless,

money

all-important in native life, though its significance is far

It enters
religious or magical than economic.
functions from birth and marriage to death, and the accom-

is

more ceremonial,
into

all

panying rites and ceremonies it takes part in all feasts, all alliances
and peace-makings it is used for the accomplishment and atonement
of crimes, and is essential in all ceremonial presentations.
;

It consists solely in shell-money and is distinguishable from that

of any other part of the world by its fineness, its accompanying
ornaments, and the addition of string entwined with the hair of the
fruit-eating bat (Pteropus) commonly called
flying-fox '.
This fur string is highly valued in New Caledonia and the
Loyalties being used not only for personal ornament, but for decorating weapons and other articles of value, such as the becket, which
'

Cf. also Meinicke, 1875, P- 204

Speiser, 1923, p. 273

P- 5472

Specimen

in the

Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.

Petri, 1936,

OCEANIA

169

serves as a spear-thrower as well as currency (Fig. 65), necklaces and

The bats are caught in nets or knocked down with sticks
purses.

or sling-stones, and the hair pulled out.

This spread out evenly

Beckct, with flyingfox fur string, New Caledonia. (-J size)

FIG. 65.

and fixed between fine banana fibres is twisted to make a furry cord,
which should not be thicker than a quill. It is dyed in a concoction
made from a root to give it the reddish-brown colour (Sarazin,
1929, p. 102).

an

essential

string or tuft or plaited tail of this appears to be

accompaniment of money in

New

Caledonia, even if it no longer possesses moneyvalue in itself.

Miu is here the general name for money, and
black money', miu bwarre, is the most valued and
extremely fine. It was originally made of tiny bits
of the tarsal bones of lixards, but is imitated in very
fine Conus shell- tips of incredible minuteness, less
than a millimeter each way. It is greyish-white
and the darker the colour the higher the value.
*

This was used more for presents for great chiefs on

special occasions, and for fines, than for trading, and
many natives had never even seen a string of it. A
short piece with its accompanying tail of plaited
flying-fox fur is illustrated in Fig. 66.
1

White money

',

miu me,

is

lighter,

but not

white, and is also very fine and also has a tail

of flying-fox fur string, and different kinds have
different values, though all are remarkably high.

FIG.

66.' Black

money',

New

Caledonia

few inches of the finest sort were worth 30 to 40 francs, an ell would
buy a wife, and half a fathom a canoe. But there is also a cheaper
kind of white money, where the little shell beads are separated from
each other by knots in the

string.

(This method of stringing

is

PRIMITIVE

i 7o

MONEY

New Caledonia and found nowhere else.) This was the

kind used by the whites in trading with the natives, and their price
was i franc a meter; 5 francs' worth was measured by a man
standing with the string in his outstretched arms, the ends falling
peculiar to

ground from either hand (Sarazin, 1929, pp. 177-8, PI. 51, i).
one knows how the strings are made, and the natives, if they
know, will not tell. They are no longer current, as trade is now
transacted with paper-money of the Indo-Chinese bank at Noumea
to the

No

(Nevermann, 1933,

The white

p. 212).
strings are illustrated in Fig. 67

a fine string with

;
to the right, the cheaper kind with knotted string next,
also with a fur tail, and coarser white strings, which have lost their
its

fur

to the

tails,
i

tail

to

left.
1

i$s.

The

No

fine

white string was said to be worth from

New Caledonia are the

less characteristic of

ornaments attached to the strings, which consist in shells, and in

the little pendants of pearl-shell with serrated edges, seen in
the same illustration.
These pendants have been variously interpreted (Sarazin, 1929, p. 179). They often have bifurcated ends,
and a pisciform or even anthropomorphic appearance, but the natives
explain that though these are customary, they are not essential, any
more than the heads on our coins. They are merely added for
ornament.
The more valuable money, which is said to be used only by chiefs,
is kept in the characteristic wrapper or purse.
This may be a piece
of barkcloth or other material, but it is always bound round
with flying-fox fur string (PI. 17). More characteristic still is
the head of money go miu, of varying shapes.
This may be a
solid roll wound round with flying-fox fur string and/or plaitwork,
with dangles of shell-money and ornaments below. Or it may be
in the better known form of a canoe-shaped piece of wood, bound
with the string, carved with a human face with large prominent nose
This type is probably connected with ancestor cults
(Fig. 68).
but it has a practical use, as it constitutes a safe, being tabu to all
but the owner, guarding him against thieves.
Another form of purse, or head of money (for so Sarazin
identifies it, 1929, pp. 181-2, PI. 51, Figs. 10-11), is composed of
a pair of frigate bird bones about i foot (30 cm.) long, fastened
together at one end to form a sort of handle of almost the same length,
and again at the other end, both fastenings being of flying-fox fur
These have been taken for ornaments, possibly for combs,
string.
but Sarazin recognized them as Munzkopfe on which to hang strings
of shell-money. 2
'

'

kind
8

Lewis (1929)
PI.

illustrates

two

fine strings,

'

PL XXIV, and

XXV.

Cf. specimen in the

Horniman Museum

Collection.

the cheaper

OCEANIA

FIG. 67.

White money

',

New

Caledonia

Characteristic of

New

tions of currency, are the

171

FIG. 68.

Head

of money
Caledonia

',

New

Caledonia, and often included in collecstrings of beads (mejir) labelled

handsome

jade or nephrite, but mineralogically speaking gabbroid amphibolite

These are large green bead? of irregular
(Sarazin, 1929, p. 169).
13

PRIMITIVE

172

MONEY

sizes, irregularly drilled, and of unknown origin, to which long

strings or bunches of the flying-fox fur are attached, an association
which gives them a claim to be classed as currency (PL 17). These

are worn as necklaces both in New Caledonia and the Loyalties,

with the fur strings over the shoulders.
C.

Round

NEW GUINEA AND

TORRES STRAITS

the fringe of the Eastern part of the large island of

New

Guinea the natives are keen traders and reference has been made
already (pp. 17-18) to the kula cycle of the South-East, and the pottery
The routine of the
trading voyages, hiri, from Port Moresby.
former has almost raised such valued objects as the red Spondylus
strings, in the form of bagi and samakupa necklaces, and the Conus
with stone axearm-rings (toia, mwali) into the ranks of currency
blades (benam), lime spatulas (potuma) and nose-sticks (wanepa)
following in their wake.
White shell-money is made on Tami Island, in the Huon Gulf
on the Northern Coast, but serves more for ornament than for
currency, though the strings are traded to New Britain. The
;

industry was, until lately, flourishing here, and the apparatus is

described and illustrated by Schneider, 1905, pp. 66-7, Fig. 13 ;
and by Lewis, 1929, p. 14, PL VII, Fig. 5, PL V, Figs. 1-2.
Nassa callospira shells are used as currency round both the
Northern and the Southern Coasts. The backs are broken off,
not as for dtwarra to be fixed on to stiff cane, but to be threaded,
like buttons, through two holes, and bound on to a cord
Fig. 69
shows the tautau (its Motu name) of the central district of the South
Coast and Fig. 70 maij of the Sepik district in the North. 1
The ordinary shell-money of British New Guinea is the red
sapi sapi which the Massim people of the islands of the south-east,
and especially the Trobrianders make from the shells of Spondylus
or Chama pacifica (see Frontispiece, Figs, i, 2).
This currency is
in full use along the Coast, and is made at a few villages near Port
;

Moresby, where its Motu name is ageva* One string is worth

about i and the two strings essential for a bagi or a samakupa 2
Petri, 1936, p. 531, Fig. 16).
(Lewis, 1929, p. n, PL VII, Figs. 6-7
Seligman, whose photograph of a bagi is reproduced in PL 13,
;

says that

A really fine specimen is worth from

5 to

7, this

being the price which

1
Ssanem and darram are other names on the North, and movio or mowio
on the South. C/. Schneider, pp. 64-6, PI. 12, b, c.
8 It
was imitated by white tradeis, who found it a profitable industry,
but their strings can be recognized by being threaded on European twine

in place of

th*e

native Pandanus.

OCEANIA
natives earning
pay in cash to

173

fiom los. to 155. a month are prepared to

any traders possessing a really good one

(1910, pp. 514-15).

The

central point of the

series of white disks

samakupa
and a row

is

marked by a

of black banana seeds, with

dangles of finer disks like those
of the bagi. These dangles are
of the edge-to-edge technique
(Fig. 71) characteristic of New
Ireland
pig-money ', and the
same type of decoration is
added to the shell arm-rings,
to the lime spatulas and to
the stone axe-blades used in
'

exchanges.
While these shell-strings are

worn

ornaments purists

as

will

not accept them as money ',

but their uses afford an excellent illustration of the evolution
of money as suggested in
Chapter I. They are used in
'

'

presentation for bride-price ;

for wergeld, and in peacemaking and they accompany a
;

dead

man on

his last journey

his heirs

(though removed by

before burial). (Seligman, 1910,

6l
6l 3
PP- 545> 55 6 57
&c.).

When

formal

peace-

blood
accounts between two communities being tolerably even,
exchange of valuables forms the

making

is

opening

ceremony.

due,

the

Seligman

describes how the Wagawaga

and the Maivara neighbouring
villages on the south side of

FIG. 69.

Tautau. Nassa
shell -

New

money,
Guinea

Milne Bay concluded peace a

few years ago.
About 20 Maivara canoes,
carrying spears and shields
so as to be prepared for

/Hlllllflll

FIG.

70.

money,

Nassa shellGuinea

New

I7

PRIMITIVE

MONEY

came to Wagawaga to propose peace. They lined up

some 200 yards from the shore. Some of the older
Wagawaga men went off to discuss whether it should be peace or
war, and, deciding for peace, some stayed in the Maiwara canoes,
while the rest paddled back to shore and hastily collected the essential
presents in the form of shell ornaments, axe-blades and pigs. A man
from each hamlet called up a Maivara canoe which paddled in, and
hostilities,

silently

was

tied

shore

up

to a stake close to the

then the
'

man waded

out,

'

and sat
bringing his
presents
in the canoe for a short time.
On this occasion the presents
included 15 pairs of Conus shell
arm-rings, 9 red shell-strings (bagi
or samakupa}, 10 stone axe-blades,
4 nose-sticks, 2 boars' tusks,
i decorated lime
spatula and 3 pigs

(Seligman, 1910, p. 545).

The same presents are used
in compensations for wounds or
death.
Injuries caused by trouble
over a woman or a pig or by
accidents were all compoundable
by necklaces, Conus arm-rings or
other valuables. At Wagawaga
the blood-price for a man killed
in a brawl was quoted as a pair
of really good shell arm-rings, one
'

'

shell nose-stick and one samakupa

necklace of sapi-sapi.
broken
arm would be atoned for by a
samakupa necklace and 3 arm-

rings

than

an eye was worth far less

an arm (Seligman, 1910,

pp. 570-1).

Arm-rings in New Guinea as

Solomons have a confusing
in
names
the
of
different
and there are also various
dialects,
variety
names for different sizes and qualities, while each really valuable
one, like each Pelew bead, has its own individual name, given it by
its maker or owner.
The arm-rings which form the currency of the Mandated area
of New Guinea are altogether different from those of the Trobriands,
being made of Tridacna, like those of the Bismarck Archipelago and
the Solomons. Lewis describes the method of manufacture on the

,FIG. 71.

Detail of

samakupa

string

in the

OCEANIA

175

small islands of Seloe and Angel in Berlin Harbour. The centre

of the piece of shell is bored out with a hollow bamboo, sand and

The rings
water, leaving a smooth round hole of the required size.
are here used for buying sago from the mainland, one ring buying
500 to 1,000 pounds of the meal, which is the chief foodstuff. One

man

there refused to

saying he needed

sell

Lewis a partly-finished ring

at

any

price,

buy food for his family for the coming rainy

season.
(Lewis, 1929, p. n).
The smaller rings measure 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 cm.) across,
and the larger and much rarer ones 8 to 10 inches (20 to 25 cm.).
it

to

FIG. 72.

Breast ornament,

New

Guinea

These are the standard valuables in which to express important

exchanges or ceremonial payments, though many other objects may
be used interchangeably with them. The list includes shells of
various kinds, Turbo, Melo, Conus, gold lip
(Meleagrina) Nassa
and cowries ; besides dogs' teeth, cuscus teeth, and boars' tusks ;
and there are coarse strings of shell-money, and arm-rings of Trochus
as well as Tridacna.
(Mead, 1938, p. 193).
'

'

The Melo

shells shown in Fig. 72 are rare and difficult to obtain

adds to their value, whether regarded as breast ornaments
or as a form of currency. Necklaces of the apices of Conus or other

and

this

gastropods are made in different ways. They are strung through

their pierced tips, and ground smooth, like shell-money, but firmly

PRIMITIVE

176

MONEY

knotted with cord, as seen in Fig. 73. Or the apices are fixed on
to a plaited band as shown in Fig. 74 and secured by a toggle of a
Both of these are primarily necklaces. Cowries
piece of shell.
threaded in bunches (Fig. 75A) or knotted on parallel cords, tsimua
(Fig. 758), are a more usual medium of exchange (G. Bateson).

FIG. 73.

Conus string,
Guinea

New

FIG. 74.

New

Shell necklace,

Guinea

Mead's careful analysis of the part played by exchanges, buyings

and sellings among the Mountain Arapesh and their neighbours in
the Sepik district illustrates the use of these various objects and their
claim to be looked upon as substitutes for money. Here brideIn this extraordinarily diversified
price is not an important factor.
'

OCEANIA
area

177

is the custom on the plains inland

sister
payment
exchange on the Coast, and the Arapesh came in between the two.

for wives

FIG. 75.
1

We

Cowries,

New

Guinea

for our wives, but we also like to

exchange sisters
Few of these
possible/ as one explained (1938, p. 177).
groups are self-supporting, for most of them depend on markets

pay a

when that is
little

little

PRIMITIVE

i 78

MONEY

for exchange of sago for fish ; and even when they are self-supporting
as regards food, like the Arapesh, they depend on lines of hereditary
Trade crosses
trade friends for the supply of weapons and tools.

every boundary, linguistic, social and geographical, and accounts

for the diffusion of magical beliefs and social customs as well as of
But the evolution of
material objects, ornaments and currency.
actual currency or money from this exchange of goods for rings and

hampered by the sentimental and personal value given to

each possession by its maker or owner. Like the more valuable
arm-rings to the South, so those of the Mandated Territory often
have individual names, and no one will admit that two similar

shells is

valuables are genuinely interchangeable. Work produced by hand

with inefficient tools, the construction of which takes a long time,
is felt to reflect and partake of the personality of the producer.
Such objects are often considered so much a part of the maker
that they are inalienable, and until they come to be regarded objectively instead of subjectively, they cannot form a currency (Viljoen,

1936, p. 213).
The trading activities of New Guinea are largely confined to
the coasts and to the villages near the Coast. The interior is still
difficult of access, thinly occupied by unsociable and isolated com-

munities, and, as has been seen above (p. 35), cowries only trickled
in very sparsely.

In the Mt. Hagen area cowries are less rare gold-lip (Meleagrind)
more prized by the women (for ornaments) and the large
;

shells are

bailer shells

by the men.

here a firmly established custom, always

a present is bound in public opinion
receiving
reciprocal.
to return something of equal value to the giver, or fall in social
estimation.
Shells and axes are the usual presents, especially on
the occasion of feasts.
father seeking a wife for his son will take
with him presents of shells and pigs, and more shells have to be
Present-giving

is

The man

paid before the negotiations are complete. When all is fixed, the
bride decorated with ropes of cowries, and gold-lip shells, perhaps
bailers also, brings these as dowry, back to her husband.
Cowries are the commonest currency, either loose in the hand,
or sewn vertically on to cord with value calculated by length, 2 feet
being the unit. The largest ropes of about 9 feet buy gold-lip shells,
pigs or wives,
gold-lip will buy a small pig, a bailer shell a large
one, but prices fluctuate, and the coming of the white man has

upset native currency values. (Ross, 1936).

Among the most remarkable and by far the most impressive
articles of high value, on the borderline between presents and
currency, are the large stone axe-blades benam, which form a link
not only between barter and money but between the ages of Stone

OCEANIA
and

Steel.

These

all

179

come from Murua or Woodlark

Island in the

South-East of the Trobriands, where the special stone (ash or lava)

with specially valued banding is found. The blades are much too
large and thin to be of practical use as tools and their exchange
value is much the same as that of the arm-rings.

They are used according to value to buy pigs, food, canoes and land ;
to procure sorcery, to pay for those slain in battle, to appease an enemy, to
buy dances ... as an exchange for other wealth. Placed under the head
of the dying or on the breast of the dead, they placate Topileta, the keeper
of the ways in the underground world of spirits : rhsy arc brought out at
harvest feasts or rejoicings so that the spirits of the departed may sec them
and be glad. They are used as gifts to the relations of her
the man
would marry. Sometimes they arc buried with the dead (Seligman, 1910,

whom

p. 518,

quoting Gilmour

cf.

ill.,

PI.

LXII).

Stone blades were traded along the Southern Coasts of New

Guinea to the Gulf, and they passed in exchange from village to
The Motu of Port Moresby got theirs from the Koiari
village.
of the hinterland, who said that theirs came from farther inland,
and these from somewhere else, and the Motu have a story to
account for their origin. Only a certain people, they say, and only
certain men of the tribe can procure these stone blades.
They wade
in the streams with a hand-net, and stone adzes, ready-made, swim
like fish, and are caught in the nets.
They believe that it is easy to

know one

of these stone-blade fishers (who is especially tabu) because

of the scars on his legs caused by the stone blades trying to avoid his
net (Seligman, 1910, p. 115).
The lime spatulas (potuma) used as presents or as minor currency

can also swell into Wucherformen. They arc made of bone (whale
or dugong) or of wood, often elaborately carved, and decorated with
strings of sapi-sapi or crabs' eyes (Abrus precatorius), but show no
signs of ever having been used.
The largest and most decorated (gabaiera) come from the Lousiades,

where they form part of the

'

bride-price '.
(Seligman, 1910,
pp. $15-16, 528, Figs. 39, 40).
There are two more ornaments which must be included in this
large group of valued objects used in present-giving and exchanges,
in
these are the pearl-shell
bride-price or in ordinary trading
crescents (Fig. 76) and the turtleshell chest pendants (colour plate,
facing p. 184).
Pearl shells (Meleagrina margaritifera) are fairly abundant and
are valued for making into ornaments throughout the region, so
they are traded round the coasts and inland. The crescents (main)
made by the Hula South of Port Moresby are something more than
mere ornaments as they commonly accompany the arm-rings in the
as well as in
hiri trading voyages, and are used in
bride-price
*

'

'

ordinary exchanges for sago.

'

PRIMITIVE

i8o

The

MONEY

fretted turtleshell chest pendants (koto or koiyu) are made

in Hall Sound, to the north of Port Moresby,

by the Roro people

who, having learnt from the Motu people to make pottery and to
build canoes, have trading voyages on a smaller scale, and these
ornaments are among their valued articles of trade. They have a
certain ceremonial and social importance too, and a young Roro,
after his first kill, has one tied to his headdress at the end of the

ceremony (Seligman, 1910, p. 298).

cannot properly be said to exist in the islands of Torres
so the stages anticipating its evolution can the better be

purification

Money
Straits,

distinguished.

FKJ. 76.

Mairi, breast ornament, Torres Straits

Various articles in daily use or which were occasionally worn,

had a recognized exchange value, depending on the fineness of the
specimen or its rarity. There were certain objects which were the
units of highest value, and approximately equal in exchange, the
standard being, as usual, a wife, and their main use was in presents

made to the bride's relatives (Haddon, 1912, p. 236).

The most valued possessions of these island peoples were

naturcanoes and their dugong harpoons, which were handed

down from generation to generation. The more easily exchangeable
objects are the Conus shell (wauri) (Fig. 77), olive shell necklets
(uraz) (Fig. 78), strings of dogs' teeth (umai dangal) and the dibidibi
pendants made of Conus top whorls (Fig. 79).
These have already been recorded as participating in the

ally their

OCEANIA

FIG. 77.

Waitriy

Conns

shell,

181

Torres Straits

'

presents in the canoe trade with the Fly River (p. 17) in which
barter, the shell arm-rings and strings of dogs' teeth are essential as
final payments (Landtman, 1927, p. 214).
But the cone shell (wauri)
(Fig. 77) is no longer an ornament ; it is a token of value, and so

can almost be regarded as money.

FIG. 78.

It

can be recognized as a Conus

Olive shell necklace, Torres Straits

PRIMITIVE

182

MONEY

which an o pendant (Fig. 80) 1 has been cut,

from the top. The chief interest lies in the fact
that the value is merely conventional and the wauri represents the
first step towards actual money, and the farthest step reached by
shell,

from the

and a

dibtdibi

side of

the Torres Straits' Islanders uninfluenced

1912, p. 236).

by Europeans (Haddon,

further
by the

step was marked

'
needles or pieces of iron
6 inches to 8 inches long
'

(15-20 cm.) obtained from

wrecks paid by the Muralug
people for canoes, 6 to 24

FIG. 79.

Dibidibi

according to the size of the

canoe required (Haddon,
Now1904, pp. 196-7).
adays the final stage has

The o pendants were frequently used in exchange and

in marriage presents (Haddon,
1912, pp. 47, 169, Fig. 64).
1

The dibtdibi are especially

interesting from their parallel
use as both ornament and currency in Central Africa (p. 50).
2

In Torres Straits 10 or 12 of
these of a fair size would equal
a canoe, a dugong harpoon or a
wife (Haddon, 1912, pp. 43-4,
Fig. 61).

FIG. 80.

made from

wauri, Torres Straits

OCEANIA

183

been reached, when European trade goods, tobacco and coins have
established a new standard of value, in which local products, even if
they still survive, have no place. Local products with ceremonial
and sentimental value are still in demand in bride price as has
been seen above, though with decreasing frequency.
'

'

Courtship in Torres Straits in earlier days consisted mainly in

presents to the bride's relations. There was no fixed price, but a
canoe, a dugong harpoon, a shell armlet, with perhaps necklaces of
olives or dogs' teeth or dibidibis thrown in, were considered the
equivalent of a wife.
Fifty years ago, when European importations
were still rare, a knife and a glass bottle might be sufficient. Nowadays payments are almost all in trade goods, and the occasion of
much haggling. More is naturally expected from a chief than a
commoner. Maino, chief of Tutu, recorded his payment consisting
of a sandalwood chest containing seven pieces of calico, a dozen
shirts, a dozen singlets, a dozen pairs of trousers, a dozen handkerchiefs, two dozen axes, a fish spear, fish lines and hooks, besides a
pound of tobacco and two pearl shells, ending the list with by golly
he too dear' (Haddon, 1904, pp. 223-4, 2 3 X )*

D.

ROSSEL ISLAND

The currency

of Rossel Island, some 200 miles south-east of

of peculiar interest.
It is a small island, about 100 square miles in extent, with a
population of about 1,000, who differ in many respects from their
Melanesian neighbours, particularly in their unique currency
system, by the aid of which they carry on their mutual trafficking
in pigs and concubines, in canoes and wives.

New

Guinea,

is

The outstanding features of the Rossel Island money are that, of each
grade of the tokens in use, there is a virtually unchanging stock that has
come down to the present generation from time immemorial, and that into
the grading of the tokens their value-relationships to one another there
enters the novel element of a time-element or interest-element, in place of
the more familiar principle of simple proportionality (Armstrong, 1924,
P- 423).

Armstrong, himself an economist, shows how large a part this

monetary system plays in the life of the islanders. Payments of
money are the most important constituents of marriage rites, mortuary
rites and many other ceremonial activities.
He says, I use the
"
"
term
money advisedly, for the objects are used primarily as
media of exchange and standards of value they are systematically
and any commodity or service may be
interrelated as regards value
more or less directly priced in terms of them (1928, p. 59). But
while most of our primitive money claims the title mainly because
*

'

'

'

PRIMITIVE

184

MONEY

as although chiefs
it represents wealth, here there is no such claim
alone appear to own the higher valued pieces, this is not for ostentation or display, for it is bad form to make any parade of possession.
There are two kinds of money, ndap and nko (PL 18). The ndap
money consists of single pieces of Spondylus shell, ground down and
These pieces
polished, varying in size from about 2 to 20 sq. cm.
are generally roughly triangular in shape, with rounded edges, and
The colour varies from
are perforated near one of the corners. 1
white to orange, yellow and red, and the value appears to be indicated
primarily by colour. All the ndap money is believed to have been
made by the gods before man appeared on Rossel, and all the shell
was then used up, at any rate shells for the higher values. Some of
the lower values may still be made, but this is doubtful. There are
special ndap canoes used either for collecting the shells, or for transporting the ndap from place to place, and the possession of these
canoes is the most important attribute of chieftainship, suggesting
that the making of the money is a chiefly perquisite.
Moreover,
only chiefs possess ndap of the higher values.
These shell coins form a series of 22 values each with a
separate name, and there are subdivisions of these, making about
40 distinctions of value altogether. Individual coins of the higher
values have individual names not etymologically descriptive ', and
are recognized by their colour or their irregular shape, no two being
The number of coins in each denomination is known,
exactly alike.
only 7 of some and 10 of others of high values, existing on the island
but there are more of the lower ones, perhaps 1,000 altogether.
pwomondap (or No. 4 coin) is illustrated in the colour plate
this is perhaps the commonest coin on the island and
opposite
there may be some 200 of them altogether.
The monetary system is so complicated that it is safest to quote
;

'

'

Value does
extensively from Armstrong's account (1928, pp. 63-4).
not depend on scarcity, but on custom, and the economic law of
supply and demand has very little effect. Moreover, owing to the
peculiar nature of the system, some values are more in demand
than others either above or below. Some coins have to work
much harder than others, (No. 1 8 is in constant request for wives),
but this does not affect the value relationships.
*

'

The 22 values are related in a peculiar way, which makes the Rossel
system one of exceptional interest. The values are not regarded as simple
multiples of some unit of value the usual principle in most monetary
systems. The relationship of any value to any other in this series may be
expressed by the formula
Value of No. n
value of No. m (i + k)'nr**

*Cf. the similar pendants of Spondylus from Ponape illustrated

Finsch, 1888-93, PL VIII, Fig. 17.

by

i.

Ch'ing, China, p. 233

Turtleshell chest pendant, New Guinea, p. 179

3. Pwomondap, Rossel Island, p. 184
z.

4. Beetle leg string,

San Matthias,

p. 131

OCEANIA
where

185

and n are the two integers representing the number of the value
in the series and k is a constant.
One way in which the No. m value is
related to the No. n value is by the length of time a No. m coin would have
to be let out on loan in order that a No. n be repayable.
Now this time
interval is dependent on the value interval (n
m) to which it is roughly
proportional.

a coin

borrowed for a few weeks, the next above has to be

is for a longer time, it requires for
repayment
a coin two stages higher. The price of any commodity or service
can thus be reckoned in terms of time, i.e. the time required for the
If

is

If the loan

repaid.

loan to increase through the value series. E.g. a basket of taro could
be said to cost a week, a wife to cost a year, and so on. This appears
to represent the native point of view, rather than the
supposition of

a more or less definitely evaluated rate of interest.

The higher coins (Nos. 18 to 20) have also a magic or sacred
content.
Tyomundi (No. 18) in particular, when passing from person
to person, is handled with apparent reverence and a

crouching

maintained. 1 The higher values are proportionately more

sacred and are almost always kept enclosed and are not supposed to
see the light of day.
It seems to be rare nowadays for there to be
attitude

is

any transactions involving payments greater than No. 18. No. 20

was, however, used some years ago as compensation for ritual murder.
The death of a chief used to involve the eating of one or more victims
drawn usually from a neighbouring friendly village, and the compensation to relatives involved elaborate payments with ramifications
extending over many years (1924, p. 428).
The nko money is made of roughly and irregularly shaped disks,
probably of the shell of a giant clam, perforated and strung in tens.
The manufacture of this, and apparently that of ndap also, is a lost
art, and the natives believe every piece to be of great antiquity.

Ten disks form the monetary unit, and several strings of tens
may be strung together to make a long rope containing some thousand

or more disks, the larger the disks the higher the value.
fiction that nko is women's property while
ndap is man's

There

is a
there are
only 1 6 values compared with ndap's 22, but otherwise, save for a
few minor differences, both kinds are used in the same way. It is
very difficult to collect any of the nko money. Armstrong tells of
the trepidation of the native who sold him quite a low value of nko
;

i), imploring him not to reveal the sale as he feared the

anger of the older men.
Birth, marriage and death rites all demand payments in ndap
and nko. No feast is complete without them, and they are necessary
for fines and compensations.
The prospective bridegroom brings
a high value ndap (No. 18) for the father of the girl, while the

(for over

Cf. Pelew beads, p. 149.

PRIMITIVE

i86

MONEY

negotiations are not complete until various claimants have all been
rope ofnko is presented to the bride's mother
paid in ndap coins.
a few months after the wedding. Children play games with small
stones to represent ndap and nko, with sometimes cats' eyes (opercula)

for higher

ndap

values.

to the complications of the monetary system a profession

has arisen in Rossel, very similar to that of a London bill-broker
working with different material. The members of this profession on

Owing

Rossel render an important service by transferring the possession of

a coin from one who does not want it and lending to another who
does.
Their profit is made by increasing the time unit for their
debtors and decreasing it for their creditors, and by keeping their
in other words, borrowing at a
capital on loan as far as possible
;

lower rate of interest and discounting at a higher. In practice, a

form of magic is employed, by means of 'which these brokers claim
to act on the minds of their debtors making them repay within the
customary time, while the minds of their creditors are affected in
the reverse way. As wealth is power in Melanesia such a person

may become

a chief.

Chapter VII

ASIA

i.

General,

The

first

it.

India.

B. Assam and Burma

vi.

Malay

Peninsula,

Invention

Hi.

...

of that coy

Further India

Siam

Pecunia.
RICE VAUGHAN

Lady

A. Andamans and Nicobars ;

v. Japan.
Dutch East

and Indo-China. iv. China,

; C.
viii. The Philippines,
ix.
vii. Borneo,
Indies

i.

GENERAL

THERE are over one hundred different examples of primitive money

from Africa in the Cambridge Collection. There are rather more
from Oceania. From the far larger area of Asia, far more densely
populated, containing some of the oldest civilizations in the world,
yet with large areas scarcely civilized at all, some 30 types have been
collected from the mainland (Assam, Burma, Siam, China and
Indo-China) and about the same number from the Malay region,

Borneo, the Philippines, Sumatra, Java and successive islands.

is doubtful
and India is almost unrepresented.
There are several reasons for this lack of material, and one of the
most obvious may be mentioned here.
Throughout the greater part of the immense region which includes Europe to the West and stretches to Further India in the
East, cattle were the chief form of wealth, and, as is seen in Africa,
where cattle form the standard of value, varieties of primitive money

Japan

are undeveloped.

Ridgeway compares the system of currency in Annam with that

formerly in use in Greece, India and Persia. He argues (1892,
p. 26) that there were definitely fixed relations in value between the
cows, horses, gold, rice and cloth of the Vedic people.
But absolute proof

is

at

Persians, have left us in the

hand, for their close kinsmen, the ancient

Zend Avesta ample means of observing

their

Thus we

read in the ordinances which fix the payment

of the physician that he shall heal the priest for the holy blessing
he shall
heal the master of an house for the value of an ox of low value ; he shall
heal the lord of the borough for the value of an ox of average value ; he
shall heal the lord of a town for the value of an ox of high value '.

monetary system.

'

Women were appropriately doctored for payments estimated in

values of cows, mares and she-camels according to the position of
their husbands.

Ridgeway
14

traces this cattle-currency-complex

187
,

'

through

Aryan,

PRIMITIVE

i88

MONEY

Semitic and Hamitic races ', all alike possessed, of flocks and herds,
from India in the East to the Gauls and Britons in the West, and to
Egypt and the Sudan to the South, and he points out that

There was no insuperable barrier between Indian and Persian, Persian

and Mede, Mede and the dweller in Mesopotamia, or again between Persian
and Armenian, Armenian and the Scythian ... of what is now South
Russia ; the Scythian Was in contact with the tribes of the Balkan peninsula
who in turn were in contact with the Greeks and the dwellers along the
valley of the Danube, who in their turn joined hands with the peoples of
Hence the value of cattle would be more or
Italy, Helvetia and Gaul.
less constant from one end of this entire region to another
though the
purchasing power of the cow might be greater in some parts than in others
.

(pp. 50-2).

Cattle,

however

satisfactory as wealth, as a standard of value, or

even as a medium of exchange in the larger affairs of life, cannot

and need miist often have been felt for
properly be called money
some more easily transportable and divisible form.
;

simple invention it was in the old-world Grazier [wrote Carlyle]

sick of lugging his slow Ox about the country till he got it bartered for corn
or oil to take a piece of leather and theieon scratch or stamp the mere
figure of an Ox (or Pecus) ; put it in his pocket and call it Pecunia, Money.

Yet thereby did Barter grow Sale, the Leather Money is now Golden and
fot there are Rothschilds
Paper, and all miracles have been out-miracled
and English National Debts and whoso has sixpence is sovereign (to the
;

length of sixpence) over all men ; commands cooks to feed him, philosophers
to teach him, kings to mount guard over him to the length of sixpence.

Whether token money

in skins or leather

can be regarded as

a natural development from cattle-currency is doubtful.

Pelts were
certainly used instead of money throughout the northern regions of
Europe and Asia, like the beavers of North America, but the dividingline

between bartered goods and currency

is

here impossible to

define.
'

'

In Russia, according to Herberstein, the simple invention of

token money was made, not by the Grazier, but by the Hunter.
In early times before they had money they made use of snouts and ears
of squirrels and other animals, whose skins are brought to us in lieu of coin,
and bought the necessities of life with them as with money (1851, p. in).

When Herberstein was ambassador in Moscow (1517-20) the

ordinary currency was in silver, but the use of skins as money was
artificially fostered, with the hope of keeping coin from leaving the
country ; so pelts of sable, marten, ermine, fox and squirrel were
made up in regularly graded bundles of ten, and sold for i or 2
deng (p. 114). These bundles of 10 skins were too heavy to carry
about, so the tokens of snouts or ears were cut off, and acted as
'

'

Leather has often been used for emergency money, and

cf.

p. 248.

ASIA
tallies.

The purchaser

fitted

in

189

the

bits

when he claimed

his

goods.

currency in squirrel skins still continues in Mongolia.

Squirrels are hunted by Solons, Numinchen and Reindeer Tungus in
North-West Manchuria, and are the principal means of paying the Chinese
for the wares bought (almost always on credit) from the latter.
As these
tribesmen are chronically in debt to the Chinese firms, cash

is

practically

unknown and any payment for sums less than the value of a horse (or
more rarely cattle, sheep or goats) is likely to be made in squirrel skins.
The Reindeer Tungus pay debts to each other as well as to traders
but when they remove the skin
(Russians in their case) in squirrel skins
from the animal, they roll it up into a ball, into which shape it stiffens,
thus differentiating the skins obtained by these Tungus from those obtained
;

by Russians or by other

The

tribes.

skin illustrated in PI. 27 was

payment

for drink.

to celebrate the shaman's cure of an

official's son after an illness the official ran short of spirits, and asked whether
our party could supply him with a little more. In view of his reputation
for slashing at his neighbours when drunk, less than half a pint of alcohol
was given him, for which he paid with this skin (E. J. Lindgren).

During a

shaman performance

ii.

INDIA

and barter sufficed for the more primitive peoples of Asia,

were traded all across the northern regions and Chinese silk

Cattle
pelts

provided a currency along the trade-routes down to medieval times.

When we turn to the southern civilizations, so much earlier than our

own, examples of primitive money are remarkably lacking.

One

evident from a glance at the types exhibited, for a large

proportion consists of coins, or coins in embryo, and when coins are
in circulation the currency can no longer be called primitive.
Rectangular and rounded coins were in use in India several centuries
before the Christian era, anticipated here as in Ceylon, and in
Further India by lumps and bars of metal (PL 19).
Another cause is the absence of information about prehistoric
or even early historic times, and archaeology is only slowly filling

cause

is

Tavernier, who was specially interested in the subThis is all I could collect of most certainty
wrote in 1684
concerning the Money and Coins of the East. Nor do I believe that
any person has undertaken before me to write upon the same subject
The serious study of Asiatic numismatics is little more
(II, p. 13).
than a century old and the Numismatic Society of India only came

up

the blank.

'

ject,

'

of age in 1937.

For India, history scarcely begins

Alexander,
coinage to

to

be trustworthy before

who quickened the dispersal of Greek culture and Greek

the Orient.
By this time metallurgy was already well

i9

PRIMITIVE

MONEY

advanced, gold and silver were abundant, coins were already in

and forms of primitive money are not to be expected.
As early as the 3rd millenium B.C. the high level of the goldsmith's art and the use of gold, silver and copper in beads, rings,
bangles and other objects are illustrated in the civilization of Mohenjodaro and Harappa, although nothing belonging to the early culture
was recognized by the excavators as money. It was, however,
suggested that the ring-stones found in large numbers at both sites
might be a form of currency, comparable to the stone-money of
Yap, and forming a link in the world-wide distribution of holed
stones or rings with currency or ceremonial value, from West Africa
to Eastern Asia and the Pacific.
These ring-stones of the Indus
Valley vary from inch to 4 feet across (i cm. to nearly i m. 50 cm.)
the larger ones are of stone, the smaller include shell, imitation
existence

carnelian

and

faience.
'

Marshall makes the significant comment

The wheel-money
of Uap (Yap) undoubtedly presents a striking parallel to the larger
class of ring-stones in the Indus Valley
But he
(1931, I, p. 61).
that
even
stone
it
not
so
rare
as to
was
rare
there
was
argues
though
warrant its being used as money, nor were people of such high culture
as the inhabitants of these wealthy cities, with commercial relations
with Persia and Mesopotamia, likely to use so cumbrous a form of
He regards it as more likely that these ring-stones were
currency.
treasured on account of the magical properties that all holed stones
are believed to possess, a belief that persists down to our own day
in our own villages
and that their special preservation was due to
the awe in which such stones are held, either as fetishes or as actually
imbued with divine power.
For commercial purposes far more suitable material was at hand.
It has indeed been claimed (Acharya and Gyani, 1937, p. n)
:

'

round and rectangular pieces of copper or of silver, forerunners of the punch-marked coins, were the currency of the Indus
Valley in the 4th or 3rd millenium B.C. The similarity, if not
identity of signs on the Mohenjo-daro seals (which may have passed
as currency or I.O.U.'s) and those on punch-marked coins is
remarkable (Fdbri, 1934, pp. 307, 316
Prasad, 1934, pp. 9, 36,
Pis. XXVII, XXIX), but as Allan says (1936, p. Ixxiii) 3,000 years is
a long period to bridge. Thick slightly bent bars of silver stamped
with various designs appear early in the North-West adjusted to the
Persian weight standard, and are assumed to date from the 4th or
5th century B.C. when that part of India was still under Persian
domination. The earliest authentic and official coins of India, the
punch-marked coins, found north, south, east and west over the

that

whole peninsula, which, from their ubiquity and uniformity indicate

a central organized and imperial authority, can scarcely be placed

ASIA

191

than the Mauryan Empire (post 322 B.C.). The Mauryan

is, however, by no means primitive in type, and ancestral
will
doubtless be recognized as archaeological research fills
stages
up the gap between the civilization of Mohenjo-daro and that of
Chandragupta (cf. Whitehead, 1938, p. 337).
Although this is an intrusion into the domain of numismatics,
Cunningham's description of the making of these silver karshapanas
or panaSj 1 (which were already called puranas meaning ancient
in the Buddhist Sutras), must be quoted here, as it illuminates the
earlier

coinage

'

'

obscurity of the transition stage between primitive money and coins.

Pana probably means a handful, and the handful equalled 80
cowry shells 4 panas equalled a tanka, whose weight was fixed by
There was also a copper
the mdsha (mace) or bean (Phaseolus).
;

pana, weighing 80 rati seeds (gunja, Abrus precatorius the blackspotted pea) or twice that number of barley grains, and valued at
80 cowries. The interdependence of cowries, seeds and coins and
their contemporary use can scarcely find better illustration.
The metal was adjusted to the equivalent of the shells or seeds
as follows

The mode

of fabrication is evident at once from an inspection of the

piece of silver was first beaten out into a flat plate of about the
thickness of a shilling.
Narrow strips of about J- inch or more in
width were then cut off. Each strip was then cut into separate pieces of the
same weight of about 56 grains, 2 and a final adjustment of the weight was
made by cutting small bits off one or more corners of the heavier blanks.
The marks of the chisel still remain on the edges of the thicker pieces which
were broken off when the cut did not go clean through the strip of metal.
The earliest specimens are generally thin and broad, and of irregular shape
coins.

(Cunningham, 1891,

p. 43).

modern times we do not find in India

those incentives to the multiplication of forms of currency such as
have been evolved either in Africa or in Oceania. It is still not a
need of the social system.
The basis of society is cultivation of the soil. Even today threequarters of the whole population is classed as agricultural. And the
main crops are grain and pulses, which are not only sufficiently
portable, divisible, durable and recognizable to serve as money,
but are sufficiently uniform to serve also as weights and measures,
with which, here as elsewhere, the metal currency was closely linked.
The village community, the social nucleus of which appears to
have persisted for centuries, is essentially self-contained and is still
The peasants till their
singularly independent of coined money.
If

we turn on

to historic or

'

'

The

Sanskrit karsha, through Portuguese caixa, has become cash

p. 47 ; Chalmers, 1893, p. 372/w.).
8
Prasad (1934, p. 10 ; 1937, pp. 76-7) distinguishes the early pieces
=
42 gr.) from the later, weighing 32 (
weighing 24 rati (
56 gr.).

(Cunningham, 1891,

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

192

weavers and potters ply their

and their payments are in grain, not in coin. Barter is still
the normal exercise of trade, and though there is probably a moneylender in every village, money plays a minor part in local transactions.
Nevertheless, when early records come to be explored a few
picturesque currencies, such as salt and almonds, come to light
plots, the artisans, smiths, carpenters,

trades,

'

'

mulberries are currency in Turkestan (Temple, 1899, p. 105)

cowries start on their conquering career
coconuts form the currency of the Nicobars, and the larins (so-called fish-hook money ')
spread throughout the territory of the Moguls.
Salt, here as everywhere, is an important object of barter, and
large deposits in rock salt or in salt marshes are centres for export.
Marco Polo describes how in Tibet they use salt instead of money
and the stamped cakes, like brick tea, were the ordinary currency
for traders (1903, Book II, Chap. 47). - Salt still has a currency
value, and is often preferred to coins by carriers in the hills.
Ogilby, writing about the Empire of the Great Mogul (1673,
p. 163), described the Fanos (fanams) of ordinary gold, like the scales
of a fish, worth 5 \d.
the silver Ropias (rupees) worth 2s 2d.
and
the copper Peysa (pice) like farthings, 43 or 44 to the rupee.
He
;

'

adds
Moreover Almonds in the Shells pass for Money, 36 of them making
Copper Peysa, as also a sort of Cockles with a black Spot, in the Country
Language call'd Cauries, which are found along the sea Coast, 8 whereof

make

a Peysa.

This was a hearsay account. Tavernier not only travelled in the

country but collected the almonds and cowries, as well as coins,

and

illustrates his collection.

For small Money they make no use of these Shells [in the Province of
Gujerat] but of little Almonds which are brought from about Ormuz and
grow in the Desarts of the Kingdom of Larr. If you break one of the shells
it is impossible to eat the Almond for there is no
coloquintida [colocynth]
so bitter ; so that there is no fear lest the children should eat their small
Money. Some years the Trees do not bear and then the price of this sort
of Money is very much raised in the Country and the Bankers know how
to make their benefit (II, p. 2).
They call these Almonds Baden. 1 They
give for a pecha sometimes 35 sometimes 40 (I, p. 22).
Nicolo de* Conti, the Venetian merchant and explorer in India
early in the i5th century, gives the following scanty information.
In some regions they have no money but use insteade of money
tayne small stone which they name Cattes eye, and in some other
they do use peeces of Iron like needles, somewhat bigger. In other
they do use the Kings name written on paper insteade of money

143)*
1

Badam, Amygdalus communis

L., var. amara.

a cer-

places
places
(1937,

ASIA

193

The travels of the cowry have already been traced (Chap. IV)
and archaeological evidence shows that they had reached Asia in
prehistoric times.
Only two, and those neither C. moneta nor
C. annulus, have been found in the Indus Valley, but C. annulus
occurs among the ruins of Nineveh. Bengal was, as we have seen,
the great distributing centre of the money cowries, and they spread
over the whole of India right up to the hills. Their use as small
change is illustrated in a treatise on Hindu mathematics, formerly
attributed to the yth century, but more recently, to the 12th. 1
Twice ten cowries are a 6aini four of these are a pana, sixteen
of which must be considered as a dramma, &c.' When dealing with
reduction of fractions, a moral is introduced and the avaricious man
held up to scorn.
'

The quarter of a sixteenth of the fifth of three-quarters of two-thirds

of a moiety of a dramma was given to a beggar by a person from whom he
asked alms. Tell me how many cowry shells the miser gave if thou be
conversant in arithmetic with the reduction termed subdivision of fractions.
Except along the West Coast cowries were the small change
throughout India, and they persisted on the borders of the Empire
until recent years.

Tavernier describes and

'

Money

consisting of

illustrates (1684, I, p. 22) the

'

little

small

which they call Cori the sides

and reports that they were traded

Shells

whereof turn circularly inwards

'

and into the islands

into all the Territories of the Great Mogul
of America and serve instead of Money. Near the Sea they give 80 for a
Pecha (pice). But the further you go from the Sea the less you have. So
that at Agra they will not give you above 50 or 55 for a Pecha.
.

Cowries were

still the usual currency in many parts of the Indian

beginning of last century and they are still officially
recognized in revenue assessments in Bengal. The estates register

Empire

at the

records the amount due from shares in an estate, in annas, pice and
cowries (J. H. Hutton).
In the 1 8th century the yearly revenue of Silhet, Bengal Province,
amounting to a quarter of a million rupees, was paid entirely in
cowries, at the rate of 5,000 to 6,000 to the rupee.
Large warehouses
were needed to store them and when the annual collection was
complete a large fleet of boats transported them in 5o-ton loads to

Dacca (Hamilton, 1820,

I,

p.

195).

in
in 1756, 2,560
In 1740 2,400 cowries went to the rupee
Even when 4,000 or 5,000 went to the rupee,
1845, 6,000 and more.
large payments were nevertheless made entirely in shells.
;

'

Reeve, after stating that cowries still pass current for money
amongst the lower classes in some parts of Hindostan ', quotes the
1

Lilavati of Bhaskara Acharya, p. 301

cf.

Ridgeway, 1892,

p. 177.

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

194

'

case of the gentleman at Cuttack who was said to have paid for
the erection of his bungalow entirely in cowries.
'

The building cost him 4,000 rupees sicca ( = 400 sterling), and as
64 of the shells are equal in value to i pice and 64 pice to i rupee sicca,
he paid for it with over 16 million of these shells (1842, p. 262 /PI.).
'

'

Next to cowries, and far higher in value, come the larins (Fig. 81),
short lengths of silver wire doubled in two, which take their name
from Lar in Laristan, formerly an important point on the caravan
route from the Persian Gulf. They were traded inland and along

FIG. 81.

Larins t Persian Gulf

the coasts, and there are many references to their use from the
i6th century onwards through the Indian Empire, including the
Maldives and Ceylon, and as far as the East Indies. They were
imitated locally, and the different types are difficult to distinguish.
They were usually struck on both sides with a die, containing Persian
or Arabic legends, only a few letters of which appear vaguely on the

These, when imitated, are still less legible and no help in

They were especially popular in Ceylon, where
they were bent up in the familiar fish hooks and the locally made
'
hook silver (koku ridi) was current for some time after the British
coin.

identifications.

'

'

'

ASIA

195

occupation in 1815. A cut or nick at the bend is often found,

apparently to test the purity of the metal (cf. Allan, 1912).
All the larins are often lumped together as fish hooks, and it
was believed that they were derived from actual hooks, the most
important of all objects of barter for the fisherfolk of the Gulf,
coasts and islands, and that the evolution into current money and
from hooked into straightened forms was similar to that of the Chinese
or African tool currencies ', illustrating successive stages of barter
with useful objects, currency and token money. 1 But the comparison should be rather with the rod, bar or wire currency of
Africa, which there was bent into hoop, ring, or mitako form to
suit the demands or whims of local traders, and here was doubled
and bent for the same reason. So the occurrence of straight larins,
(which, if the genealogy of the toweelah (p. 196) be admitted, stretched
back for more than 1,000 years), represents the earlier, not the
degraded form.
William Barret, the English merchant, writing of the money and
measures of Basra at the mouth of the Tigris in 1584 describes the
'

larin as
a strange piece of money not being round like all other current money in
Christianitie, but is a small rod of silver of the greatness of the pen of a
goose feather wherewith we use to write and in length about one-eighth
part thereof, which is so wrested that the two ends meet at the juste halfe
part, and in the head thereof there is a stamp Turkesco and these be the best
current money in all the Indies and six of the larines make a ducat (1904,
p. 12).

There were thicker coins

at

Lar

itself.

Sir

Thomas

Herbert, writing

in 1665, says

near this Buzzar [of Lar] the Larrees are coyned

a famous sort of money,
2
being pure silver, but shaped like a Date-stone, the King's name and some
in our money it
sentences out of the Alcoran being stamped upon it
values tenpence (1665, p. 128).
:

The doubled
opened

bits

of finer wire current along the coasts are often

end into a Y-form, which has given them the

slightly at the

Unmistakable fish hooks are not unknown in currency collections.

are plain and serviceable ones used in barter with the Indians of
silver hooks from the Laos States
Alaska (Mosher, 1936, PL XVIII)
besides the pearl-shell blanks and hooks of Micronesia
(Loehr, 1935, p. 18)
(Fig. 54), and the decorative and decorated hooks of the Solomon Islanders
PL XII).
(Mosher, 1936,
8
This ' date stone shape is met again in the Java tang, the local name
The Dutch found larins in use on their arrival, and they issued
for larin.
pewter tangs about 1660 to supply the deficiency of small change on the
1

There

'

island.

(Bucknill, 1931, pp. 55-6, illustrated the only known survivor.)

is in the Vienna coin collection (Loehr,

bronze tang of the i8th century

1935, p. 20).

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

196

name of

'

'

nose-clips

from a

were used by the divers

belief that they

of the Persian Gulf.

Ogilby, writing in 1673, describes the popularity of the larins

throughout India

The Laryns or Lari are two Pieces of Silver of a certain weight bow'd
together in two parts and stamped at the end with the Governor of Lar's
Arms, and hath its name from the Princes of Lar when they were absolute
and not subject to the Kings of Persia. And because the value of the Coyn
consists only in the weight and goodness of the Silver it passes currantly
The Turks, Persians, Moguls
through all the Eastern Countreys.
and others coyn the same with their proper names (1673, p. 63).
.

Larins were the ordinary coinage of the Maldives and Ceylon.

Pyrard de Laval, who was wrecked on the Maldives in 1602, wrote
at

This kind of money is current throughout all the Indies and

rmuz.
places, but the best is coined at

is

made

many

And

in his description of

Ceylon he says

The coin of the realm is silver only and of one sort. These are pieces
of silver of the value of about eight sous of our money as long as the finger
and doubled down. The King has them struck on his island and stamped
with his name in Arabic characters. Though foreign coine are current, they
are only taken at their just weight and value, and must be silver or gold, all
others are rejected. The King coins larins only and no pieces of less value.
In place of copper they use holy or cowrie shells of which 12,000 are worth
a larin (1887,

I,

p. 232).

Knox, who was a prisoner on the

island in the i7th century, says

they have but three sorts that passeth foi coin in the King's
The one was coined by the Portugals, with the King's Arms
on one side and the Image of a Friar on the other called tangom massa.
The value of one is ninepence English. There is another sort which all
people by the King's Permission may and do make. The shape is like
a fish hook, they stamp what mark or impression on it they please.
The
For if any suspect the goodSilver is purely fine beyond Pieces of Eight.
ness of the Plate it is the Custom to burn the Money in a fire red hot, and
so put it in water ; and if it be not then purely white it is not Currant
Money. The third sort of Money is the King's proper Coin. For none
upon pain of death may Coin it. It is called a Ponnam (fanarri). It is as
small as a spangle ; 78 make a Piece of Eight, or a Spanish Dollar. But
And they frequently buy and sell
all sorts of Money is here very scarce.
by exchanging Commodities (1679, pp. 156-7).
of

money

dominions.

Along the western coast of the Persian Gulf a currency of larin

is a relic of the former glory of El Hasa.
Here compressed
Y-shaped coins were issued in gold, silver and copper (mixed with a
little silver), and though the gold and silver have been melted down

type

long ago, the copper coins are still in use. They are usually longer
than the larins, which has earned them their local name of toweelah
or long-bit from tawil, long (Fig. 82). Along one or both of the
'

'

ASIA

197

run a few cubic characters, mostly illegible, but said

Mohammed-al-Sasod. The coins have neither date nor
legend, but are attributed to one of the Carmathian princes about
flattened sides

to read

the year A.D. 920. This Moslem sect owed its origin to Carmath,
a fanatic enthusiast born at Cufa, who first had a following about
the year 277 of the Hejira. The centre of their power remained at
Hasa for some years, and here the coins were struck. And while
the Carmathian doctrines are held in abhorrence these little bars of
copper still buy rice, dates and such daily necessities in the market.
'

'

Palgrave (1865, II, p. 179) calls them copper nails and gives their
value as about three-farthings each. He says that they were current
at Hasa alone, which gave rise to the local proverb Zey toweelat-ilHasa like a Hasa long-bit ', meaning a man who could only make
himself useful at home.
Nevertheless, they were current throughout Arabia, and the
examples illustrated in Fig. 82 from the Royal
'

Museum

Edinburgh are from Nejd.

an unexpected return to
a form of ingot currency long after coins were in
ordinary trading use, and Codrington suggests
that its special shape was due to its convenience
Scottish

The

in

larin represents

for carrying, stuck into the folds of turban or

It may be that the
waistcloth (1904, p. 118).
varieties and complexities of the coins of the
1 7th and i8th centuries, their varying values at
different ports, and the impositions of the moneychangers led to a preference for this full-bodied

currency of pure silver

FIG. 82.

Toweelah,
Persian Gulf

by traders of the Persian

But from Tavernier's account we can

Gulf.
He illustrates the larins
discover a more potent reason for its use.
and half-forms (I, p. 2), 5 of which were equal to a French crown

(=

3*.

only the Five Larins want in weight eight sous of our Crown. This is that
which the Emirs or Princes of Arabia take for the Coining of their Money ;
and the profit which they make by the Merchants that travel through the
Desart, either into Persia or into India. The Emirs change their Crowns,
Reals or Ducats of Gold for their Larins. For they must of necessity pass
And they must use very smooth words to boot. For there is
that way.

nothing to be got by rough Languages (1684,

If the

I,

p.

i).

merchants would not submit to

this extortion, the Emirs would

a safe conduct, but would go off on

toll or give them

a hunting trip of some weeks, leaving the wretched caravan waiting
and waiting, eating up all the provisions for the journey. Tavernier

not take their

Tavernier carefully enumerates 13 different 'goodnesses' of silver

(1684,

I,

p. 26).

PRIMITIVE

198

MONEY

spoke from his own experience. Should the merchants start without
paying toll they would either be cut to pieces, their camels seized or
the caravan robbed with impunity, which often happened even if
toll

was paid.

Coming from Babylon to Aleppo, Tavernier and

were met by an Arabian Prince

his

company

He would not let us go a step further unless we would exchange

200 piastres in specie for larins, the Money of the Country ; and he forc'd
us to take them, what ever we could urge to make it appear how much we
should lose by them. And indeed We said as much as we could, for the
dispute lasted two and twenty days to no purpose
might overcoming
;

right (1684, P- 59)-

iii.

A.

FURTHER INDIA

ANDAMANS AND NICOBARS

The Periplus of the first century A.D. is a traders' guide as far

as the Ganges, but no farther.
The regions beyond these places
are either difficult of access because of their excessive winters and
'

great cold, or else cannot be sought out because of some divine

influence of the gods.'
So, though occasional voyages were made,

and Chinese records

in Siam,
affected by

Empire

tell

of adventurous merchants from the Roman

Tongking, Further India remained

Annam and

Greek and Roman

influence, except for such

might percolate along the interior traderoutes in return for Chinese silk.
And, save for the coasts, and
the establishment of a few trading-posts on river banks, these regions
were little affected by Western influence down to the iQth century.
This part of the worldsespecially if we include the Andaman and
the Nicobar Islands makes an ideal field for economic investigation,
little

indirect infiltrations as

showing

all

stages in the money-concept

firstly,

islanders, with their ceremonial presentations

in the Nicobars, their coconuts as a medium of

the moneyless

and exchanges and,

exchange

next the

no conception of money
before the coming of the rupee, yet with certain articles
emerging
into a sort of currency
then the more advanced people with metals
in lumps or ingots, at first estimated by weight, and
finally officially
cut up, stamped and issued as coins.
This part of the world is especially favourable for this investigation for another and more practical reason.
Such pioneers as Radcliffe-Brown, Hutton, Skeat and le May
isolated hill folk of the mainland, with

not only collected valuable information, but supplemented it

by
presenting the actual currency, or potential currency, to the Cambridge Museum, providing a lively background for the specimens
in the cases, and a complete picture of native economic
phases.

ASIA

The absence

199

Andaman

Islanders has already

of money among
been noted, and also their universal custom of present-giving or
gift-exchange as a sign of goodwill with no idea of barter (p. 13).

the

Every present anticipates a return of at least equal value, save in

the case of wedding presents, which alone are one-sided. (RadcliffeBrown, 1922, p. 238).
Certain articles such as a special white clay (tol) could only be
found in local deposits, and red paint 1 (oxide of iron mixed with
turtle fat) and dentalium shells could only be obtained from the coast
dwellers, and as these were essential for ceremonial costume, they
were especially prominent in present-giving. Certain particularly
ornamental shells (Hemicardtum sp.), which were also rare, came
very near to being a medium of exchange (J. H. Hutton).
The coconuts which are the medium of exchange in the Nicobars
must be considered at greater length, as they are so often referred
to in arguments about the origin of money.
The Nicobarese live on small islands, well protected from
enemies, they have no lack of food or need of clothing. They are
Coconut
self-supporting, and independent of all external trade.
palms supply them with food, drink, houses and furniture, as well
as with a surplus for barter and medium of exchange.
Because it
acts as a sufficient currency they have no use for money as Europeans
understand it. The coconuts are their money/ wrote Temple
'

(Whitehead, G., 1924, p. 9). The islands produce millions of nuts

annually they constitute wealth
they provide a standard of value ;
are
of
the
medium
recognized
they
exchange. For the latter purpose
they are counted in pairs to reach a score, and then in scores of scores.
Pigs are used as presents on important occasions, in bride-price ',
as fines, and in promoting general friendliness.
The Nicobarese,
therefore, may be included in the widely spread cattle-currency
complex, with pigs to represent cattle, and coconuts to represent
Within such a culture, as has been seen, money is not
grain.
essential and it is doubtful if a
coconut currency would have
but
for
the
visits
traders.
of
developed,
The Nicobars lie in the path of an ancient trade-route, so the
islanders have been subject to the same alluring temptations in the
shape of trade goods, as the rest of the world, but they have remained
;

'

'

singularly indifferent.

Buying and

and even barter, are

and the only exchanges are

selling

practically unknown among themselves,

in the way of present-giving.

Red ochre or red paint has been recognized as the nearest approach
among widely separated groups. It was used in exchanges
by the Australians (cf. p. 108) and as currency by the Mohave and
Apache in Arizona (Pitt Rivers Collection). Such lumps were trade, if not
1

to currency

'

'

exchange objects in Europe in Aurignacian times, and possibly represent the

most primitive money-substitute of

all.

PRIMITIVE

200

MONEY

If a man has been very successful in his fishing

he would then make
Similarly if he has much ripe fruit on his hands,
presents to his friends.
or an abundance of pork, he gives away some to his friends
but a very
well-marked mental note would be made of such friends as do not make
'
I your friend, you my friend ',
a return of gifts some time in the future.
says Offandi . . . when he brings me a piece of pork, and receives at the
same (or some other) time a quantity of Burmese cheroots or Chinese
tobacco (Whitehead, G., 1924, pp. 69-70).
:

'

'

But to offer a man some tobacco or anything else he may want

some fruit or a chicken would seem to him unnatural and unfriendly, and the proposition could never be entertained for a
moment by one of nature's gentlemen.
With traders or with outsiders it is different. Every man must
have a chopper to cut down his coconuts, and these are the Burmese
dahs supplied by the shops, which also provide such luxuries as rice
and tobacco, cloth, nickel tablespoons J and forks, (used as ornaments
and in certain ceremonies) besides ordinary trade-goods.
These are all bought for nuts counted in pairs and tied together
by a strip of the husk. One or two pairs will buy matches, salt,
fish hooks or rice
for a gramophone the price will run into thousands (of pairs). The most important objects which have to be
exchanged between the islanders are pots and racing canoes, which,
owing partly to local production and partly to local taboo, are
obtained from one particular island.
Temple tells how the people of Mus, Car Nicobar, bought a large
racing canoe valued at 35,000 (pairs of) coconuts, from the island
of Chowra (Chaura) (1899, p. 290). There was no intention of
collecting 35,000 coconuts and transporting them over to the other
island.
That would have been far too onerous a task. The canoe
was paid for by a number of other articles all valued in coconuts, until
for

the total reached 35,000 (pairs). The list included domestic animals,
'
silver spoons and even British
utensils, implements, cloth, beads,
in their worth in coconuts.
but
were
all
estimated
money
they
There are some obvious advantages and disadvantages in a
coconut currency. The awkwardness of bulk and the inconvenience
of having to wait until the money was ripe, would suggest that the
'

Government order

that

it

was

illegal to

refuse to give (or accept)

one pice for one nut, i.e. 64 to the rupee would be a boon. But
it is
unpopular both with the traders and with the Nicobarese.
The traders believe that they can make double profit on goods and
on nuts, and moreover there is no danger of their till being rifled.
'

1
These silver spoons may almost be called a currency, as they are
an accepted standard of value, and enter into all the more important trading
transactions.
Soup ladles are valued at 500 pairs of coconuts, down to
mustard spoons at 200 pairs. These are amassed as wealth and destroyed
at death (Temple, 1896, p. 284; Kloss, 1903, p. 81).
'

ASIA

201

While on the native side the Nicobarese have no use for money as
money, though rupees and spoons are used as decoration, especially
by wizards and the only conspicuous display of rupees that Whitehead saw was when they were buried in the coffin of the wife of a
rich man, so that she should be gratified and be less inclined to annoy
;

her relations afterwards (1924, pp. 78-9).

In these islands where the folk are peaceable, friendly, generous,
where women are treated as the equals of men
honest and truthful
and even dogs are never beaten where, though they are keen on
;

no rivalry and no gambling where there is no worry

about rent and taxes, and where all importation of drink is officially
l
a
prohibited, the ideal of the simple life appears to be attained
There is probably some truth in the remark of
life without money.
the working-class woman in England, when she was told about the
life and conditions of the Nicobarese,
They will soon learn to steal
sport, there is

if

they begin to get

money* (Whitehead, G.,

B.

1924, p. 211).

ASSAM AND BURMA

Turning from the outlying islands to the mainland of Further

we can watch the successive stages in the evolution of money.
Hodson, Political Agent in Manipur early in the century, tells how
he was visiting a village off the beaten track, and exhibiting the
wonders of Western culture in the forms of magic lantern, galvanic
When the show was over, and there
battery and repeating pistol.
was general conversation round the camp-fire, comparing modern
times with the bad old days ', the villagers were asked to decide
what was the strangest thing that the Sahib log had brought to
Manipur. The verdict was coined money. Not only because it
was in itself an innovation, but also because the coins were so
marvellously uniform, native handiwork being unable to achieve
India,

'

such regularity (Hodson, 1911,

Even in the wealthy native

was

little

indigenous

money

p. 123).
states of

Assam and Burma

there

in early times, save in silver ingots or

these were seldom seen among the less-

in punch-marked coins, and

advanced communities. In the remoter hills coined money
a rarity and across the frontier even a useless curiosity.

is still

In this complex area, the meeting-place of so many streams of

it is difficult for an account to steer between unscientific
Barter is the usual method of
generalizations and niggling detail.
culture,

1
Hutton remarks that much of the simplicity and of the ideal aspect is
only on the surface. Chinese traders and Japanese shell-fishers bring
distilled liquor in great jars which they hide by burying them in the sand.
Also the existence of too many wizards (who have to be thrown into the sea
with broken limbs) rather complicates the simple life for some individuals.

PRIMITIVE

202

MONEY

trading, mithun, cattle, rice, salt, iron and other local products are
cowries
used in exchanges ; gongs are an expression of wealth
in
be
shell
another
and
beads
found
in
one
conch
district,
may
;

while in the Wa country

elsewhere, taking the place of money
heads have a commercial value fixed on strictly business principles
with a definite tariff (Scott and Hardiman, 1900, I, I, pp. 497, 502).
Cowries, as has been seen, travelled along the trade-routes of
India, but off the trade-routes they are seldom more than ornaments
;

String of conch
and bamboo, Assam. (}

FIG. 83.

shells
size)

In the hills they are worn more by the men than by

or amulets.
the women, and although they are used in divorce (among the
Khasia), have special significance (among the Angami and Sema
Nagas) and are used in divination (among the Mikir), they have little
share in native trading and it is doubtful if they were ever in popular
use in Burma (cf. Steel, 1869, p. 308 ; Temple, 1897, p. 290 ; Stack,
Hutton, 1921 (i), pp. 24-5, (ii), p. 178).
I9 8 > P- 35
5

Salt in small flat cakes was

Cf. Temple, 1897, pp. 264 ff. 9 281-2.
currency among the Sema Nagas and still is in the Yachumi country to the
east of them (Hutton, 1921 (ii), p. 58).

ASIA

203

To

a limited extent the. conch shell takes the place of cowries ;

formerly a piece 8 fingers broad was worth a cow, and small beads

made

of

of the

Naga

were used as money. Among the Yimtsungr (Yachumi)

Hills conch shell is still in use.
Rough strings made of
bits
of
short
shell
and
irregular
lengths of bamboo (Fig. 83)
perforated
have a token value of 2 to 4 annas, whichever is the local equivalent
of a day's labour. The string is the unit, though it may be variously
composed. Apparently anyone can make one of materials to hand,
and a rich man will keep basketfuls ready, to be used for wages, or
for buying cattle and wives (Hutton, 1921 (i), pp. 71-2).
Throughout the hilly areas of Burma and Assam in the last
century cattle were the standard of wealth, and are still used as a
standard in official payments and fines, and sometimes for the actual
it

payments themselves.

As Temple

said

a man's revenue would be assessed by Government, not at so many rupees,

but at a big buffalo ; a fine would not be so many rupees but a cock and
two small hens. So among the Chins, a fine would not be 10 rupees, but
a full-grown hog (1899, p. 103).

Livestock, especially mithun ;

tools,
grain, especially rice ;
especially daos ; and family treasures, especially gongs ; all these
'
are valuable property and are used in presentations, bride-price ',

exchanges and payments, commonly taking the

money for certain formal transactions.
The most important unit of this kind in Assam is

fines,

place

of

the gayal
or mithun (bos frontalis), the domesticated form of the so-called
*
bison or gaitr (bos gaurus). Fines, bride-price ', bone-price *
or compensations for injuries are all assessed in mithun, though they
are nowadays commonly paid in coin, the standard taken being
i mithun
35 rupees or thereabouts. Cattle are often used instead,
when a man cannot afford mithun.
Among the Naga, wealth is in rice. There are rich men who
boast of granaries full of rice, black with age, and who live on the
Bridehigh interest obtained from loans (Mills, 1926, p. 106).
price is here in rice, the amount varying between 5 and 60 basketsful,
sometime a leathern shield or one or more daos may be added, though
all have to be returned if the wife leaves within the year
10 to 20
baskets of rice and a good dao make the average payment among
the Mongsen.
Rupees are now taking the place of goods for brideand
among the Lhota Naga money is often paid by the
price ',
bridegroom in place of the labour formerly given to the parents-inBut the final marriage price proper is in rice, 250 basketsful,
law.
'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

Bone-price

made by

is

'

the payment on the death of a married

husband or his representatives to the

the
children,
(Shaw, 1929, p. 56).
IS

woman

or her

woman's

clan

PRIMITIVE

204

MONEY

this may also be estimated in rupees, and paid in instalments,

a
taking
generation to pay off. A man may be hampered all his
life by debts incurred at the marriage of his mother, grandmother,
or even his great-great-grandmother or great-great-aunt.
Among the Kabuis of Manipur in the micfcHe of last century,
the bride-price would include 7 buffalo, 2 daos, 2 spears, 2 strings
of beads made of conch shell, 2 ear ornaments, 2 black cloths, 2
eating vessels, 2 hoes.
Fifty years later, buffalo being scarce, the
price did not exceed 100 baskets of rice, with a dao, hoe and cloth
for the girl's parents.
Among the Marings to the East, the regulated
a
for
in
wife
payment
1859 was 3 gongs or 2 buffalo. Accidental
homicide was compensated by payment of cows, from i to- 10
according to circumstances and locality (Hodson, 1911, pp. 90, 92,

though

'

106).

Many more

examples might be given, but these are enough to

that in isolated regions where there is no native money, and
where wealth consists in cattle and grain, certain articles are recog-

show

'

nized as conventional units in presentations and exchange, brideThe most conspicuous of these are iron tools
price or wergeld.
or weapons daos, hoes and spears ornaments, usually beads, and
the famous gongs.
None of these, with the exception of the daos,
ever developed into token-money. Just as in Africa spear- or axeheads swell into objects of parade or diminish into conventional
tokens, so the daos of Assam occur in both exaggerated and miniature
varieties, both, though otherwise useless, being used as currency.
These Naga daos are of interest for many reasons. First, they
may claim to be linked both in name, in prototype and in function
with the Chinese tao or knife-money, with a distinguished ancestry
Next, the currency
stretching back many hundreds of years (p. 238).
dao (Fig. 84) is already becoming token-money. It is less often the
ordinary working tool than a worn-out blade which can be used
to make a new one, a degeneration which has progressed so far in
the miniature dao or chabili (Fig. 85), that its prototype has been
Just as in Africa the Fan bikei have been called axes,
forgotten.
or
spears
throwing-knives, so the chabili are called knives, spears
or keys, the latter being the literal translation of their name. 1
We have seen above some of the uses of the dao in ceremonial
The chabili perform the same functions.
presentations or exchanges.
are
in
used
distributions
at feasts
They
they are offered by the
'
medicine man to avert illness, 6 for a man and 5 for a woman ;
and the bride takes one or more to her new home. All well-to-do
men (among the Ao Nagas) keep a few bundles of them ready for
such uses (Mills, 1926, pp. 103, 236).
'

'

Mills (1926, p. 102) shows that the chabili are imitations of the old long-

tanged dao

now

extinct,

cf.

ill.,

p. 60.

FIG. 84.

Dao, Assam.

(4 size)

FIG. 85.

Chabili, mini-

ature dao t

Assam

FIG. 86.

Spearhead,

PRIMITIVE

206

MONEY

The spear often shares the functions of the dao. It plays an

important part in presentations and figures in the Angami brideprice ', besides being used in fines and compensations for adultery.
As a present it takes the form of an ornamental spear-shaft only
if given with the head it indicates respect or homage, and is offered
as tribute due from an inferior to a superior, paid by one village
to another for services rendered, or sent as a token of submission
A Naga
after receiving a challenge (Hutton, 1921 (i), p. 220 fn.).
*

spearhead is illustrated in Fig. 86. A complete Kachin spear

formerly currency is in the Pitt Rivers Collection at Oxford.
'

'

tribes of the Akyab district South of the Arakan

the presents given by the bridegroom include a wild
bull, a white buffalo, 7 gongs and 5 spears, to be distributed between
the father, uncle and elder brother of the girl.
pig and liquor

Among

Hills in

the

hill

Burma

for the feast have to be provided, and atgift usually 30 rupees for
In the case of the re-marriage of a widow, to
the girl's mother.
'

quote the Census of India Report, It is permitted to collect widows,

but only by unmarried relatives ', and the father only gets a spear
and 2 gongs. Compensation for adultery is very heavy, approximately a buffalo, a gun, and 7 or 8 gongs, but there is only a small
fine for misconduct with
uncollected widows' (1931, Vol. XI,
Burma ', Part i, pp. 264-5, 293).
There remains one class of currency objects peculiar to this part
of the world. This includes the famous metal gongs, often called
drums ', that are a form of currency not only among the hill tribes
of Assam and Burma, but also in Siam and Annam, in Borneo, and
the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies.
'

'

'

If these are not, strictly speaking, money, they are the nearest
it.
They are the most valued of possessions, and are
the form in which wealth is stored, estimated, and exhibited.
They
'
are customary, if not essential, in
bride-price ', in wergeld, in

approach to

ceremonial presentations and in peace-makings.

The Burmese have a folk tale which tells how, when God was
distributing the good things of this world, they went, by mistake,
on the wrong day, and so received ndts instead of blessings. And
their whole lives are spent in propitiating these often unfriendly
The gongs were beaten to placate them and avert evil, and
spirits.
the Karens believed that the echoing of the sound was the voice
of approving ndts (O'Riley, 1862, p. 164).
The best-known of these forms of visible wealth are the gongs
of Manipur, of the Naga Hills to the north and the Lushai Hills
to the south (with many native names in different districts) ; the
bells, deoganta, of the Miri Hills on the Tibetan border ; the
'
currency bowls of the Abor, their neighbours to the east ; the
gongs of the Kachin in Northern Burma, still farther to the east ;
'

ASIA

207

and the best known of all, the kyee-zee of the Karen in the mountains
of Eastern Burma, between the Shan States and Siam.
The gongs are very varied in material, size, shape, character and
value, and each kind has its native name.
The Konyaks have a gong of Burmese pattern with a central
boss.
The Kuki have a big gong, dapi and a set of three small
gongs, half a tone apart, and the value depends, like that of the
Chinese ch'ing, on size and tone.
The Chang Naga gongs, laya,
are flattish, convex disks about a foot across, formerly of bell metal
worth 4 or 5 rupees, but nowadays, being made of Assam brass, they
have dropped to about 8 annas. These are not used as gongs, and
would crack if beaten hard.
Parry (1932, pp. 200-2) drew up a list of the values of cattle,
gongs, brass pots, daos, axes, hoes and other items commonly used
in payment of marriage prices among the Lakhers and Maras of the
Lushai Hills to the south of Manipur.
Livestock ranged from a good cow worth 60 rupees to a piglet,
worth one. Gongs were priced according to their span and also
according to their tone. One of 10 span, measured round the
outside edge, if with a true sound, was valued at 70 rupees
smaller
ones came down to 20 rupees
daos 2 rupees
axes i rupee
hoes
4 annas each.
y

He

adds this significant passage.

They have no currency

of their own. All transactions were carried out

goods paid for in kind. Even now there is little money
in the country, but as they came to realize the value of money the objects
generally given in payment of marriage prices gradually acquired a formal
value in rupees. This formal value does not necessarily correspond with
the market value of the article outside the Lakher country but holds good

by barter and

for

all

all

transactions

Of the

among Lakhers.

Hill Miris of

wrote (1879,

Lakimpur on the borders of Tibet, Hunter

P- 347)-

Their valuables consist chiefly in large dishes and cooking vessels of

metal, and of great collections of Thibetan metal bells called deogantes [god
bells] which appear to be prized as holy things and are sometimes used as
money. The Miris pretend that they cannot now obtain these bells and
that those they possess are heirlooms. They are valued at from 4 annas to
12 rupees (6d. to
i 45.) each
according to shape, size and ornaments.
Those with inscriptions inside and out are most highly prized. Those
without inscriptions are little valued, and as these inscriptions are nothing
'
more than repetitions of the shibboleth
Mani Padmi
of the
Thibetans it is easy to see that the Miris must have been inspired by that
people to treat them with veneration.
*

The

Om

on PL 19 was obtained from the Dufflas

Northern Lakimpur to the west of the Miri. The bronze

bell illustrated

(Daflas) of

Om

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

ao8
*

currency bowls of the Abor, to the East of the Miri, on the Tibetan
border, are of Chinese manufacture, and their value corresponds to
about 30 of English money. They are decorated externally with
wings, with four small lugs, and in the interior with the conch, fish,
Their local name is
&c., representing the 8 Buddhist emblems.
be
called
danki.
can
money, but they are largely
They
scarcely
used for ceremonial presentation. Much the same can be said of
the gongs so highly prized by the Kachin of Northern Burma.
Money has no attraction for the Kachin nor indeed for the Burman
in general, but he will give all his possessions, and more, for gongs.
They are essential for bride-price ', together with cattle and cloth,
but as they are scarce they have to be borrowed and passed on,
leaving a wake of debt behind them.
*

'

Enriquez (1923, pp. 152-3) describes his complicity in a native

elopement, which entailed his
doing the dirty work of baffling both Church and State. ... By Kachin
you can compound for murder for a pig or two, but for eloping
with your girl, you go to jail.
tribal law,

So the young pair decided to turn Christian in a hurry and be

married in church, which necessitated delicate negotiations with the
clergy and involved a maze of bishops, registers, catechisms, god'

'.
Baptism and marriage were speedily
to
Christian
rites, and it is interesting to note
completed according
that a year later, after a general reconciliation, the man paid for his
abducted wife with two magnificent gongs.
All I got out of it ',

fathers

and giving aways

says Enriquez,

was a tarnished reputation with the Government

of Burma.'

The famous kyee-zee gongs (PL

Burma are also tokens

of Eastern

Karen of the mountains

of wealth, rather than currency,

19) of the

but they also have definite monetary value, according to size and
sound, ranging between
5 and ^50.
They are treasured tribal
on
and
hands
heirlooms,
important occasions, passing
only change
from family to family, or from village to village like the stone-money
of Yap.
The kyee-zee is a thick copper or spelter cylinder about 2 feet
long and somewhat greater in diameter at one end, which is closed
with a disk of the metal, the other end being open. They are made
by the Shans, and H. I. Marshall (1922, pp. 91, 124-5) gives an
account of their manufacture.

Mason

described

them

in 1869

On the outer circle are four raised frogs, as the figure of the cat sometimes surmounted the ancient sistrum. Whether the sound of the instrument is intended to emulate the voice of the frog or not, must be left to

ASIA

209

no one can give any reason for the frog being there. 1
In the settlement of their quarrels, and in the redemption of captives, the
indemnification always takes the shape of a kyee-zee or more, with perhaps
a few buffaloes or pigs thrown in as make-weights, just as in more civilized
countries a concession of territory and perhaps some men-of-war is insisted
on (y.A.S.B., 1869, Vol. XXXVII, n, p. 128).
conjecture, for

The

have single frogs, elephants, or other creatures

two or more, one on the top of the other.
hot or sad gongs, used on occasions of death or
cool ones for festivals, differentiated, in the Pegu

earlier ones

in the later ones there are

There are

'

also

'

'

'

'

'

and
by the numbers of frogs (H. I. Marshall, 1922, Chap. XIII).
The Karens attach a fabulous value to these gongs and pay
absurd prices for those that have good tones. They have distinctive
names for 10 different classes distinguished by sound, the poorest
of which sells for 100 rupees and the best for a 1,000. Inferior
kinds range from 30 to 100 rupees. The Karens say that when a
good kyee-zee is struck it softens the heart, and the women weep for
their friends they have lost or from whom they are separated.
They
can be used to ransom a village, or to obtain a wife, and a man
with i kyee-zee is worth more than a man with 7 elephants.
No Karen, however well supplied with other goods, is considered
rich unless he owns kyee-zees, and the passion for possessing them
calamity

Hills,

man will barter children or

leads to interminable quarrelling.
If a youth wants to marry, he must somehow
relatives for them.
obtain one or two, either by loan, which means trouble, or by theft,
which

is

worse.

village

which has many

and wars are undertaken

'

the envy of one without,

O'Riley regards the love
for they are the original cause of

gongs

is

them

off.

to carry

of kyee-zees as the root of all evil,

feuds revenge for their loss

all intertribal

to generation

and

is

is nursed from generatipn

only satisfied by more kyee-zees or more lives

(1864, p. 216).

Where trading has developed a more regulated currency, metal

lumps or bars of silver form a transition stage between primitive
money and coins, and the various shapes of Further India find a
The best-known examples are
place in orthodox coin collections.
*

'

or boat '-money of Burma ; Siamese shells ', leaves ',

bracelets ', k'a Kim, ticals, bullets and canoes
and the stamped
silver bars, which are real coins, of Annam.
Chinese travellers of the yth to the gth centuries brought back
tales of trading with the Southern Barbarians, buying rhinoceros
horn for cowries which form their currency '. They reported that
the

shell

'-

'

'

'

'

'

'

Conjectures include rain-making and fertility rites, connected with the

See also the frog on mokko drums (p. 268). Cf. Rydh, I, 1929,
But other animals, such as elephants, monkevs and dogs, also
p. 107.
(

frog.

occur.

'

PRIMITIVE

zio

MONEY

gold and silver were also found, and were used by the Pyu of Prome
(Pegu) as money the shape of which is crescent-like (Harvey,
'
1925, pp. 10, 13). This may be recognized in the bracelets * of
Siam (p. 216) but in Burma the ingots are often called shells or
'boats' according to their outline. 1
It was formerly assumed that as cowry-currencies were imitated
in metal (in Europe, Egypt, India and China), so these shell-like
forms are imitations of earlier shell-currencies, but Temple attributes
the shell shape rather to accident than design, being due to the
natural efflorescence of silver under certain methods of extraction.
His evidence is illustrated in the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, with
samples of baw or pure silver, as extracted from the crucible, used
as currency by weight
and shan baw producing shell-money
with shapes of incipient shells (Temple, 1890, p. 323). The chief
use of these shells was not as currency, but in customary presents
of Shan chiefs to the Burmese king.
Anderson described (1876, p. 44) ingot-making in Burma
'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

To

6 tikah (i tikal equals rather more than half an ounce Troy) of pure
silver, i tikal 8 annas of copper wire are added and melted with alloy of
as much lead as brings the whole to 10 tikah weight.
The operation is
conducted in saucers of sun-dried clay bedded in paddy husk, and covered
over with charcoal. The bellows are vigorously plied and as soon as the
mass is at red heat, the charcoal is removed and a round flat brick button,
previously covered with a layer of moist clay, is placed on the amalgam,
which forms a thick ring round the edge, to which lead is freely added to
make up the weight. As it cools there results a white disc of silver encircled
by a brownish ring. The silver is cleaned and dotted with cutch [to show
the approximate weight, and degree of alloy] and is then weighed and ready
to be cut up.

In the early trading days 2 goods were sometimes weighed against

ganza, an alloy of lead and brass which passed as money in Pegu,
either in odd lumps or in bars of specified weight
stamped by
merchants of repute, but usually false (Harvey, 1925, p. 122).
c

'

De Carn (1872, p. 177) travelling from

describes the importance of the blacksmith, who

Siam
is

into

at the

Burma

same time

goldsmith and manufacturer of money.

The tickal and its subdivisions ceasing to have the current price, we
were compelled to have our Siamese silver melted in a crucible which gives
it the form of a macaroon.
For daily transactions of small importance they
cut off at hazard pieces of unequal value, which are appraised at a glance by
the interested parties. They make use of scales in more serious transactions,
for, in default of a uniform money, the standard of value is fixed by weight
in silver.
1

'

'

'

'

shell
and a boat (from the British Museum)
Ling Roth (1901, Fig. 16).
2
Alexander Hamilton remarked that Ganze passeth
dominion for money', 1727, II, p. 41.

are illustrated

'

all

by

over the Pegu

ASIA

2ii

Chinese sycee silver found its way along the trade-routes, and is
met with both in Burma and in Siam, often in the form of saddlemoney (Fig. 109), brought probably from South China, by pack
caravan (le May, 1932, pp. 8-9, PL II, Fig. 7
cf. Ling Roth, 1901,
'

'

Fig. 4, pp. 16-17).

All these irregular

and lumpy forms give way before the more

convenient round coins, and it is interesting to note how these coins
occasionally preserve the memory of earlier shells or seeds.
Temple quotes Brown's description of the sel of Manipur,
worth about T
of a rupee.

The only coin proper to the country is of bell metal and small in size,
weighing about 16 grains. This is coined by the Raja as required, goods
and money being taken in exchange. The metal is obtained chiefly from
Burma and consists of old gongs &c.
The market value of the sel
as it is called varies.
When rupees are plentiful then sel are cheap, when
.

scarce, the opposite.

that the ratio of 400 sel to the rupee showed

was based on the cowry ratio of 400 to the anna, i.e. the people
though using sel still counted them in terms of cowries. Moreover,
the Manipuri sel are counted like cowries in quartettes, the quickest

Temple pointed out

that

it

way

of dealing with large quantities, when separating

1
(Temple, 1914, p. 27).

them with

fingers or sticks

The rupee of the present day thus preserves a faint memory of

the earlier cowry currency.
It also preserves the memory of equally
primitive money in the seeds (' crab's eyes ') of the scarlet black2
These were used as
spotted pea, rati gunja, Abrus precatorius.
in
West
Africa
and
in
Burma (cf. Pitt Rivers
currency
(p. 83)
Museum). But their main claim to fame in monetary transactions
their use as weights both in Africa

and in Asia. 3

In India the rati

Troy) was the unit of weight (cf. p. 191). A hundred ratis
(175 gr.) made the sata-raktika, a weight of metal which on the
one hand can be traced back almost to the Vedic period, whilst in
modern times it has developed into the rupee of the British Governis

(1-75 gr.

'

ment

'

(Chalmers, 1893, p. 336).

This process can be seen to this day when cowries are used in gambling.
Both in Africa and in Asia Abrus precatorius (rati, crab's eye. Indian
liquorice, King Charles' tears, &c.) is often confused with Adenanthera
pavonina (candarcen, kenderi, saga, redwood, &c.). Both are often called
by the same name (as yvce in Burma) and often the names are reversed
1

p. 91 w).
Temple described both, discussing their relative weights
(1897, pp. 312-18), but the confusion persists (cf. Wilkinson, MalayEnglish Dictionary, 1932).
8 In
a mas, and 16 mas (mace)
a tael,
Sumatra, 24 of these seeds
equivalent to the Chinese Hang, and more or less (but usually a little more
than) the ounce (Ridgeway, 1892, pp. 127, 172).
(cf.

PRIMITIVE

212

C.

The

MONEY

SIAM AND INDO-CHINA

some of the
and buffaloes are described
And the contrast between the rich
as the basic coin of the realm '.
alluvial plains and the barren upland country must have encouraged
exchange from early days.
riches of

finest rice in the

Siam and Indo-China

world

is

consist in rice

produced here

'

The buffalo standard

the tribes of Annam.
In

Annam

still

survives, or survived until lately

among

the buffalo often serves as the general unit of value for the

more valuable articles. Thus a large chaldron is worth 3 buffaloes, a

handsome gong 2 buffaloes, a small gong i buffalo, 6 copper dishes i buffalo,
2 lances i buffalo, a rhinoceros horn 8 buffaloes, a large pair of elephant
tusks 6 buffaloes, a small pair 3 buffaloes.

Ridgeway, from whose book that quotation from Aymonier is

taken (p. 165), adds
Thus the buffalo which takes the place of the ox in China and SouthEast Asia is used as the commercial unit in like fashion as we found the
ox employed among the Homeric Greeks, the ancient Italians, the ancient
Irish and the modern Ossetes.
But the Annamites themselves employ as
Accordingly when the
currency the silver bar and string of cash.
hill tribes have dealings with the people of the plain, the full-grown buffalo
is reckoned at a bar of silver or its equivalent, a hundred strings of cash,
while the small buffalo is set at 50 strings.
.

Taxes are paid in buffalo, one for each house, or a village may
compound by a payment of 10 buffaloes, whose horns are at least as
long as their ears.
The Bahnars of

Annam who

dwell on the borders of Northern

as their highest unit the head, i.e. a male slave, who is

estimated according to his strength, age and skill, at 5, 6 or 7 buffaloes
or the same number of kettles, for the average value is the same.

Siam have

A full-grown buffalo or a large kettle is worth 7 large glazed Chinese

1
Each muk is worth 10 mats or
jar is worth 4 muks.
iron hoes, the sole agricultural implement of the wild tribes of all

jars.

One

The hoe is the smallest monetary unit used

these regions.
the Bahnars, and is worth about a penny in European goods.

by

all

This

mat or hoe serves them as small currency and all petty transactions
are carried on by it. A large bamboo hat costs 2 hoes, a Bahnar

knife 2 hoes, ordinary arrows are sold at 30 for a hoe.

large
elephant is worth from 10 to 15 heads or slaves, a horse costs 3 or 4
kettles or buffaloes.

Ridgeway's comment is as follows

When we read of such a state of human society We seem to be transported
:

back into that far away Homeric time, and as

1

The muk was

originally a special article,

(Aymonier, 1877, pp. 296-8).

we

hear of slaves and kine,

now

only a unit of account

ASIA

213

chaldrons and kettles, we think of the old Epics with their tale of slaves
valued in beeves and crumple-horned shambling kine and tripods ', and
'
shining chaldrons '. In the light of such analogies we can at last understand the significance of the 10 axes and 10 half-axes which formed the first
and second prizes in the Iliad. Who can doubt that these axes and halfaxes played much the same part in the Homeric system of currency as the
hoes do at this present moment in that of the Bahnars of Annam (1892,
'

p. 166).

Hoes have already been seen

value there than the dao.

as currency in

Assam, though of

The dao

(dakh) is found as currency

in Northern Siam also, but as an iron bar, not yet made into a tool.
Aymonier describes these bars or lozenge-shaped pieces, about 5 to 6
inches (14 cm.) long, i inch (3 cm.) wide and rather less than \ inch
less

(i cm.) thick, weighing some 200 grammes.

They are measured
from the base of the thumb to the tip of the first finger, two fingers
for the width and one for the thickness in the middle, thinning off
to the ends
10 or 12 go to the tical 15 to the piastre, and they are
y

also reckoned in bags of 50.

nen or bar of

silver.

This

is

Fifteen bagfuls or 300 bars go to the

the usual money on both sides of the

Mekong (Aymonier, 1895, I, p. 22).

It may constantly be seen how a bad

or unregulated currency

drives people back to barter and the use of primitive forms of money.
Buffalo, rice and hoes persist in Annam, not because there are no
In the
coins, but because they have been introduced too freely.
province of Binh Thuan on the South-East Coast of Annam the

Mexican piastre in the middle of last century was worth some 6 to 10

The
strings of good sapeks (cash) or up to 20 strings of bad ones.
King had been in the habit of issuing copper or zinc sapeks of
varying values, but about 1872 this privilege was sold to the Chinese,
and the coins became smaller and smaller and of worse and worse
metal.
There was also an inundation of counterfeit piastres, with
the result that the people were thoroughly suspicious of coins and
in some parts refused to take them altogether.
Transactions there are made in padi, the true money of the country.
Rice is bartered for tobacco, fish, cloth, &c. A basket of rice for a bunch of
bananas, a glass of wine, 6 cakes or 5 eggs (Aymonier, 1885, pp. 45-6, 61-2).

Mouhot,
found beads

travelling in the
still

mountains of Cambodia in 1858-60,

acceptable.

Glass ornaments and brass wire passed everywhere for money. A

an ox is valued at 6 armfuls of thick brass wire ; a pig is almost as
dear ; but for a small piece of fine wire or a bead necklace, you can purchase
a pheasant or a hundred ears of maize (p. 253).
buffalo or

Young Louis de Carne, exploring up the Mekong among the

Laos (1872, pp. 183, 185), tells of his money difficulties. The
Chinese ingot te and the Burmese ingot, also fe, contained different

PRIMITIVE

214

MONEY
'

So the rogues offer you

quantities of silver, but both were in use.
one when they are your debtors, and require the other when they are
*
your creditors.' He found red cotton cloth the best currency ',
but when supplies ran out he was reduced to desperate straits,

We
a pair of pantaloons for a duck, and God forgive me such simony
exchanged the medallions and religious images which were destined for the
!

Christians of the missions. ...

St. Antony of Padua went for a pumpkin ;
St. Pancras for a basket of potatoes, and St. Gertrude for a cucumber.

The earliest form of money in general use consisted of cowries,

which are frequently mentioned in the accounts of early travellers
Ferrand, 1922, p. 50). They were
(Schneider, 1905, pp. 107-8
carried as ballast in ships from the Laccadives, Borneo and the
Philippines, and at the end of the iyth century, and up to the middle
of the 1 8th, cowries (there called bid) were the usual small change
of Siam, 800 to the fuang, J of a tical. ^In 1744 Siamese history
records a shortage of cowries, and small red clay seals, called prakab,
were stamped with various designs and issued as substitutes (le May,
That was merely a
1932, p. 125, PL XXXII, Figs. 11-14).
setback.
became
temporary
They
plentiful again and dropped in
Bastian (1863, III, p. 213) noted that for large payments
value.
they were not counted, but measured in plaited baskets or coconut
;

to 1,200 to the fuang.

During the reign of King
of
the
Mongkut
Bangkok dynasty (1851-68) the value was fixed at
800 to the fuang, but with his introduction of tin and copper coinage
in 1862 cowries were finally abandoned in commercial centres.
They continued as gambling counters in towns, and are used by the
croupiers in fan-tan, while among the peasants of the country
districts they are still reckoned at some 600 to' 1,200 to the tical. 1
In an area so rich in metals as South-Eastern Asia, a currency
in gold, silver, iron or mixed metal of different weights is to be
expected, and these develop in the form of bars or lumps, taking
shells,

i ,000

different characteristic shapes in different districts.

It is strange [says le May, 1932, p. 7] that an Empire
.
.
which lasted
for at least six centuries, and which could produce such a wonder of civilized
culture as the great temple at Angkor still never found it necessary to employ
.

any standard system of gold and silver coinage, as distinct from weights,
throughput its territories. And yet perhaps not so strange when we consider
that China until quite recently stood in almost the same position numismatically.

Payments in Cambodia were made in slaves, cattle, rice and other

metal vessels and weights of gold and silver. The weights
1
Le May (1932) describes on pp. 97-8 and illustrates on PI. II, Figs. 1-4

cereals,

and XXIII, 1-6, 6 of the 8 varieties of cowries (C. annulus and C. moneta
among them) all having the same current value.
Pig's mouth money ',
p. 123, PI. XXXI, Fig. i, may represent, he thinks, a large cowry shell.
C/. Ling Roth, 1901, p. 16, Fig. 14, No. 2.
'

ASIA

215

themselves were traditionally based on rice grains, 96 to the fuang.

Wergeld was in silver, by weight, 30 once (= 37-5 gr.) for a sound
man to 25 for a woman. Accidental killing (homicide par imprudence)
was compensated by a third of the price of the victim if a freeman,
or a third of his sale value if a slave (Aymonier, 1900, I, p. 89).
The lumps or weights of silver which pass for coins in this part
of the world are very varied, and most of them are familiar in currency
collections.
Such are the snailshells ', shells and boats of
Burma already noticed (p. 216), and the shoes of China (p. 246).
The ingots or bars of Annam stamped with the name of the reigning
king are a nearer approach to coins. The silver bar illustrated in
Fig. 87 is inscribed with the name of Gia Long, founder of the
There were
dynasty, who made a treaty with Louis XVI in 1787.
'

'

'

'

'

'

'

much larger and heavier bars, as well as bricks,

in gold, weighing up to 10 taels (385 grammes)
and in silver, up to 100 taels (Babelon, 1897,
In Siam there
'

'

canoe-money
'

money

Nan

of the

more

is

of the

variety, including the

Mekong

Valley, the

'

leaf-

'

district,
'

and the shell-money

'

'

in the North.
bride-price
(ngon hoi)y used in
But the most characteristic form, which lasted down
to the present day, is that commonly known as
bullet-money or tical, though the Siamese name
'

'

is bat.

The bat or tical has been used to illustrate

obvious stages in the evolution of money, starting
from a bar of metal, estimated by weight, bent
'

Silver
87.
bar, Annam

FIG.

'

double, gradually compressed into a bullet and

up as a stamped coin. But things are not always what they
seem, and the evolution of the tical is still obscure.
The name is derived from the Indian word tonka or tanga
(originally the weight of a seed), applied to coins in India, Persia
and Turkestan, and still surviving in little silver or copper coins in
South-West India, at Goa and along the Malabar Coast (N.E.D.) 1
(Temple, 1897, pp. 235-45, 2 53~6). The Portuguese carried the
word with their trade to Further India where the tanka became tical.
The tical roughly equalled the rupee, varying in weight from a little
ounce Troy, and in value from is. zd.
over to a little under
to zs. 6d.y fixed in 1902 at 17 and 1925 at
to the pound
finishing

sterling.

There were smaller

sizes,

equal to about

J and J of a rupee,

1
Tical is pronounced ticdl in Siam and tic' I in Burma.
Le May derives
the word from the Arabic thaqal, Hebrew shekel. Cunningham believes
'
that our slang word tanner is a gypsy corruption of tanka (1891, p. 24).
'

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

216

the song salung, the salung, and the fuang

Ticals

(Graham

1912, p. 264).

were stamped on their convex sides with marks of different

1

patterns.

student of the early coinage of Siam is faced with almost

insuperable difficulties/ says le May, and we gratefully follow his
guidance given in the Coinage of Stam, 1932, quoted largely in the

preceding and following paragraphs.

The evidence of the coins themselves shows that there was a
standardized coinage in use in Central Siam from the pre-Ayudhyan
era (i.e. before 1350).
The shape of this standardized coin is peculiar it consists of a
short elliptical bar of silver, with both its ends pressed inwards so
that they practically meet.
This is called locally p'ot duang, where
twisted* or 'curled*.
duang means 'worm* and p'ot means
This is the so-called bullet-coin which continued to be minted up to
But there was another, and a
the reign of King Mongkut, 1851-68.
different type of money in use in the North, probably contemporary
with the bullet coins of the central area this is the bracelet
type (PL 20, Figs. 5-7). This appears to be the earliest form of silver
currency and may have been introduced by the Thai, who arrived
about the gth century A.D. The bracelet may, in its turn, have
been derived from Lower Burma where crescent-like shapes in gold
and silver are recorded by Chinese chroniclers of the T'ang period
A.D. 600-900) as the money of the Southern Barbarians (Pyu).
(c.
Later the bracelet took the standardized form known locally as
Ka Him, which was common to all the northern principalities for
some centuries (PL 20, Figs. 1-4). The script found on these is not
earlier than the beginning of the i4th century, and the coins persisted
down to the i8th. The average weight of these Ka Kim is usually
about 4 bat, or a little over, and le May accepts them as representing
If it can
the Thai tael, with a little weight thrown in for luck '.
be proved that the bracelet type and its later development the
Ka Kim were contemporaneous with the bullets ', the evolution
of the latter from either of the former (and no intermediate stages
can be discovered) fails to be established. 2 It has been suggested
that the origin of them all was Chinese sycee silver but that the
northern folk adopted the bracelet and later the Ka Kim type of
money because they traded almost entirely on land and through hilly
country, and found this type of coinage convenient to carry about
strung together. On the other hand, the southern folk used the
great river system as their means of communication and it was
:

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

For explanations of the marks see

with 87
1

'

For further discussion

reply.

le

May,

1932, pp. 24^., 53-4, &c.,

illustrations.
cf.

Knowles,

W.

H., 1936, and

le

May's

ASIA

217
*

'

convenient for them

shape in
in
their
boats
be
accommodated
which
could
(le May,
bags,
easily
to carry about coins of the

bullet

1932, p. 12).
*

There is one characteristic which is shared alike by bracelet ',

Ka Kim, and the earlier of the bullet-coins, that is the cut or
nick '. This may be a cake-like slice, taken out of the metal, but
becomes smaller and smaller, down to the padi-seed nick (met Kao
The nick was made by the Chinese
san) of later Ayudhyan times.
when the coins were sent to China for trading purposes, to test
the quality of the silver the cuts were made in Siam, probably
*

'

'

'

'

'

'

by

authority, as they are so uniform, to

'

lay the

body bare

to a

suspicious world (le May, 1932, p. 47).

When the bullet-coins first came into use

is

entirely obscure.

and most archaic forms may date from the nth century
or even earlier, but the general adoption and standardization date
from the Thai Kings in the i3th and I4th centuries.
Le May illustrates nearly 100 bullet-coins (including some forHe also describes
geries on PL XVIII) with 87 diagrams of marks.
and illustrates the method of manufacture. In 1931 there was still
one old man who had been a pupil of the coin craftsmen in his youth,
who knew how to make the coins, and he gave a demonstration at
the Royal Mint.
The process was mediaeval, and the description
is picturesque
The silver was
(1932, pp. 63-5, Pis. XV-XVII).
weighed out, placed in an earthenware crucible, fused in the furnace,
and poured into a mould submerged in water, producing a short
rather like an elongated burnt almond sweet curved
elliptical bar
below and flatter above. It was nicked across the middle on the
flatter side, and then, set up on end, was hammered first on one side
then on the other an expert would take only five blows until the
shape was satisfactory. The stamping was done on an elephant bone.
The ticals become progressively more and more bullet-like down
to the middle of the igth century, and gold
bullets
were also
issued.
But a little later, under the 4th sovereign of the Bangkok
dynasty, though gold bullets were still being issued, gold, silver,
tin and copper coins in conventional flat shape were minted at the
same time and became legal tender.
A further problem has been presented by the bullets which are
made not of silver but of a mixture of tin, copper and nickel in
varying proportions. Tin is plentiful in the South, and the copper
and nickel alloy is found on the borders of Siam and the French Lao
states in the Nan region.
These are marked with the same marks
as the silver bullets' and probably belong to the same period, but
they are much larger and heavier than the coins and le May
thinks that they were more probably weights than currency.
This
1
The larins of Ceylon show similar cuts, p. 194, Fig. 81.

The

earliest

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

2i8
is

they have

as

curious,

no

connexion with

the

tael

or

its

derivatives. 1
'

The

'

were not the only form of metal currency, and

other types are the canoe-money or Idts of the Mekong Valley,
*
the leaf-money of Nan in the Lao states, and the shell-money
or ngon hoi used in marriage payments in the North. The Idts or
canoes are very varied in shape and in composition, some being
of silver, some of copper, some of alloy ; some having the appearance
of model canoes, some no likeness whatever. They all come from
the Mekong Valley.
Four types are illustrated on PL 21, Figs. 1-4.
bullets

'

'

'

'

'

'

The largest is sometimes

an

ant-coin ', the irregular markings

round the edge being attributed to the struggles of ants, dropped alive
on to the molten metal 2 (Loehr, 1935, p. 22).

FIG. 88.

The

'

called

Leaf-money

model canoe

',

Siam

FIG. 89.

Ngdn

hdi,

Siam

'

type (Fig. 2) was collected in the Ngum

of copper, the smaller rougher one (Fig. i) is from the
Province of Ubon in the North-East, and amorphous types of silver
come from the Province of Son Tong. The value was very variable
from time to time and from place to place. Aymonier (1895, I,
p. 60) quotes 24 to the tical at Bassak in 1866, falling to 40 in his day.
From the Nan region of one of the Lao States of Northern
Siam comes the so-called leaf-money (Fig. 88). This consists of
solid heavy disks of copper or debased silver, concave and convex,
the latter face usually having a leaf-rib pattern on it, hence the name,
valley

and

is

'

'

but sometimes they are plain both sides. Some have perforations,
which may be for suspension suggesting that they may be tokens
;

Le May (1932) illustrates 7 of these on PL VI, Figa. 1-7, and describes

them (pp. 17-18). They may be compared with the Burmese ganza
(p. 210 above) which
passed for money in Pegu in the i8th century
1

'

'

(Harvey, 1925, p. 122).

2

Mosher

(1936,

PL X,

p. 32) calls

them

'

tiger tongues

'.

ASIA
or amulets rather than coins
5-6).
Figs.
'

'

(le

May,

219
1902, p. 124,

PL XXXI,

'

Pig's-mouth-money are names given to the

irregular inflated discs, often quite thin, from the borders of Siam
and Burma, PL 21, Fig. 12 (cf. Ling Roth, 1901, Fig. 14, No. 2,
and le May, 1902, PL XXXI, i).
Shell-money

or

'

The ngdn hoi, or silver shell-money (PL 21, Figs. 10-11) are
made of silver alloy in the shape of flat or almost flat shells, the flatter
side covered with a yellowish-red substance made of the burnt yolk
of a chicken's egg. The other side, slightly convex, is black and
ribbed (Fig. 89). The sizes vary from J inch to nearly 3 inches
Le May was told that these tokens were made
(2 to 7 cm.) across.
'

solely for use in the ceremonies of marriage

The

and divorce

in

Northern

The bridegroom and bride bring

simple.
clusters of about 100 areca nuts, as symbols that the families are
united together. The man deposits 2 ngdn hoi, about 12 ticals in
The girl prevalue, as the marriage-price.
sents a dish of flowers and wax candles.
Divorce is equally simple. If a couple
wish to part the man must once more pay
the sum of 2 ngon hoi and the act is comSiam. 1

plete (le

betrothal

May,

is

1926, p. 191).

These silver pieces are sometimes called

Trengganu token-money, in the belief that
they date from the time when Trengganu
was subject to Siam, and paid tribute in
gold flowers. Trade was then in the hands

FIG 90 .__ Leaves

silver tree, Siam.

from'the
(J size)

of Chinese merchants, who issued their own

tokens which became the trading-currency of Bangkok. The connexion between these ngon hdi and Trengganu (or even Bangkok)
seems doubtful, as they are found in the North of Siam and do not
appear to be known elsewhere.
The gold and silver flowers and leaves paid as tribute by the
princes of the North or the rajahs of the South to the King at Bangkok
are sometimes included in currency collections.
The trees were
often 8 feet high, with trunk, branches, flowers and leaves in gold
or silver.
gold tree would be worth over 1,000 ticals (Temple,

The silver leaves illustrated in Fig. 90 were among

1897, p. 289).
contributions paid in tribute by the Lao States, representing ceremonial gifts rather than money.
1

The ngdn

tion in
'

sins,

by a missionary to the Chase National Bank Collecwere used as fines, especially in atonement for certain
made by Government and sold at 3 rupees each '.
hdi given

New York

16

PRIMITIVE

220

MONEY

CHINA

iv.

about China. It is a vast land of

nature
and man into isolated communities
up by
which for centuries had little contact with the outer world. Like
It is difficult to generalize

infinite variety, cut

India, it is predominantly
cultivation to the acre and

an agricultural country, with more

more

intensive cultivators than are to

be found elsewhere. Among these each family group tends to be
self-contained and self-supporting
payments are still made in kind,
and by the mass of the people money is rarely needed.
In earlier times traders ranked low in the social scale, below
artisans and far below farmers.
Trade was not one of the honourable
Merchants and artisans were forbidden to occupy any
professions.
official post at the beginning of the Han
dynasty, two centuries B.C.,
;

though when they acquired

great wealthy and the salt magnates and
'
the iron workers were richer than the princes ', they were allowed
by the Emperor
(124 B.C.) to purchase titles.

Wu

The configuration

of the country gave no encouragement to trade

by sea or by land. Natural harbours are few, especially in
the North. There were no profitably trading neighbours within
easy reach to foster commercial enterprise and develop a race of
adventurous seafarers. Barriers of mountains and deserts discouraged travel, and trade-routes were few and difficult. Travel
was also discouraged by society. The duty of sons was to stay at
home for the support of the ageing parents and grandparents, and
for a man to leave his family was the equivalent of social banishment
generation after generation lived, died and were buried, on the same
either

plot of land.
But the land did not produce the superfluities which kindle trade.
Subsistence crops were the rule (silk mulberry and tea were excep-

both providing

'

currencies '), and the incessant toil required

mere
subsistence
by
crops left room for little else. Trade was not
stimulated either by surplus production or by the demand for luxuries
in the mass of the frugal tillers of the soil.
Barter in commodities suffices for such simple societies and there
are many references to grain as the standard of value and medium
of exchange from the earliest times down to the present day.
But
there were three trade products which claim to be classed with
currencies.
These are salt, silk and tea. Salt is often mentioned
tions,

in Chinese Annals.

In the yth century

B.C.

the State of Ch'i

(modern Shantung) acquired great wealth through trade in

increased by the expedient of forcing tributaries to
pay for

salt,
it

in

metal currency. Marco Polo refers frequently to the use of salt

as a medium of exchange, and, in Tibet in the form of
cakes,
as

'

money

'.

ASIA

221

The money

or currency they make use of is thus prepared. Their gold

is formed into small rods, and passes according to its weight without any
stamp. This is their greater money. The smaller is of the following
In this country there are salt-springs, from which they manudescription.
facture salt by boiling it in small pans. When the water has boiled for an
hour it becomes a kind of paste, which is formed into cakes of the value of
2,d. each.
These, which are flat on the lower and convex on the upper side,
On this
are placed upon hot tiles near a fire in order to dry and harden.
latter species of money the stamp of the Great Khan is impressed, and it
cannot be prepared by any other than his own officers. Eighty of the cakes
But when these are
are made to pass for a saggio of gold [? = a gold florin].
carried by the traders amongst the inhabitants of the mountains and other
parts little frequented, they obtain a saggio of gold for 60, 50 or even 40
of the salt cakes in proportion as they find the natives less civilized, further
removed from the towns and more accustomed to remain on the same spot

(Marco Polo, 1926, Book

II,

chap. 47).

The

salt revenue from the kingdom of Manji (South China)

brought the Great Khan a sum of 16,800,000 ducats a year, as
Marco Polo noted, seeing the account being made up in his presence
On the borders of Yunnan, where Polo describes
(ibid., Chap. 78).
the salt currency in the i3th century, the cakes continued in use

down to modern times, and travellers in these hilly inland regions

find salt eagerly welcomed in exchange for food, or as payment of
carriers at the present day.
Sericulture in China, the land of its origin, started long before
Tradition ascribes its encouragement to the Lady of Hsi
the
wife of Huang Ti the Yellow Emperor, himself a patron
Ling,
of commerce, whose date is usually given as somewhere in the 3rd
history.

millennium B.C. But there was little trade with the Western World
before the Christian era, when silk was literally worth its weight
in gold in Roman estimation.
It formed a medium of exchange
between the Chinese and the neighbouring Mongol tribes to the west,
and in Polo's time silk in skeins is mentioned as the only form of
currency.

Ogodai Khan, in the i3th century, collected tribute and taxes in

430 n.) and in a good year the Imperial Treasury
would receive, besides silver and notes and cowries, over 1,000,000
catties 1 of raw silk and 350 rolls of woven silk (Morse, 1913,
silk (Yule, 1903, p.

P-

35)It is possible that the

use of

silk as

money

has

left its

imprint

on metal.

The much-disputed Chinese terms pu and pi, given to tool-coins

*
other than knives, have both been translated by Chalfant as silk
And the puzzling complexities of corrugated cash ',
(1913, p. 4).
'

'

The Chinese

catty weighs 16 taels or a third over the pound.

Ridgewith the coconut used for the measure of rice in Cambodia
and elsewhere (Ridgeway, 1892, pp. 159 j(f., 174-5).

way connects

it

PRIMITIVE

222

'

MONEY

'

or
called
lotus-root
key-coins ', &c. (see Fig. 96), have
been interpreted as attempts to represent rolls of silk. 1
Tea, like salt, was an imperial monopoly, and it still forms the
currency between China and Tibet. Sulayman, the Arab merchant
of the Qth century, wrote concerning it

also

Among the things that China produces in abundance the King reserves
the monopoly of salt and of a herb dried that the Chinese drink in hot water.
The dried herb is sold in all the towns for enormous sums. It is called
sah.
It has more leaves than the trefoil, it is a little more scented than that,
but has a bitter taste. Water is boiled and poured over this herb, the
infusion makes an antidote against all indisposition (Ferrand, 1922, p. 58).
Rockhill, who explored Eastern Tibet in 1889, was impressed
the
by
magnitude of the tea-trade at Ta chien lu (Tibetan Darchendo)
at the junction of two streams on their way down to the Yang tse
He describes (1891, pp. 278-80) the 400 porters coming and
kiang.
going daily, laden with bricks of tea, 10 to 13 million being sent out
annually into Tibet by this route alone. He quotes Father
Desgodins' description of the 5 standards of bricks, some of which

are used for currency,

collections is rare.

some

not,

though discrimination in museum

The standards differ according to the fermentation, colour,

weight and proportion of wood to leaf price depends on the distance
and accessibility of the market.
The highest standard brick contains no wood, and only the best
fermented leaves it is dark brown, weighs about 5^ pounds, and has
values from 1-4 rupees at Ta chien lu, 2 rupees at Batang, up to
3 or 4 at Lhasa.
But it is the third standard which is generally used in trade and
;

money of traders (PI. 27, Fig. 2). This is

of leaves and a few tops of small branches well fermented,
and is of a dark yellow colour. Each brick weighs 2^ pounds, and
is sold for 10 annas at Ta chien lu, i rupee at Batang, and 2 or more
at Lhasa.
Wages of workmen and servants are paid with these,
constitutes the current

made

and they are used for ordinary trading. Men bargain by stipulating
so many bricks or packets (of 4 bricks), saying This sword has
cost 3 bricks
this horse is worth 20 packets ', and so on.
When
bricks or packets of tea are mentioned as money it is always this
third standard which is understood, and these bricks are counted,
'

not weighed.

The fifth standard is also used as

currency. This is made almost

of
a few leaves, sometimes with
mixed
with
exclusively
prunings
1

The Hobson-Jobson name

but

is

'

'

'

'

sycee

used for Chinese silver-money

is

and may have reference to earlier silk-currency,

more probably derived from the silk-like lines on the metal (cf. p. 246).

translated

fine silk

(hrissft)

ASIA

223

no leaves at all. For that reason it is called shing ja (wood tea) by

the Tibetans. Each brick weighs nearly 5 pounds and is sold at
12 annas 6 pies at Ta chien lu or i rupee at Batang. This tea,
after being pounded in a mortar, is drunk, and it is also used as
current money.
Being composed largely of wood, it is of inferior
and
weighs twice as much as the third standard. When used
quality
in exchange these bricks are weighed, not counted.
Baber and Gill had met these inferior-quality tea bricks some
Baber saw the coolies bringing in the
years before at Ta chien lu.
branches
of uncared-for trees, and thought
long scrubby straggly
they were fuel. The manufacture is simple. The branches, twigs,
leaves or sweepings are dried in the sun, broken up by beating with
sticks on hot plates, sifted, steamed over boiling water, and put into
moulds and pressed. To give a richer colour a little soot may be
added to the poorer quality. After a day or so the cakes (poo) or
bricks (cKuaii) are taken out and packed for transport.
This was
the method of manufacture in the Russian factory at Hankow for
the Mongolian market, and that of the Chinese at Ya-Chou for Tibet
was much the same (Gill, 1880, I, pp. 176-8).
Brick tea in spite of its weight and inconvenience is still the
brick of tea is not
ordinary currency of traders and travellers.
merely worth a rupee but in a certain sense it is a rupee, being accepted like a silver coin as legal tender.
When Peter Fleming and Mile Maillart were leaving Chinese
rather incredulously turned their horses'
territory in 1935, and
heads in the direction of India, transport of money presented a
Coins are heavy and
difficult problem for the unknown journey.
dangerous possessions in a lawless land, so they bought a 12-ounce
bar of gold for 1,000 dollars, easily concealed and negotiable anywhere
where a file and scales were available, and in addition bricks of tea,
which together with coloured cloth were used for wages, for buying
camels, provisions, &c., and were always legal tender in remote
communities with no use for dollars (Fleming, 1936, pp. 109, 156,

'

'

223).

This preference for a full-bodied rather than a token currency

fostered by the experiences of the peoples of the hills in dealing
with the wily Chinese traders, to whom all intricacies of adulteration
is

of silver and manipulation of scales are familiar.

They will therefore
in
brick
and
can
be
bribed
with
tea,
turquoise beads
accept payments
or coral, 1 of which they are passionately fond, but the only coin thatis

welcomed

is

the Indian rupee.

weary process of cutting up and

of
and
interminable disputing over the
out
silver,
lumps
weighing
scales and the quality of the metal, Gill also welcomed the sight of
After

all

his troubles with the

Turquoise and coral beads are

still

used for purchases in Tibet.

PRIMITIVE

224

MONEY

'

rupees, and it was somewhat flattering to our national vanity to

see the portrait of our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria on the money
we used ' (1880, II, p. 77). It would not have seemed so flattering
to the vanity of Queen Victoria had she known that she was called
'
vagabond lama ', her crown being mistaken by the Tibetans for

the headgear of a religious mendicant (ibid., p. 86).

Chinese traditions and early records mention tortoiseshell in
their lists of objects used as money of high value, being obtained, so
a writer of the 2nd century B.C. tells us, only from the coasts of what

now called Cochin China and Annam. 1 Lacouperie recognizes

an echo of this early use in the expression kuei-huo (' tortoise-coin ')
which is an elegant term for a coin (1892, p. 193).
are

Of imported currencies the cowry stands alone (Fig. 91).

Schneider suggests that China and Japan were possibly the first
countries in which cowries were used as tokens of value and media

FIG. 91.

Chinese cowries

of exchange, Japan obtaining the shells from the islands between

her and Formosa (though it is doubtful if they ever formed a real
currency in Japan), while China was supplied from the East Indies
(1905, p. 103).
There are abundant references to the money value of cowries
In the / Ching, one of the earliest books
in early Chinese writings.

of the Chinese, 100,000 dead shell-fish are given as the equivalent

'
of riches '. The famous dictionary of the Emperor K'ang Hsi
(1662-1723) based on the Shuo Wen of Hsu Shin, who died about
A.D. 120, says pei denotes sea creatures which live in shells.
The
1

If this was really tortoiseshell and obtained from Annam, its use as
currency both in China and in Micronesia (cf. p. 141) forms another early
cultural link between the two areas.
But Jackson suggests that the great
'
shells
usually interpreted as tortoiseshell were the large cowry Cypraea
testudinaria, so named by Linnaeus on account of its tortoise-like appearance,
and that the 4 degrees of shells mentioned as currency of different values
were all cowries of different sizes (1917, pp. 178 ff.).
'

ASIA

225

North Chinese name for cowry is pei, Canton puei, Korean p'ae,
which the Japanese would pronounce hai, but this name has been
supplanted by takaragai. This pet character enters into the composition of over 100 signs in the Emperor's national dictionary,
indicating the important role of cowries in the earliest days when
they denoted trade and barter. Later, this same sign is equivalent
to money.
has much has riches ; who has little is poor ; it

Who

enters into the composition of words such as buying and selling,

tribute, miserly, dear, cheap, hoarding, spending and many others.
The sign for precious or valuable, pao, consists of a roof, beneath
which are the signs for jade (nephrite), pots and strings of cowries,
the three most highly valued possessions, which constitute wealth

Schneider, 1905, Textfigur, p. 106).

literary evidence is often suspect, but in the case of the
finds support its claim to antiquity.
Cowries
archaeological
cowry
are found, sometimes already fossilized, in Stone Age deposits far
inland as at Ling Chi, Hsien, the earlier capital of Ch'i (Shantung)
(cf.

Mere

Imitation cowry in mother of pearl

FIG. 92.

and in the province of Chin (Honan) while a hoard of 200 were

found in the old centre of Chinese civilization Cheng (Andersson,
These were obviously highly valued
1934, p. 323, Fig. 140).
treasures if not actual money, and there were imitations in stone,
bone, mother of pearl (cf. Fig. 92) and horn, later in copper and
bronze (Schlosser, 1935, PL 12, Figs. 38-40, p. 43).
;

'

the metal imitations the pei huo or cowry exchange

coins traditionally ascribed to the 6th or yth century B.C., 1 are of
These are small, oval or pear-shaped, flat on
particular interest.
one surface and curved on the other, usually pierced at one end
(either top or bottom indifferently) with markings which can scarcely
be meaningless, and which look like inscriptions.
I and II
Schlosser illustrates 8 types reproduced in Fig. 93.
are the commonest, the former usually called kuei t'ou Mien or
'
ghost's head money and the latter ipi ch'ien, ants' noses' money '.
The former name has reference to the appearance of the markings
which have some human or superhuman resemblance. These

Among
'

'

markings have been interpreted as an inscription reading pan Hang

coins 612-589 B.C.,
British Museum dates the
ghost's head
records that they were issued by order of the Prime Minister of the King

and
of

The

Tsu

(cf.

'

Lacouperie, 1892, p. 196).

'

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

226

(or half tael), which would form a link with the later coins ; but
'
*
'
*
others read oath or exorcism and connect them with the custom
of placing such coins in graves, especially in the nostrils of the corpse,
This custom
to prevent the entrance of spirits in the form of ants.
'

money ';
explains the nickname of the second type, ants' noses'
'
'
the inscription on which has been read as each 6 Shu * (Lockhart,
1915, Fig. 102, and p. 4 ; Schlosser, 1935, PL 12, Fig. 4 and fn.
P- 43)-

The
as

fourth type

on the pu

is

coins, chin

showing the same inscription

of value or metal tool (Lacouperie,

interesting as

= unit

1888, pp. 4*8-39)-

111

VI
FIG. 93.

VII

Outlines of

(From

'

Vl/l

metallic cowries

'

Schlosser's Chinas Milnzen)

These metallic cowries, as numismatists call them, are of particuand controversial significance in a study of primitive money.
Were they borrowed from bean-shaped coins of Aegina and Lydia
lar

'

'

already in existence' (Lacouperie,'

1892,

p.

xi)

Or does

Do

their

convergence
they represent a step in
the evolutionary sequence from shells to metal coins ? Are they
coins at all ?
If traders from the Indian Ocean established a colony in the
Gulf of Kiao-chou (South Shantung) in 675-670 B.C. the introduction
of Greek coins as models is easily explained (Lane-Poole, 1894,
If, on the other hand, there was no contact with the
pp. 204-5).
Western World before the Christian era, borrowing would seem
similarity illustrate

Shu

= grain

was

of an ounce or liang.

ASIA

227

improbable (Andersson, 1934, p. 187). And if round coins in China

were already in existence in the i2th century B.C. (Lockhart, 1915,
pp. vi, 4) was there need for Greek models in the 6th or 7th ?
Illustrations may favour a theory of convergence, but actual comparison between the solid Aeginetan or Lydian dumps or blobs and
the fragile little bronze slips, two of which weigh less than a farthing,
support to the argument. It is tempting to regard
an obvious transition from shell-currency to metal coinage,
a transition which can be traced in other parts of Asia, but the
evidence is slight, their dates, inscriptions and purpose being unTheir inclusion in most of the collections of
certain and disputed.
Chinese coins cannot prove their right to be there, and it may be that
they are merely charms after all.
Whether metallic cowries formed the stepping-stones or no, in
due course cowries, here as elsewhere, were superseded by metal
gives

little

them

as

coins.

In other parts of the world where shell-currencies were in use

their decadence seems to have been due to inflation and overproduction.

In China

it

was from an opposite cause, the

failure of

supplies.

At the time of the Han dynasty (200

B.C.)

the cowry-currency was

fading away. It had received a great blow
a long while previously from Hwei Wan, the Prince of Ts'in, 1 who in his
second year, i.e. 335 B.C., recognizing the difficulties of finding a proper
supply of shells and cowries and the rapidly increasing demand for a convenient currency, altogether suppressed it. The inland position of Ts'in,
far away from the sources of supply, combined with the fact that metallic
coins of various shapes and sizes had begun to be recognized as a more
practicable medium of exchange in the other states of the Chinese agglomeration, were the two main reasons which led this ancestor of the founder of the
Chinese Empire to abolish the cumbrous system of shell-currency and to
adopt the more perfect system of metallic coins already put into practice
by private persons in several of the neighbouring states. He issued then
the round copper coin, with a central square hole, and the legend pan
Hang ( = half-ounce) indicating its value, which was afterwards imitated by
the rulers of the Han dynasty, and is, in fact, the direct and uninterrupted
ancestor of the Chinese coins of the present day (Lacouperie, 1892,
.

pp. 195-6).

Cowries survived however to be officially abolished again a

later, and to be revived by Wang Mang the Usurper two
As late as the i4th century taxes were still
centuries after that.
in
in
cowries
China, although coins had been in existence
being paid
in a good year the Imperial Treasury would
for about two millennia
receive over a million (Morse, 1913, p. 135).
And until recently,
in China as in India, cowries could still be used for small change in
century

out-of-the-way parts.
1

Hui

Wan

of Ch'in.

PRIMITIVE

228

MONEY

With the advent of a recognized metallic currency the study of

For
primitive money normally comes to an end, but not in China.
the Chinese, although they
earliest

round

coins,

still

for

may be credited with producing the

many centuries preserved a series of

primitive forms.
In discussing these a writer

who is neither a sinologue nor a

numismatist must needs walk warily, relying to an unusual extent
on authorities acknowledged in parentheses or preface. 1
The difficulties of the currency problems are largely due to the
incoherence of China, permitting innumerable series to flourish side
by side, to the scarcity of archaeological evidence and the unThe
reliability of historical records, and to linguistic difficulties.
recognized authority on Chinese coinage, the Ku Ch'uan Hut
(= Collection of old coins) published in 1864 with the supplement
(Hsii Ch'uan Hui) in 1875, is of little use to those unable to read the
text.

Chinese money

differs

from that of any other part of the world

and in form and imprint (Schlosser,

in date, in material, in production

'935*. PP-. II-H)First, in date.

Chinese coins claim to be the earliest of all,

with round coins dating from the earlier half of the Chou dynasty
(1122-249 B.C.) and other forms such as spade, hoe, knife, &c.
(Geratemunzeri) earlier still. This is a moderate estimate. There
are distinguished authorities in Europe as well as in China, who,
relying chiefly on literary evidence, would shift the date some
thousand years farther back. The testimony of the Shu Ching, the
earliest historical work in China (much of which is undoubtedly later
interpolation), assigns the origin of currency to the very beginning
of the Shang dynasty in the i8th century B.C. This tells how
Ch'eng T'ang, the founder of the line (1766 B.C.), issued the first
coins at a time when there was a grievous famine in the land,
partly for the relief of the people, partly as a means whereby
parents who had been forced to pawn their children might redeem

them.

The Shih Chi or Historical Records of Ssu-ma Ch'ien, written

between 163-85 B.C., states that media of exchange were in existence
in the Hsia dynasty which preceded the Shang dynasty, and even in
The

The
pitfalls are many, and authorities themselves flounder.
of Archaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge contains a fairly
representative collection of the main types of early Chinese currency,
arranged and labelled under expert supervision. Yet a visitor with any
special knowledge of the subject rarely fails to point out some error in
chronology or transliteration, to cast doubts on the genuineness of individual
specimens or to suggest some alteration in their arrangement. The
Honorary Keeper of the Collection makes notes of all criticisms, which
usually cancel each other out in course of time.
1

Museum

ASIA

229

the time of the Emperors Shun and Yii x in the 3rd millennium.
circumstantial list is given, including three kinds of metal, yellow,
white and red (presumably gold, silver and copper), Men pu, tao
(tool-coins), tortoiseshell, kuei (jade batons or tablets) and cowries.
Metal by weight was regulated for the payment of redeemable
crimes even before the time of Yii (Lacouperie, 1892, pp. viii-ix),
and there is no inherent improbability in the establishment of a

There is
tool-currency during this period (Lockhart, 1915, p. v).
general agreement, however, that little confidence can be placed in
Chinese dates before the 8th century B.C., so unless this early money
is inscribed, and unless the inscriptions can be correctly interpreted,
and unless there is confirmatory archaeological evidence, any attempt
'
at closer dating than the earlier half of the Chou dynasty must be
'

merely tentative.

Secondly, the material.

noteworthy that Chinese coins are, and have always been,

almost exclusively of bronze, that is of a metal containing copper,
mixed with tin, lead, more recently iron, and still more recently
It is

zinc, in varying proportions.

Gold and silver, the usual metals for coins elsewhere, were not
current in China.
Possibly the preference for bronze may be explained by the early
date of the currency here, which developed during the Chinese
Bronze Age, when the metal was most highly valued by a people
only just emerging from the Stone Age. It persisted, possibly
owing to another characteristic, not peculiar to China forgery.
Forgers were at work in the earliest days, as historians frequently
lament, and their trade would have been fostered, and its consequences aggravated, by the issue of coins of higher intrinsic value.
At the same time, as Vissering points out (1877, p. n), had the
metal been of higher intrinsic value, the costs of production could
have been raised, and the processes of manufacture improved, thus
lessening the risk of imitation.
The Emperor
Ti, one of the most famous of the Han line
(140-86 B.C.), did indeed issue silver and tin pieces. These were of
three values : round, stamped with a dragon, 8 Kang, worth 3,000

Wu

Yii, founder of the Hsia dynasty (2205 B.C.), is reputed to have cast pi
(valuables, metal implements or commodities easy to barter) for the relief
of his people in distress (Lacouperie, 1892, p. ix).
*
Lacouperie places uninscribed currency such as spade or ching between
the 20th and the 7th century B.C. He gives approximate dates for inscribed
coins, placing knife-money first, 670-221 B.C. ; spade-money 660-350 ;

and hoe- or />w-money 665-221

with the first inscribed round coins
660 B.C. (1892, pp. xlix, 1-3). Lockhart attributed the 'first inscribed
round coins to the time of Ch'eng Wang, 1 1 1 5-1 079 B.C. ( 1 9 1 5 p. vi). These
are the Pao Huo coins which he illustrates, Fig. 94, p. 32.
;

'

>

PRIMITIVE

230

MONEY

and
Square, with a horse, 6 Hang, worth 500
4 Hang, worth 300 pieces. But they were
counterfeited on such a scale, not only by the forgers but by state
1
officials, that they did not even circulate for a year.
The practical advantage of a copper coinage before the days of
banks and safes, was observed by Sulayman, the Arab merchant, in
the Qth century.
pieces of

money.

oblong with a

tortoise,

If a thief enters the house of an Arab who traffics with gold and silver
he can carry off on his back, 10,000 pieces of gold, or an equal amount of
But if a thief steals into a Chinaman's house
silver, and the trader is ruined.
he cannot carry off more than 10,000 pieces of copper, which represents no
more than 10 mithkal (about 20 francs). The Chinese therefore avoid
merchants who use gold or silver (Ferrand, 1922, p. 81).

Thirdly Chinese coins are distinguished by being cast and not

struck. 2

From

down almost to the present century the

In the West the earliest coins, whether of

the earliest times

same process was used.

Greece or of Asia Minor, were struck or stamped and though the

Roman aes grave was cast, these pieces were only rude forerunners
of stamped coins.
The metal casting of the Chinese had reached a
high perfection of technique as early as the Shang dynasty, and some
archaeologists recognize and admire their skill in the preceding
millennium. This early date, if accepted, would make the production of bronze coins at the beginning of the Shang dynasty less
;

improbable (Schlosser, 1935,

The most
From the

p.

13).

striking contrast is in the form.

ubiquity of round coins

it

might be assumed that a

well-established currency among a civilized metal-using people would

Yet in China a currency
naturally take this convenient shape.
tools
or
other
in
use for centuries ; and
was
representing
objects
'

'

3
or irregular and awkward shapes,
these, the so-called tool-coins
persisted side by side with round coins for several centuries.

Archaeological evidence shows how metal imitates and finally supersedes stone as the Bronze Age succeeds the Neolithic, and one has
but to watch the eager bartering of native goods for metal axes or
other tools in less-civilized lands today to see how readily the latter
can become a recognized currency. The bronze spade, hoe, knife
1
Lacouperie says that no specimens of this fanciful mintage appear
to be still in existence ; the representations of it which appear in some
native books of numismatics (cf. Vissering, 1877, pp. 40-1) were drawn
from the written description, and the false specimens which appear sometimes in collections were made from the drawings, for sale to collectors

(1892, pp. 211-12).

2
They have therefore
3

no

right, strictly speaking, to

be called

coins.

'

Tool-coins (Gerdtemilnzeri) are all classed by the Chinese as pu,

'
though the latter term is usually restricted by Western writers to the hoe
'

class (p. 236).

ASIA

231

or other implement which superseded the stone one was at first a

tool, later a token of value, growing smaller and thinner and lighter
in the process, but still more or less recognizable as a tool-coin '.
Spade-, hoe- or pu- and knife-coins are well known. To these may
*

be doubtfully added ch'ing-, bell- and key-coins. 1

The variety in form adds to the complexity of Chinese currency,
and the complexity is increased by the multiplicity of mints. Although the currency under consideration was confined to a relatively
small area in Northern China, yet the number of separate mints
must have been very large to provide such a variety of issues. Each
city or trading centre or even trading guild had its own mint, and
issued its own series of coins. This characteristic persists down to
our own times.
In England there is something infinitely respectable about the word mint.
otherwise in China. In the civil wars of that country the first sign that a
protagonist has arrived (though not necessarily come to stay) is his acquisition
or construction of a mint, and also, if possible, of an arsenal, but the mint is
much the more important of the two (Fleming, 1936, pp. 301-2). It is
not surprising, therefore, that the total number of Chinese issues is reckoned
It is

at

some

10,000.

Lastly, Chinese coins are peculiar in the absence of the imprint

of the head, symbol or even name of the sovereign. As the Emperor
was sacred, neither his image, his symbols nor his name might appear
on coins that passed from hand to hand, unworthy and unwashed
hands too. Such a desecration was unthinkable. This lack adds
enormously to the difficulty of dating, or even of sequence-dating

Chinese coins.
illustrating
brilliantly a

the

It also

study of

2
history of Greece,

its

it is

them from playing their part in

When we see how
history of China.
coinage can illuminate and elucidate the

precludes

political

tantalizing to find that the far

from Chinese mints throw so

more abundant

light on Chinese history.

The more questionable of the tool-coins will be dealt with first.
'
'
'
or
lotus-root
Ch'ing (or
bridge '), bell- and key- (* lily-root

issues

little

most commonly accepted by Chinese numisand ants' noses already

ghosts' heads
on the borderland between coins and charms.
If they may be included in the former they present an interesting
analogy with the iron currencies of West Africa, where almost any
metal object has its exchange value. The form is of less importance
than the metal composing it, although some conventional shapes
heart

')

coins are those

matists, and, like the

mentioned, they totter

'

'

'

'

persist longer than others.

It
1

must be acknowledged, however,

Still

more doubtfully

grater-, grid-

that there

and comb-coins

p. is).
2

is

Cf. Seltman's Greek Coins, 1933, in this series.

no proof that

(Schlfisser, 1935,

PRIMITIVE

232

MONEY

these objects are money. Very few of them can claim a high
antiquity and many appear to be copies, and copies of copies.
standard of weight of copper underlies all Chinese metal currencies

and it is the lack of this which shows that the bells, at any rate, did
not have their origin from a central authority. Their essential
prettiness also militates against them in contrast with the severe
but uniform lines of the spade, hoe and knife issues. Still, as
'

'

'

found in most, and bell and key in several wellcollections of Chinese currency (even if their
admission is partly due to their prettiness '), they deserve some

Ming

are

authenticated

'

consideration here.

The Ming money

variety of shapes
X

935> PP- 24-5,

(Fig. 94) has a variety of names as well as a

Schlosser's illustrations, 1928, pp. 99-106 ;
'
'
It is called
bridge ', yoke ',
5, Figs. 3-5).

(cf.

PL

FIG. 94.
*

moon

'

CWing or

bridge-money

(5 size)

*.

'

money and has also been claimed as

an attenuated agricultural implement, representing the curved metal
blade, ssu, of the earliest type of plough (Hopkins, 1935, p. 713).
and

tingle-dangle

The

similarity to the willow-plate pattern bridge suggested the

of these alternative names, but the asymmetry, a fairly constant
factor, supports the claim to descent from a type of gong or soundingfirst

The Chinese name is Ming shih pi, which though elaborated

stone.
by Lacouperie into coin in the form of a hanging piece fastened
above which is rhythmically beaten by a stick in the right hand
'

'

'

may be

'

'

exactly transliterated sounding-stone or gong \

is some evidence for believing that the earliest Ming were
in stone or jade, for these have been found among Shang objects

There

at

Honan (Pope-Hennessy,

1923, p. 89).

Jade was valued for its aesthetic, symbolic and magical virtues
and placed far above precious metals or gems, and enters into all
estimates of wealth. Local supplies were scarce and soon exhausted,
so it was imported, or extorted, mainly from Turkestan and Burma,
gy originally

word, as

is

something

the Malay gong.

like king

or

kting, is

probably an imitative

ASIA

233

and according to the ancient books, fifteen walled cities would be

ransomed with a single piece of jade the subtle essence of the
rainbow incorporate in stone '. From the Son of Heaven down to
the hereditary princes and high officers, all carried or wore jade in
the form of kuei, chang, huan, pi and the like, not primarily for
ornament but as badges of rank, or signs of imperial favour. The
kuei are usually interpreted batons or tablets ', chang were halfWe
tablets, huan, rings and pi, disks pierced with a central hole.
meet the latter again later on.
'

'

'

On account of its sonorousness when struck, jade

or gongs were

Ming

among

are mentioned

sounding-stones

These under the name of

special treasures.
as forming part of the tribute provided by

certain provinces in early records.

Confucius speaks of the virtues
*
which are symbolized in a ade Ming : When suspended, it hangs
gracefully, like politeness.

When

struck

it

gives out a pure far'

reaching sound, vibrating long, but stopping abruptly, like music

(Bishop, 1906, p. 46).
Large sounding-stones were mounted singly like gongs, and
struck
others were mounted in series giving different notes.
The little bronze Ming are very varied in size, but usually range
between 2 or 3 to 6 inches (6-15 cm.) across. Their shape is still
more varied the commonest is that of a carpenter's square with
obtuse-angled arms, one arm being longer than the other, but they
also develop fishy or dragon-like outlines (colour plate facing p. 184).
They are very thin and light, and the backs are usually flat and plain
(like most of the Chinese currency up to the beginning of the Han
The metal is bronze with a high content of tin producing
dynasty).
a slightly iridescent effect, similar to that of other early bronzes.
All the earlier ones have a loop for suspension
later ones a hole.
Schlosser (1928, p. 102) illustrates the successive types, with the
decorative and dragon-like elaborations.
He says that the place and
period of their origin is unknown, though the negative clue of the
absence of any inscription suggests that they are of early date.
Chinese numismatists are, as a rule, silent on the subject * (cf.
Lacouperie, 1892, p. 3). Ch'ing, sounding-stone, is a homonym of
Mingy good fortune, and to strike the musical stone is equal to
May blessings attend you '. This makes these objects especially
appropriate for presents and they still form part of the bride's dowry
;

'

'

'

in Pekin (Laufer, 1912, p. 329

;
Pope-Hennessy, 1923, p. 88).
in
found
Fish-money
company with the Mings in collections of
primitive currency or of coins. These may also be derived from earlier
jade, as jade fishes were burial and temple offerings as well as girdle ornaments in early times (Nott, 1936, pp. 101-2). On account of their symbolizing good fortune, wealth and abundance pairs of fish were always popular
as amulets, and especially appropriate as bridal gifts.
Tortoise and more
coins
also occur in this series (cf. Mosher, 1936, PL VI).
shapeless

'

is

'

'

'

'

PRIMITIVE
The
1

little

bell cash

MONEY

bronze bells are known in Chinese as chung

Mien

or

'

(Fig. 95).
They are very varied (Schlosser records
about 50 different types), 1 some shaped like temple bells, some like
wind bells, some like cattle bells ; some are merely fantastic and

most have no tongues. The only clues to their place of origin

one
suggest an old culture centre in the bend of the Hoang Ho
inscribed bell belongs to the Han period (two centuries before and
;

after Christ)

but the majority are obviously

much

older.

There is no doubt that the special value attached to both gongs

and bells in China, as in Africa, and as also in Further India, Borneo,

FIG. 95.

Chung

ch'ten,

or

'

bell cash

'

FIG. 96.

'

Key

coin

'

the Philippines and beyond, is as much concerned with their magical

monetary content. This makes them especially suitable

as with their

for gifts

and

particularly for marriage gifts.

'
key-coins or corrugated cash (Fig. 96) are still more
problematic and the Chinese name ou hsin ch'ien, translated lotusroot-heart-coin ', is not helpful.
Lacouperie says it was

The

'

'

'

probably

applied to them when their original significance was. already forgotten (1892, p. xxxi). They have been thought to represent rolls
of silk, and so to be metallic successors of the silk
currency (cf.
pp. 221-2). But Schlosser, who figures 9 of these from the Dorsten
Collection in Westphalia, is clear that they were keys for
padlocks,
1

p.

Schlosser illustrates 13 of these Klanggerdt-MUnzen in Sinica, 1928,

and 3 more in Chinas Miinzen, 1935, PI- 5. Figs. 6-8.
;

106

ASIA

235

Gerdtemunzen (1935, p. 27, PI. 6,

are
Figs. 9-17).
They
quadrilateral in form with a hole or loop
for suspension and complicated interior intricacies, not unsuitable to
Few have any inscriptions, but some,
fit as a key into a lock.
probably not the earlier ones, belong, like the bells, to the Han
to be classed with the

rest of the

dynasty.

Spades, pu- or hoestill uncertain ground.

'

and knife-money lead on

They

FIG. 97.

are accepted as

to firmer

money

though

they were

Spade-money, China

tokens representing definite values, used as media of exchange ; but

The most archaictheir dating and places of issue are obscure.
looking, usually placed earliest in the series, are the k'ung shu Man pi,
or spade-coins with hollow head '. They may be classified in
three groups, those with level shoulders 1 those, probably later, with
the lower
upward-, and those with downward-sloping shoulders
edge is curved with more or less projecting points (Fig. 97). They
usually have three lines, either parallel or slightly radiating from the
*

Lacouperie, 1892, p. 4, regards these as survivals of the shouldered

17

celts.

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

236

handle
occasionally there are inscriptions referring to the place
'
of origin. The words sh'ao pi, meaning little (or reduced) spadecoin ', make their purpose clear, but their date is a matter of dispute
General opinion
save that they are placed in the Chou dynasty.
British Museum) places the uninscribed hollow-headed type
(cf.
between the nth and 8th centuries B.C. and the first inscribed
examples in the 7th century (cf. Lacouperie, 1892, pp. I, 4-16
;

Schlosser, 1935, pp. 29-30).

Chinese spade-money shows some resemblance to early Chinese

But the various names given to the next class of coins,

spades.

usually called pu, indicate the different suggestions for their origin.
'
*
have been called hoe- ', axe- ', adze- ', plane- ', wedge- ',
They
c
'
'
'
*
shirtand trouser- money ; also weight-money ',
cloth- ',
'

'

'

'

'

'

leaf-money

and

'

'

saddle-money

(Lacouperie, 1892, p. 18 and

The outline suggests some implement such as

1894, pp. 203, 206).
*
a hoe, but the term/w may be translated cloth or silk (Chalfant,
1
Pu
1913, p. 4), turning the same outline into shirt or trousers.
to
also
mean
which
the
may
spread
supports
agricultural-implement ancestry. From the evidence of the Honan finds and of the
'

'

'

'

',

ancient bronzes Hopkins traces the origin of the plough, lei, to

bifurcated branches of a tree cut into the fashion of a tuning-fork,
which developed into the double-bladed implement from which the
pu are derived (1935, p. 713). Shen Nung, of the mythical period,

who preceded

the Yellow Emperor Huang Ti, is credited with the

invention of agricultural implements and the tilling of the soil. He
is represented in a bas-relief of the Han Period using this
queer
two-pronged instrument which can be recognized as an ancestral
type of pu (Schlosser, 1935, PL 9, pp. 31-6).
Thepw- or hoe- coins may be classified according to the rounded
or angular shape of the shoulders ', feet and head and of the
space between the feet '. The hole, if present, is assumed to be
for suspension, and thus to indicate the upper end of the coin, but
it
probably represents the hole for the nail originally fastening the
implement to its handle. Only an inscription, and often there is
none, can show which is the right way up, and many of the />w-coins
stand on their heads '.
The extraordinary diversity of these coins the Ku Ch'uan Hui
illustrates over 600 and Lacouperie over 700 variations
suggests
that they spread over many centuries but there is rarely an inscription, and when there is, it is usually the name of a place, such as
c

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

Ping Yang, An Yang, &c., no longer in existence, and rarely

recognizable, so any dating must be largely guesswork.

An

I,

1
There is another theory, that the pu-co'ms represent the seal form of
the character ch'uan, one of the oldest terms for money. Ch'uan-shaped
coins are abundant, but mostly forgeries (Lockhart, 1915, p. vi, Figs. 23-5).

ASIA

237

The An I specimen illustrated (Fig. g8A) is an angular-headed,

round-shouldered, square-footed coin weighing i ounce. These
An I was a state at the
usually show the value as |, i or 2 chin.
bend of the Hoang Ho, and a chief centre of Chinese culture in the
Hsia dynasty (2205-1766 B.C.) but that any />w-coins can date back
to such an early time is improbable, and their connexion with the
issue of the Emperor Yii himself is purely fabulous.
They may
belong to the beginning of the Chou dynasty, more than 1,000 years
later, or, more probably, to the Feudal period between the 8th and
5th centuries B.C. (Lacouperie, 1892, p. 1, and pp. 18-21).
The other pit-coin illustrated (Fig. gSfi) is inscribed Ping Yang.
One place of this name was the capital of the State of Han in the
Province of Shansi, but there was also another in Shantung, and

FIG. 98.

Pu

or

'

hoe-money

*,

China

The great variety of Ping Yang coins

others.
issued
from
that
different centres (Lockhart, 1915,
they
suggests
these
All
coins
to
came
an end about 221 B.C. by the edict
pp. 2, 30).
of Shih Hiang Ti, the first of the Ch'in emperors, who abolished all
there

may have been

the forms of money then in existence and established a new and

uniform coinage in place of the varied tool and round coins.

Two

centuries later there

1

was a

revival of the

pu-coms by the

He

issued 10 coins in values from 100 to

1,000, all square-footed, with square level shoulders.
They are
inscribed according to their official value as Wee, Small, Young,

usurper Wang Mang.

Next, Almost, Middle, Mature, Approximate, Second-best and

A later issue was inscribed huo pu
exchange pu \
Largest.
These must have been issued in large, and forged in still larger,

For

Wang Mang's

history see below, p. 245.

PRIMITIVE

238

numbers

as they are

still

MONEY

abundant, and are collected by travellers

as curios if not as coins (Chalfant, 1913, pp. 6, 21, Figs. 55-7;

Schlosser, 1935, pp. 61-^70, PL 14, Figs. 77-83).
Knife-money used to be a favourite illustration of the evolution

of money. First a real knife, the base of the handle pierced with
a hole for suspension, used in barter
then, shrinking in size, with
its edges blunted, useless as a knife but more convenient for currency ;
lastly, the handle absorbing the blade as a tadpole its tail, we have
;

'

But no such degeneration can be

with the pit-coins about
was
abolished,
Knife-money
221 B.C., but the various types current down to that time were all
recognizably knives, with blade, handle and ring with round hole.

the

cash

remaining as money.

traced.

The

Yale-key-like type (Fig. 101), with blade in process of absorpand ring with square hole (in imitation of cash) is the revived
issue of Wang Mang the Usurper in the early years of the present
tion,
era.

The

origin of the currency knives is traditionally attributed to

Ssu Shang Fu, or Grand Elder Shang, in the I2th century B.C.,
though no knives now in existence claim such an early date.
According to the Shih Chi, the Historical Records of Ssu-ma Ch'ien
(163-85 B.C.), Ssu Shang Fu received his name on account of the
help he gave to King Wu of Chou in overcoming the Shang dynasty
in 1 1 22 B.C.
As a reward he was given the fief of Yanchow in Ch'i
(present Shangtung Province). He is stated to have made money
in the shape of a knife known as Ch'i tao chien, inscribed with 6
characters, CVi chien pang chiu ch'u huo = money made at the
beginning of the state of Ch'i.
The state of Ch'i is just where a recognized metal currency might
be expected to develop. It was a grain, though not a rice-growing
area, and had important trade in salt, a source of enormous wealth.
It grew from small beginnings to absorb most of Shantung, and
part of Chili province, with the enclosed Gulf of Pe chih li and the
harbour of Kiauchou, which possibly attracted traders from overseas.
It was always a go-ahead state, one of the most powerful
during the Feudal period, and one of the last to submit to the Ch'in
domination.
several varieties of knife-money, 1 the two commonest
the
being
large curved scooped-ended Ch'i tao, and the lighter
with
Ming tao,
straight-angled tip to the blade.
The Ch'i knives are solid and heavy, weighing about 2 ounces
with a ridge all round the edge. The handle has 2 or 3 incised
lines ; the blade has characters, often indecipherable, on the face
and signs taken to indicate value on the back. The earliest ones

There are

(PP.

C/.

SchlSsser,

37-40-

1935,

where 7 types are outlined and described

ASIA

239
(the most familiar type) to

6, later reduced to 4, and

Many are altogether blank. The earliest are attri3 characters.
buted to the Qth century B.C. and the three-character ones to between

have

later still

500 and 220

B.C.

(Lacouperie, 1892, p. 213).

ii

o
FIG.
'

Ch'i tao,

FIG. 99.

The one

knife-money

China

Ming
',

too,

China.

(* size)

99) is a three-character Ch'i knife

Ch'i current coin \ 1
tao (Fig. 100) are still more variable and abundant.

illustrated (Fig.

read as Ch'i ctiu huo or

The Ming
1

',

i oo.

knife-money

'

There are other interpretations: cf. Lacouperie, 1892, pp. 234 ff. ;
Chalfant, 1913, p. 15 ; Lockhart, 1915, Figs. 34-41 ; Schlosser, 1935,
p. 41; PI. 10, Fig. 32.

PRIMITIVE

240

MONEY

and lighter, weighing only ounce. The outline

curved, or shows an angle at the junction of the blade and
handle.
They have raised rims all round, and straight lines up the
handle. They have characters on the face of doubtful interpretation, and are distinguished by the sign of the city of Ming, the
The
capital of the state of Chao (Shansi or Chili) on the back.
doubtful characters fall into four groups, which have been interpreted to mean Right (=West), Left (= East), Public (?) and
are smaller

They

is slightly

Outside*

The varieties

of spade-, pu- and knife-currencies doubtless reflect

the partition of Chinese territory under rival

princes (770-470 B.C.), and types multiplied

during the Period of the Contending States
(400-250 B.C.). With the supremacy of the
state of Ch'in
(249 B.C.) all local issues were
officially abolished, though knife-money probably persisted in out-of-the-way parts on the
borders of the Empire.

Though we have no intermediary proof of its

continued existence for lack of information, we
cannot help connecting with it ... the practice
still surviving in the present century among the
Khamti and Sing-po tribes on the south-west borders of China, of using small square iron dhas or
knives as currency. The very name of these dhas
is obviously connected with the Chinese tao or knifemoney, and speaks for
pp. 205-6).

The

itself

(Lacouperie, 1894,

revival of knife-money by
the Usurper (A.D. 9-23) affords
FIG. loz.
Wang Mang an interesting proof of the popularity of these
tao,
knife-money ',
China
queer coins in China. But his issue is very
different from those of Ch'i and Ming.
The Wang Mang tao is of the Yale-key type, the original ring of
the handle replaced by a cash-like coin.
In the example illustrated
the
two
characters
on
the
handle
are read Ctti tao or
(Fig. 101)
graving knife and those on the blade wu pat, or 500. The highest
value inscribed equals 5,000 has the characters inlaid with gold. 3
Chinese cash are so modern in appearance that they seem out of
artificial

Wang Mang

'

'

'

'

Chalfant, 1913, pp. 15-16.

'

He

illustrates the series (Figs. 22-5),

'

and

adds there are hundreds of varieties '. Cf. Lacouperie, 1892, pp. 265-98 ;
Lockhart, 1915, p. 3 ; Schl6sser, 1935, p. 39, PI. II, Figs. 33-4.
8
The Naga daos and chabili, and the dakhs of Northern Siam, show a
further extension of knife-money (cf. pp. 204, 213).
*Cf. Lacouperie, 1892, pp. 311-18; Chalfant, 1913, p. 21, Fig. 51 ;
Lockhart, 1915, pp. 146-53. No. 152
Schlosser, 1935, P- S$> No. 75.
;

ASIA

241

place among the archaic-looking spades and hoes and other queer
coins.
But round-shaped coins were in existence quite as early as
For Chinese
the others and some are probably considerably older.
cash constitute the longest unbroken numismatic series in the world,
and can claim an ancestry traced back to the Stone Age. Round
metal disks with round holes are attributed to the earlier half of the
Chou dynasty (i 122-249 B.C.) x and the first typical cash
without,
round as the heavens within, square as the earth
appear in the
middle of the Chou dynasty (yth or 6th century B.C.). But as the
square-holed cash may be traced back to the round-holed, so these
may be traced back to bronze rings, and these to rings of baked clay,
jade and stone.
'

'

Stone rings are not

uncommon

in the Stone

Age

excavations at

Honan, and a beautiful jade ring from the Kansu district, farther
At
west, of the yuan type, was associated with prehistoric deposits.
Sha Kuo T'un in Manchuria were found thin stone rings and
numerous rings of mussel shell. These are of very graceful form and
of unusual delicacy, and though, without further evidence, they
cannot be claimed as currency, they are far too fragile for use as
ornaments. Andersson interprets them as symbols to be used in
cult ceremonies and as substitutes for the expensive stone rings
found in the same area, and indeed in the same cave. If this suggestion be accepted there would be much the same relation between
"
"
of silver
the stone- and mussel-shell rings as between the
sycee
is nowadays used at Chinese funerals
paper and the paper cash which
"
"
and the copper coins which
instead of the genuine silver
sycee
*

'

they imitate (Andersson, 1934, p. 199).

Jade rings, huan, or disks, pi, were symbols of rank or office,
and therefore highly treasured, and they often occur in lists of
presents or tribute in early Chinese annals (Lacouperie, 1894, pp.
Ti of the
32 ff.). In the 3rd century B.C. it is recorded that
Ch'in dynasty received 1,000 strings of jade-money carved into
rings, each ring weighing 10 Hang (ounces) engraved with 4 characters,

Wu

Celestial, Longevity, Everlasting, Prosperity (Bishop, 1906, p. 50).

Rings of bronze succeed to rings of stone, and appear to have

been in use very early. It was during the latter part of the Shang
dynasty (1766-1122 B.C.) that the Chancellor of Hsi Pai Hou, later
famous as Chou Wen Wang (father of the founder of the Chou
This
dynasty), is said to have issued the first bronze ring-money.
consisted in small flat bronze rings, about i inch (25-30 mm.) in
diameter, with a round hole in the middle and no inscription.
Ring-money was officially recognized, for it is recorded in the
Shu Ching that about 947 B.C., during the reign of King Mu of the
L
class

Though many deny

'them

all

that any round-holed specimens are coins, and

as charms, badges, &c.

PRIMITIVE

242

MONEY

Chou

dynasty, enactments were made for the optional redemption

fines of penalties such as branding, mutilation or
death.
The culprit was allowed to exonerate himself by paying 100,
Similar
200, 500 or i, ocx> huan or pieces of ring-money in copper.

by mulcts and

ring-money was in use about the 5th century B.C. (Lacouperie, 1892,
Schlosser, 1935,
p. 48, and 1894, p. 35, n. 172, and 1894, p. 199
;

PP- 46-7)-.

To

us in the West, rings and coins may appear quite distinct.

so to the Chinese. The ring form was classified according to
'
'
Yuan,
proportion of plane surface or flesh to hole (Fig. 102).

Not
its

with flesh narrower than the diameter of the hole

huan, with flesh
and hole equal in width ; and/>i, with more flesh than hole. Hence
the transition is a natural one from rings to round coins with a hole
;

in the centre

which are

classified as/)/.

'

They were called

t'ien ch'ien,

heavenly coins ', because they were believed to have fallen from
heaven or because they enshrined the heavenly symbol of the jade
Later on they were inscribed with value, weight or the name
pi.
or

o
pi

huan
FIG.

yuan
02

of the place of issue, but there is no indication of date.

Schlosser
illustrates 7 out of the 20 pieces in the Dorsten Collection and places
them in the earlier half of the Chou dynasty (1935, pp. 48-9, PI. 12,

Nos. 44-50). One of the commonest types though genuine coins

It has the inscription Yuan,
are rare is illustrated in Fig. 103.
the name of an old city on the borders between Chou and Chao in
the state of Wei, probably Shansi. 1

The same uncertainty of date obscures the origin of the typical

Chinese cash with the square hole in the centre. 2 History records
that Ching Wang of the Chou dynasty continued to issue round
'

'

Lockhart (1915) dates this type (No. 97) between 480 and 255 B.C.
The Chinese call these coins li and ch'ien. The non-Chinese name,
cash, is modern, having been introduced by the Portuguese, probably from
India (Tamil, kasu, Skt. karsha (cf. p. 191 n.)), and applied by Europeans to
many small coins or weights of money in the East. One thousand cash
went to the tael (a Malay form, Hindu tola derived from Skt. tula, a balance,
(cf. Chalmers, 1893, P- 373)) which was the Chinese Hang, rather more than
In theory 1,000 bronze cash equalled 10 silver or
i ounce avoirdupois.
i gold coin, but theory and practice seldom agreed.
Moreover, there were
rarely any silver coins and still more rarely gold.
*

ASIA

243

coins with square holes, and his reign is placed between 544 and
519 B.C. As these were not apparently the first cash to be issued, the
earliest are attributed to about 600 B.C. which gives modern Chinese
cash an unbroken ancestry of more than two and a half millennia. 1

These

'

'

poo huo, exchange coin or

valuable exchange (Fig. 104), and are the first to show the sign
pao which includes the sign pel (cowry) and so links modern cash
earliest coins

are inscribed

'

with that early world-wide currency. The earliest coins of this

period are smooth, but later issues show the walls outlining the
border of the coin and the edges of the hole, introduced to prevent
'

'

clipping.

The Chou dynasty came to an end with the Period of the Contending States, when the Empire was the battlefield of warring
The currency was in inexprinces, all struggling for supremacy.

FIG. 103.

T'ien ch'ien

FIG. 104.

Pao huo

The thin light coins issued at this time were

pressible confusion.
'
'
'
'
doves'
called
eyes ', hens' eyes and unsinkable lads
derisively
'

from the

belief that they

would not

sink,

even in water.

'

One

thousand of these pieces piled together had only a height of 3 inches,

10 myriads of them was no more than a handful, and a ton (about
10 pints) of rice cost a myriad of such pieces (Lacouperie, 1892,
'

p. 418).

new era starts with the triumph of Ch'eng Wang of Ch'in,

the Napoleon of China who took the name of Shih Huang Ti,
the first sublime Emperor in 221 B.C. Much of the uncertainty of
'

'

earlier Chinese history is due to him, as, in his desire for progress,
he determined to break all links with the past. He destroyed the
he abolished the earlier forms
old books, instituting a new script
;

Lockhart (1915, p. vi, No. 94) following the Ku Ch'iian Hui attributes the earliest pao huo coins to the beginning of the Chou dynasty
(in 5^1079 B.C.), giving them a still longer life.
1

PRIMITIVE

244

MONEY

of currency (cowries and (?) tortoiseshell, silk and grain, spade-,

knife-, as well as round-coins are mentioned) and issued

pu- and

new

His dynasty, founded for 10,000 years, lasted 15,

but his famous Pan-Liang coins (Fig. IOSA) survived for nearly a
In time, however, they became so debased, adulterated,
century.
shrunken in size, weight and value that they were in their turn
abolished, and superseded by the Wu Shu coins (Fig. 1058) first
Ti (140-87 B.C.).
issued by
The Pan Liang coins were supposed to weigh
ounce, or 4
Shu, i Shu being equal to 30 grains of corn. New coins of 5 Shu
were issued by the State and became even more popular than the
Pan Liang, and continued in innumerable forms, with only one
important break, for more than 700 years.
The vicissitudes of Chinese cash lead beyond the bounds of
primitive currency, but one point may be noted. As the coins were
a

coinage.

Wu

cast, forgery

was only too

easy,

and references

to this practice are

FIG. 105

punishments such as branding, imprisonment,

even death, one of the Emperor's ministers
complained (c. 40 B.C.) that 100,000 forgers were discovered in one
year.
(Large bribes were offered for their detection.) Coining
appears to have been a home industry practised throughout the
country, and it was no more possible then than it is now, to distinguish
the true from the false. One result was the constant effort made by
In spite of
confiscation, exile or

frequent.

the successive emperors to restore the currency by new issues,

leading to a bewildering variety of coins unmatched anywhere else
in the world. Another result was the despairing return to more
primitive forms, and even to barter in kind, providing a curious

kind which resulted from the

monetary chaos of recent years in Europe and America. This
reaction may explain the popularity of such awkward coins as the
knife- and hoe- money which persisted or were revived long after
round copper coins were in general use. Recourse was even had to
shell-money once more.
parallel to the return to barter in

'

'

His experiment in

white stag notes

'

is

described below (p. 248).

ASIA
was of no

245

who

issued such quantities

of debased coin that the genuine money nearly disappeared in some parts
of the Empire, where pieces of cloth had to be used again as a medium of
All

avail against the counterfeiters,

exchange (Lacouperie, 1892,

p. 211).

Yuan Ti (48-32 B.C.) it was proposed

Crown to abolish metallic currency alto-

In the reign of the Emperor

by the

councillors of the

gether and to substitute grain, silk, cloth and shells, but there were
difficulties in carrying out the suggestion.
Wang Mang the Usurper was more drastic.
a brief but sensational reign, ostensibly from
during which time the currency, with its well-established
copper coins of modern appearance, was utterly upset, and the whole
financial system thrown into confusion.
The iconoclast Shih Huang Ti in the 3rd century B.C. had attempted
to strengthen his position by breaking all links with the previous
dynasty of Chou. Wang Mang hoped to gain favour by a return
to the customs of the past.
He abolished all the existing types of

Wang Mang had

A.D. 9 to 23,

coins including the popular wu shu, and, besides re-establishing a

currency in cowries and other shells he reintroduced, as we have
seen, knife- and /w-money which had been out of use for over
200 years. Wang Mang was murdered in A.D. 23 and the currency
was in such disorder and the people were so distrustful of it, that
rice, cloth and silk were all used instead, every trader making
what he could.

Four hundred years of monetary troubles and disorders had not convinced the rulers of the necessity of a sound currency. After the fall of the
Han dynasty (A.D. 220) the King of Wei in the North thought that the best
means of avoiding all these difficulties was to suppress the metallic currency
altogether.
Accordingly he abolished the wu shu pieces and ordered the
people to use as currency only grain and silk. It Was only opening another
door to the counterfeiters, who, instead of casting bad metal, put moist grain
into bags, and wove thin and fleecy silk so that after 40 years it was necessary
to return to the metal currency and pieces of the time-honoured wu shu
pattern were cast again and put into circulation (Lacouperie, 1892, p. 216).

The popularity and unparalleled longevity of Chinese cash are

not hard to explain as they obviously satisfy to an unusual degree
the needs of ancient and modern, of civilized and uncivilized alike,
[n the first place the coins probably retained some religious signifi:ance, thus combining magical with pecuniary profit ; they were

ornamental, and could be strung and worn like beads ; they were
sasy to handle, to count and to carry ; they were sufficiently solid
to represent wealth, yet too solid to make theft easy.
With the early
invention of paper money and the use of silver for larger financial
transactions, copper cash was sufficient for all needs and triumphed
And even
over all rivals, spreading with trade round the world.

PRIMITIVE

246

though golden Persian darics and

MONEY
silver

Athenian owls

may

look

down on them

in the coin cabinet, these copper cash can

claim an historic lineage unique in the realm of numismatics.
Only gold and copper or bronze are mentioned in accounts of

scornfully

Gold was current by weight, cut into pieces

early Chinese money.
as wanted, from the time of Ch'eng, King of Chou, more than 1,000

down to the present day, but it was not cast into coins. Silver
was much later. This was also issued in lumps and bars, which
could be cut up as needed, and a piece, roughly scored for partition,
which was found on the body of a dead Boxer during the uprising
of 1900 is illustrated in Fig. 106. For trading, the well-known yuan
B.C.

'

poo,

'

shoe-money

'

or

'

sycee taels

Chinese as wan ytn, meaning

1 06.

FIG.

Silver bar,

(Fig.
fine silver ',

China

107) described

by the

have been in circulation

FIG. 107.

'

Sycee tael shoeChina

',

money

some

for

gave

it

hsi-ssu or

The lump was impressed with

centuries.

likeness to a shoe,

its
'

fine silk

is

',

and the term

thus explained

a stamp, which

sycee, in Cantonese

When

the Shansi bankers melt silver into ingots, after it has been liquiand poured into the mould and before it has again solidified, the mould
lightly tapped, when there appear on the surface of the silver fine silk-

fied
is

like circular lines.

'

The

higher the

'

touch

'

'

of the metal, the more like fine

Hence ingots of full

circlings on the surface of the silver.

quality are classified as sycee (Lockhart, 1915, XI).
silk are these

These ingots are of varying weights, the one from Honan (ill.,
'
reckoned at
Fig. 108) weighs over 4 pounds, but the sycee tael
i ounce (though actually rather
the
popular unit. It
more) was
'

played a vital role in Chinese economic life for many centuries and
was only in 1933 that it was officially abolished.
The saddle-money illustrated in Fig. 109 is a common form of
silver ingot, which finds its way over the Chinese borders into Burma
and Siam. The Chinese inscriptions in the panels (the three are
identical) read as Hong Kiing Tang Kee (the name of the banking
house) and Kong Ngee Bun Ngon or genuine first-quality silver '.
Each of the two columns guarding the central panel also has the
it

'

'

'

FIG.

1 08.

'

Sycee

FIG. 109.

tael

shoe-money

'

Saddle-money

',

',

China

China

PRIMITIVE

248

MONEY
'

same lettering, which runs Kong Ngee Kong Koh Tong Pao, Genuine
and negotiable for free circulation '.*
China was the first country to issue bank-notes, and the founder
of the Ch'in dynasty, Shih Huang Ti (249-202 B.C.) was the first to
experiment with this form of currency. Continual wars had
ravaged the land for many centuries, and the currency was totally
illicit minting and adulteration of coinage caused
discredited
;

violent fluctuations of prices, adding to the miseries of the poor,

embarrassing the Government and enriching speculators at no profit

to the State.
There are many accounts of the Emperor's attempts
to grapple with the crisis, one of which was as follows
:

In the Imperial Park at Ch'ang An, the Emperor had a white stag, a
very rare beast, which had no fellow in the Empire. On the advice of a
Minister the Emperor had this animal killed and made a kind of treasury
note out of its skin, which he believed could not be copied. These pieces
of skin were a foot square and were made with a fringed border and decorated
with a pattern. Each piece was assigned the arbitrary value of 400,000
copper coins. The princes when they came to pay their respects to the
throne, were compelled to buy one of these pieces of skin for cash, and
present their gifts to the Emperor upon it. This precaution insured the
'
circulation of the White Stag Notes '.
The limited amount of skin prevented this from being more than a temporary expedient (Fitzgerald,
1935, P- i64)-

Authentic bank-notes in paper are mentioned in the time of the

Emperor Hsien Tsung

(c.

'

whose issue had the name of

The best account of the Mongol
Marco Polo concerning the paper-

A.D. 800)

fei hsien (ch'ien) or flying money

issue is the familiar one given by

'.

money of Kublai Khan.

The Emperor's mint there

is in this same city of Cambulac [Peiping].

after this fashion.
He makes them take of the
bark of a certain tree, in fact of the mulberry tree the leaves of which are
the food of the silkworms 3 these trees being so numerous that whole
districts are full of them.
What they take is a certain fine white bast or
skin which lies between the wood of the tree and the thick outer bark, and
this they make into something resembling sheets of paper, but black.
these sheets have been prepared they are cut up into pieces of different
sizes.
The smallest of these is worth a half tornesel \ the next, a little larger,
one tornesel ; one, a little larger still, is worth half a silver groat of Venice ;

For he makes

his

money

When

Cf. le May, 1932, pp. 8-9, PL II, Fig. 7.

Ling Roth (1901,* Fig. 4,
pp. 16-17) illustrates a similar coin which he calls shoe-money of the
1

'

Jung Feng Steng Bank.

a
These notes can scarcely be included in ordinary currency, but they
are quoted as anticipating the leathern money issued in Italy in the I3th and
in England in the i6th century.
Cf. Yule's note to Marco Polo, 1903, I,
p. 429.
8

This was a misunderstanding, it is not the silkworm mulberry, Morus

but the paper mulberry ', Broussonetia papyri/era, the same tree that
provided the tapa of Fiji and Samoa.
'

alba,

ASIA

249

another a whole groat ; others yet 2 groats, 5 groats and 10 groats. There
is also a kind worth one Bezant of gold and others of 2 Bezants, and so up
All these pieces of paper are issued with as much solemnity and
to 10.
and on every piece a variety
authority as if they were of pure gold or silver
of officials, whose duty it is, have to write their names and to put their seals.
And when all is prepared duly the chief officer deputed by the Kaan smears
the seal entrusted to him with vermilion, and impresses it on the paper, so
that the form of the seal remains printed upon it in red, the Money is then
;

authentic.

With these pieces of paper, made as I have described, he causes all

and he makes them to pass
payments on his own account to be made
current universally over all his kingdom and provinces and territories and
whithersoever his power and sovereignty extends (1903, Book II, Chap. 24).
;

v.

JAPAN

Japan is the last of 'all the civilized or semi-civilized countries

of the world in which to expect to find primitive forms of money,
and the space allotted to it in a geographical arrangement is filled,
with beads, kudatama (PI. 22, Figs. 1-4)
with
kin-kwan
and
hypothetical 'ring-money',
gin-kwan (Figs. 9-11);
with enigmatic magatama (Figs. 5-8) * with cho gin or long silver
good service badges (Figs. 14-15) with mame gin or bean-money
for gifts (Figs. 12-13) and with obans and kobans (Figs. 16-17).
Even the cowry seems to fail us here, for the only evidence for its
former use is derived from its Japanese name. This is takaragai,
takara meaning wealth or riches, and gai or kai, shells (Schneider,

if filled at all,

'

'

'

'

1905, p. 108).

In Japan, even more than in China, agriculture was the foundaeconomic life, and the agricultural class alone was honoured
Rice was the principal food of the people,
as the creator of wealth.

tion of

the most important medium of exchange, and served as the standard

of value. The position of a lord was estimated by rice-production,
according to the koku or measures of rice which his land provided.
1

As magatama

though without
here

are often included in collections of Japanese currency,

historical support,

Munro's note on them may be quoted

There has been much discussion as to the nature and significance of

It has been suggested that they are embryonic forms,
but it is more likely that they were shaped after the claw of some animal,
possibly a tiger. This is supported by the existence of claw-shaped stones,
*

these magatama.

one in my collection being almost

an exact model. The tiger's claw is the strongest of amulets even to this
day in Corea. Lastly, the word magatama, which is supposed to come from
maga, curved, and tama, a gem, may with equal propriety, as it seems to
me, derive its latter portion from the archaic form of tsume, namely tume,
closely resembling the talon of the tiger,

a talon or nail.
after its

coming

dolmen period

The character in which it was written was given to it long

into favour and about two centuries before the end of the

'

(1904, p. 5).

PRIMITIVE

350

MONEY

External trade was unnecessary, as the islands were self-supporting

it was
undeveloped, because there were no materials to foster it ;
and it was not done '. Merchants were discouraged, and money
was considered degrading. In the Tokugawa period (1600-1853)
it was
contrary to etiquette for the samurai to think or talk about
samurai was proud to show
money, and a disgrace to handle it.
his friends that he did not even know how to count money.
To
offer it was an insult.
And it was the samurai, who permitted no
luxury in dress or food, who set the fashion for all Japan.
This ideal of the simple life was no new development. In the
7th century sumptuary laws were minutely detailed and strictly
enforced, and these were augmented and reinforced in the Tokugawa
From the size and shape of a man's house, the material,
period.
and
colour of his clothes, to his expenditure at his daughter's
quality
wedding, and the presents he might give his grandchildren, every
detail was rigidly determined.
The use of ivory and tortoiseshell
was forbidden to farmers whose incomes were below a certain amount,
their wives might not wear sandals nor bind their hair with silk.
;

With such

restrictions it is no wonder that present-giving was discouraged, that trade was reduced to a minimum, and that money
was seldom seen. There was not even a native word for competition,
the idea being foreign to classical ethical teaching (Chamberlain,
All wise rulers in all ages have valued cereals
1938, p. 250, fn.).
and despised money/ ran the proverb, with the explanation No
matter how much gold and silver one may possess, one cannot live
for a single day on these.
Rice is the one thing needful for life.'
Money is first mentioned in the time of the Emperor Kenso
towards the end of the 5th century, when Japanese history is still
'

'

and both silver and copper coins are mentioned in the time
Emperor Temmu, A.D. 674. In the following century copper
mines were worked, silver coins were prohibited and copper coins
His era was therefore named
issued, under the Emperor Gemmei.
Wado, meaning Japanese copper ', and the earliest Japanese copper
coins date from the beginning of the 8th century.
The copper was
used more for gigantic images of Buddha than for coining, and the
coins of the period were commonly melted down to make the smaller
images for each household. From the end of the loth to the end

vague

of the

'

of the 1 6th century, and the advent of Europeans, copper coining

was prohibited by imperial order. Gold dust, gold grains or gold
and silver ingots, cut to various weights, were used in official exchange, and all the copper coins of this period (958-1587) are

The coming of the Dutch in 1600 broke in upon Japanese

and during the i7th century powerful clans owning copper
mines made their own coins, and the discovery of gold and silver
gave an impetus to coin production. Under Tokugawa lyeyasu,
Chinese.

isolation,

ASIA

251

first of the line of regents, gold, silver and copper coins were issued,
but they were very rarely circulated. Rice was still used for barter
and there was as much excitement at the sight of a gold coin as of a
precious jewel. Traders were still regarded with disdain and stood

lowest in the social scale, only just above outcasts who slaughtered
animals and executed criminals. And although in the iyth century
copper and rice appear to have been used indiscriminately in small
transactions, taxation in money was discouraged, in the belief that
It was not before the
agriculture alone was of national importance.
end of the iyth or beginning of the i8th century that rice was giving
way before the advent of money, because economic life could no
longer do without it (Matsuyo Takizawa, 1927, p. 49).
However rich a man might be in rice, this would not suffice for
travelling expenses, for payments to artisans or to traders, and a
riches and gaining power
the
the samurai ought to
fact
that
Notwithstanding
be the rulers and the merchants the ruled, it appears that the chonin
have now become virtual rulers is the lament at the beginning of
the i gth century (Eijiro Honjo, 1938, pp. 11-13).
It seems probable that rice is responsible for the shapes of the
oban and koban, the best-known coins of Japan (illustrated PI. 22,
Figs. 1 6, 17).
(The oban (great division) equals 10 koban (little
koku or measure of rice was an oval-shaped bag
The
divisions).)
made of straw, and the oval gold coins with rounded corners are
believed to represent the bag of rice
on old coins many parallel
lines are found, indicating the lines on the plaited straw.
Hamilton has an observation on trading with these coins at the
beginning of the i8th century

merchant

class, chonin,

in the land.

grew up, amassing

'

'

The Japanese are strict Observers of moral Rules, and particularly in

Commerce, in so much that a Merchant of Reputation, in his Payment,
puts up 5, 10 or any decimal Number of Cupangs, which is a broad oblong
thin Piece of Gold (of 2os. value there) into a Silk Bag, and putting his Seal
on the Bag, passes current for what the Seal mentions for several Generations, without so much as once looking what is in the Bag, and Gold is so
plentiful and cheap that a Cupang of 205. in Japan, passes current at Batavia
for 32$. and when the mark is stamped on it by the Company it passes for
,

405. Sterling (1727, II, p. 305).

vi.

MALAY PENINSULA

Travelling down into the Malay Peninsula and East Indian

Archipelago we enter one of the earliest and most famous trading
areas of the world, for the spice trade was in full swing some centuries
B.C. and it has shaped the history of the islands down to recent
times.'

18

PRIMITIVE

252

MONEY

Barter with beads was doubtless as profitable here, as on the

coasts of Africa, possibly with the same type of beads, and these
relics of early trade are found in the hoarded or buried treasures of

who know nothing of their history.

Cowries were still in use among the meaner sort of people
in the middle of the I7th century (Tavernier, 1678, I, II, p. 6)
x
3 cash to the sou or
50 cowries went to the kepeng, pitis or cash
cent
and 100 sous or cents, or 15,000 cowries to the dollar.
Skeat collected some on the East Coast, where 100 were.said to make
one pitis or cash. But the value varied a good deal with the locality
(Temple, 1914, p. 153). They are nowadays valued as a medicine,
being grated and drunk, recalling the use of aggry beads or holed
stones on the West Coast of Africa.
The Malays, who spread into this region about 1,000 years ago,
were maritime invaders, pirates rather than traders, but there must
always have been a certain amount of trade with the primitive people
of the interior. Down to last century this was carried on with the
non-Malay folk by the system of silent trade ', described by Skeat
natives

'

'

'

and Blagden (1906,

p. 227).

The

Malays, wishing to exchange goods with the Scmang, would take

certain commodities, consisting chiefly of coarse cloths, tobacco and knives,
and place them in any open space in the neighbourhood of the known Semang
camping ground, and then retire to a convenient distance. The Scmang
would next approach, and having selected such articles as they fancied, bear
them off, leaving in their place whatever they might deem a fair equivalent ;
this latter consisted chiefly of elephants' teeth, eagle-wood, resin, canes and
so forth.

In a tin-producing area such as the Peninsula, it is natural that

a metal currency in tin should evolve as need arose, and here the
transition follows the usual line of evolution from lumps or ingots,
these taking characteristic and easily recognizable shapes, ultimately
settling into coins, which in some instances recall the history of their
predecessors.
Chinese chroniclers of the i5th century report that

found in two places in the mountains of Malacca, and the king has
appointed officers to control the mines. People are sent to wash it, and after
it has been melted it is cast into small blocks weighing i kati 8 tahils or
i kati 4 tahils official weight ; 10 pieces are bound together with rattan and
form a small bundle, whilst 40 pieces make a large bundle. In all their
trading transactions they use the pieces of tin instead of money (Winstedt,
tin is

1925, II, p. 43).

1
Kepeng, pitis or pichis are names for small tin coins minted in imitation
of Chinese cash. They were estimated at g of a keneri ( = candareen,
Abrus precatorius or ' saga pea ') A of a mas in weight, or that weight of
gold, but they varied not only locally but also periodically, with the price
of tin.

ASIA

253

The characteristic forms in which tin ingots were made were

'
'
'
'
the tampang in sugar-loaf,
pagoda or hat shapes ; and the
1
gambars or models of animals, birds or insects.
Temple described
this obsolete tin currency in 1914, basing his descriptions largely on
the specimens given by Skeat to the Cambridge Museum, and the
information which he supplied by

letter.

The

pieces are well and

fully illustrated in Temple's articles, but, as these are not easily found,
some of the different forms are reproduced here (PL 23).

Dakers (1938, p. 31) traces the historical sequence of the tampang

of Pahang.
The ' sugar-loaf ' or truncated pyramid comes first ;
'
next the pyramid or pagoda with the plinth ; then the pyramid
'

becomes smaller and hollow, with

have recognized an

its

plinth wider, with

'

room

for

'

this is the typical

tin hat (though some
These usually have
inverted rice husker here).

inscriptions underneath

a hole for stringing, and they fit one inside the other in nests (Fig.

10).

Temple wrote (1913, pp. 119-20):

The regulated solid tin ingots constituted a currency made out of the
customary forms of native tin castings, to meet the necessities of an external
trade carried on by means of barter and currency, and to conform in weight
and size to the weight-standards of that trade. Tin was adopted for the
purposes of curiency as being the staple metal product of the peninsula,
and the system of tin currency devised by the Malays has not materially
varied in historical times.

Tin mining is a simple, almost domestic industry, undertaken by

men, their wives and children when not needed in the rice fields.
The metal is run into sand moulds (sometimes soft stone or brass)
hence the variety of shapes, among which the sugar-loaf is the easiest
to withdraw from the mould (Winstedt, 1925, I, p. 29).
Solid tin lumps (tampang jongkong) of varying sizes, some i foot
or more across, and looking as if turned out of a pudding basin,
were in use in Selangor until recently. These are the firstlings of
the smelting house, 2 to which a superstitious value was attached,

and these

The

first fruits

solid

were handed down as family heirlooms.

'

'

sugar-loaves

are varied.

Some

are quite plain

some have the tampok manggin or mangosteen rosette at the top of

the truncated pyramid (PI. 23)
and some have a shallow receding
step two-thirds up from the base.
They weigh round about 100
used
in
and
were
for
ounces,
Selangor
paying duty on tin and also
as
for
merchandise.
Their value was low,
passed
currency
general
only 25 cents, as the price of tin was only 15 dollars a picul. For
;

Tampang means block or cake

tampang jongkong is a large, and
tampang roman a small, casting. Many museums still consider the animal
shapes to be no more than toys.
*
Cf. the specimen in the Pitt Rivers Collection and also Temple, 1913,
;

PL

II.

MONEY

PRIMITIVE
'

'

trading purposes the hats adapted to different weights fitting one

These varied in shapes and in
inside the other were an advantage.
the
but
weights,
weights corresponded roughly to a monetary scale,
the price fluctuating with the price of the tin. They ceased to be
legal tender in 1893 when they were paid in to the Treasury of

Singapore (Dakers, 1938, p. 31).

FIG.

no.

Hat-money

',

Malay Peninsula

ingots also developed in different and more picturesque

Until recently the tin animals and birds of the Peninsula
were regarded as toys or ornaments. All memory of their use as

Tin

forms.

'

the traders of the bad old times

and was not suspected by collectors. The history of their discovery
deserves to be placed on record, and the following story is given
by Skeat

money had died out even among

had long been familiar with the singular

of Selangor a certain fixed

a

'

crocodile

'.

fact that in the coastal districts

(z\ to be exact) was called locally
I read in a Malay-Dutch dictionary under the

number of cents

And one day

ASIA
word buaya

255

Dutch boewaja)

that the State of Selangor had a tin coin

(in
shaped like a crocodile. This first put me on the track, but although I was
continually on the lookout for tin currency and succeeded in collecting
some specimens they were all of the usual square tampang shape, even when
solid.
When the late George Muir Laidlaw obtained a cadetship in the
Peninsula he came to me for preliminary training in Malay, and asked what
he could do in the way of investigation. I told him about the buaya cunency
and asked him to look out for it. This he did, taking endless pains and
making unceasing inquiries, and eventually he found the first specimen,

followed by others, in Perak (W.

W.

Skeat).

The

animals represented are crocodile, buaya, cock, ayam,

1
The
tortoise, kurakura and mantis, belalang.
of
the
names
and
frequency
buaya (crocodile), gajah (elephant)
ayam
elephant, gajah,

FIG.

in.

Malay cock

(cock) in Malay weights and coins led Temple (again basing his
conclusions on specimens and information given by Skeat) to sum
up as follows
:

'

'

The solid animal ingot tin currency (gambar) arose out of an attempt
to improve the regulation of the ingot currency by giving it readily recognizable forms, which could be made to conform to definite standards ;
while the forms themselves were copied from those in use with a very long
history behind them by the neighbouring countries carrying on the
external trade, which were mainly Burma * and China (directly or through
Siam) (Temple, 1913, p. 120).
1
The British Museum which has provided the illustrations of cock,
elephant and crocodile on PI. 23 has also models of peacock, locust and fish.
*
In Burma metal weights took the form of animals such as lion, deer,
For the connexion between weights and currency
elephant, bull, &c.

cf.

Temple, 1913,

p.

117 fn.

PRIMITIVE

256

MONEY

larger- and smaller-sized animals, some being merely

some are
with
rough lumps,
projections bent down into bandy legs
more
outlined.
But
their
little
than
modelled
some
are
carefully
weights correspond sufficiently exactly with those of the accepted
currency ingots for Temple to have concluded that they served the
same purpose. He believed that the Malays were
influenced in this by the Indian ingots of various
forms which include that of the tortoise. Solid
lumps of tin need very little skill or imagination to
turn them into tortoises, elephants or crocodiles.
This has, in fact, been done in many cases merely

There are

by a

little

clumsy

modelling and the addition of rather

stiff legs.

Skeat wrote (in 1904)

The toitoise exactly resembles an ordinary piece of

smelted tin with the addition of head and flappers. At
animal ' curfirst one would naturally expect that the
rency would represent only animals that had a distinct
But the
barterable value, e.g. fowl, goat, cattle, &c.
introduction of the crocodile of which as currency there
is (at least in Selangor and Perak) more ample evidence
than in the case of any of the otheis shows that this was
not the underlying motive or, at least, not the sole one.
Whatever the motive was, there is ample evidence to
prove the use of the animal as currency and this evidence
receives the most practical corroboration from the arrangements for stringing these coins together like cash. Sec
'
the hole at the top of the cock- coins and over the nose
'

'

'

'

of several of the crocodiles.

The names

of crocodile, buaya, elephant, gajah,

kurakura
and cock, ayam, are often found
tortoise,
in the chaotically complicated system of weights
and currency described by Temple, and the
cock-coins ', duit ayam (duit
cent), with the
'

FIG. 112.

figure of a cock, and the legend Tanah Malayu, or

1
These
Malay Land, are found all over Malaysia.
were made in Birmingham, and imported by private

Cur-

But there was an

earlier issue of
the British East
Specimens in the British Museum date

speculators.

rency kris, Java

'

cock-coins

India Co. in Sumatra.

'

or tokens,

made by

These duit ayam, though of small value (10 went to the pitis or cash),
were not perforated for stiinging. The pitis or cash, 1,000 to the dollar,
were the common currency. In Kelantan, Kedah and Tiengganu they
weie cast in sets of varying numbers in a mould in the shape of a tree, and
'
these pokok pitis or cash trees suggested to Skeat that the phrase shaking
'
the pagoda tree was no mere metaphor. Temple illustrates on PI. VII,
'
The date is
Fig. 2, the tree with 13 pitis in the Cambridge Collection.
*

'

A.M. 1314,

i.e.

A.D. 1896.

'

ASIA

257

from 1797 onwards (Temple, p. 38 fn.

Hanitsch, 1903, p. 199).
The Sumatra cocks preserve the memory of the cocks of Kedah,
but the neat little Birmingham coppers which succeeded them soon
;

'

'

swept the menagerie away completely

(Dakers, 1938, p. 32).
The kris (k&ris) sometimes figures in currency collections and
one from Java in the Pitt Rivers Collection is illustrated in Fig. 112.
The kris of Indonesia has much in common with the ceremonial
axe or couteau de parade of the Congo. The metal has a certain
sacredness in both areas.
In the Malay Peninsula iron is regarded
with special awe, a lump is part of the traditional regalia of more
than one sultan, and an oath taken on it is irrevocable. The kris
is (or was) 2 part of the ceremonial or court dress, and could not be
carried without the permission of the sultan, just as in Africa, the
decorative axe or knife was the prerogative of the chief, his dignitaries or favourites.
Their greatest bravery is in their crizes,' wrote
Sir Thomas Herbert in 1665, and adds ponderously, they ask their
idol on their crest pardon after they have perpetrated a homicide.'
A superstitious reverence for the keris still obtains, and folk are
readier to dispose of its gold sheath than of a rusted blade, which
may bring good luck to house and crops (Winstedt, 1925, II, p. 43).
In Borneo the kris forms part of the bride-price ', and in Java it
may impersonate the bridegroom himself (B.M. Handbook, 1910,
'

'

'

p.

100).
vii.

BORNEO

Islands are usually more conservative than the mainland, and

there were special conditions in Borneo which encouraged the
continuance of primitive forms of money. Until recently the

currency was in a chaotic state and every sort of coin appears to have
been accepted. Government accounts were kept in rupees, but

were paid in

fines

reals.

Trading was carried on in

dollars,

which

fluctuated between something under 5$. down to is. \d.

Copper
coins of smaller denominations were as varied as cash in China, but

With all this

usually accepted if approximately of normal size.
instability it is not surprising to find a preference for solid valuables
such as slaves, buffaloes, jars, together with metal objects estimated
by weight in the form of gongs, bells and cannon, persisting down to
the present day. Throughout the greater part of Borneo barter was
and still is the rule but a great many items may be classed as currency.
Hose gave the following list from the Baram district of Sarawak
alone

use

Kalabits who inhabit the eastern portion of the district

the Kenyahs of the
tobacco and buffaloes as currency

The

salt,

A trace of the crocodile may be found in Borneo (cf. p. 261 n.).

The kris is no longer in fashion, and the art of making them has died out.

PRIMITIVE

258

MONEY

southern portion use gongs ; the Kayans of the central area use
the Punans, a wandering tribe,
iron swords (maleai) l and beads
use libangs 1 of camphor the Miris, Dalli and Naroms, who inhabit
the Coast to the north and west of the district, use buffaloes.
Brunei Malays and Kadayans formerly used small pieces of iron
The
(blanjd) about i inch long and J inch wide, valued at i cent.
old
use
jars.
Dyaks
To this list may be added the cowries formerly used as small
;

change, the beeswax and edible bird's-nests among jungle products,

the brass cannon, inlaid caskets, buffalo bells and krisses, the plaited
rings of the Iban and Kayan and the shell-money and bead strings
of the Dusun. Some of these, especially the larger objects, represent
wealth rather than money ; many have long been out of use ; but
some are still the usual medium of commercial bargaining and
'
or
essential items in berian (' bride-price
bride-gift ') and in
*.

wergeld.

H. N. Evans described the berian of a Dusun maiden of

It consisted of two gongs, a kris, a necklace, one brass
cannon and one cow.
The berian or bride-gift in Melano society is by weight, consisting
I.

Tuaran.

of either 3, 5 or 7 piculs* according to the class of the bride.

picul was worth some 25 to 30 dollars and the amount would be made
up partly in brass gongs, bells or cannon and Chinese pottery, and
certain type
might include household goods and a piece of gold.
of basket called a Rejang basket from the river where the best are
made, with a specially fine weave and a special pattern salad timon,

24) was an essential part of the berian. These Rejang baskets

were always acceptable in place of money in everyday trading with
(PI.

a value formerly of 4, now 2, to the dollar (J. C. Swayne).

The unus, rings of very finely plaited palm fibres (Fig. 113),
could also be used instead of money, a ring being worth a cent.
These are commonly worn by the men in considerable numbers on
the arm below the elbow and on the leg below the knee. There may
be as many as 300 of them on one leg, a handy way of carrying small
change, and the Kayan say that they feel quite naked without them
(cf.

Ling Roth, 1896,

Rice, salt, tobacco,
1

bars

The

maleat

is

'

(pp. 288-9).

I,

pp.

5,

14,

15, 23).

beeswax and camphor suggest barter rather

*

interesting as affording compaiison with our currency

The Kayan were the chief workers in iron before it was

introduced by the Malay and Chinese traders, and the maleat was merely
an iron sword, forged and tempered but without handle or ornament. The
value was about a dollar or 25., but the best sort might go up to los. Libang
is not a definite weight but the amount collected from one tree, mixed with
chips of wood and put into a bamboo, exchange value about 3 dollars
(C. Hose).
8

A picul

is

a weight of about 133 pounds, representing a man's load.

ASIA

259

than money, but in Borneo they claim admission into the ranks of
currency. The salt is made up into hard tile-like cakes (keping) of

worth 5 cents or id. and the largest

plaited and measured in lengths,
from the buhak, the span from the thumb to the second finger, to
the siko, from the first finger round the elbow and back to the finger
Two siko are worth one large salt cake. There is a regular
again.
system of exchange between Brunei and the interior, a brass tobacco
box (Fig. 114) being given for.io span of tobacco.
different sizes, the smallest being

50 cents or

is.

The

tobacco

is

The inconvenience of barter is often illustrated by Rajah Brooke's

picture of the Dyak wandering for days in the bazaars of Borneo

FIG. 113.

Unus, Borneo

FIG. 114.

Tobacco box, Borneo

unable to find anyone who will take his beeswax for the particular
thing he wants in exchange (cf. p. 5), but beeswax is something
more than a mere object of barter.
Beeswax is the current cash in that country. It is melted but not refined
and cast into Moulds of an oblong Square, the Breadth about two Thirds
of the Length, and the Thickness Half of the Breadth and a Rattan Withy
A Piece weighs a Quarter of a Pecul which
to lift them by cast in the Wax.
comes to an English Weight, Thirty-four Pound, and a Pecul is valued in

Payment

at ten Masscies or Forty Shillings Sterling (Hamilton, 1727, II,

p. 149).

For smaller money they have Cowries.'

Hamilton adds
Cowries are abundant on some of the coasts of Borneo and though
they are no longer valued save for ornament they were formerly
exported to China in vast quantities. Among the highly prized
articles which China supplied in exchange are the large jars (tajow)
which most Dyaks possess and keep stored as their greatest treasures.
:

There are

several varieties of these jars,

some having fabulous

prices.

PRIMITIVE

26o

MONEY

The most highly valued are thejiiri, of a green colour, standing about
One of these, although it only looks like an ordinary
1 8 inches high.
worth up to 400, payable in kind, with the debt
be
water-jar, may
lasting for years

The

and

years.

rusa, decorated with what native artists recognize as deer,

from 15 to 16, but the naga, large handsome jars,

are valued at

These
feet high, with Chinese dragons, are less valued.
their
and
for
are
like
old
collected,
masters,
rarity
jars
antiquity
rather than for their beauty. The many-coloured jars which in our
eyes are really beautiful, have their exchange value, but are of small

some 2

worth.

met with

Jars are often

in folk tales, each with its

own

personality and sometimes with the

Dyak legend
gift of speech.
tells how at the death of a giant a tree springs from his head, its
flowers turn into beads, its leaves into cloth and the ripe fruit into
Beads, cloth and jars all represent acceptable forms of money
jars.
or storable wealth (Ling Roth, 1896, I,
In recent times jars
Cole, 1915).
p. 372
;

appear to be losing favour, probably due to

inflation
large numbers have been imported
;

and many are now made

in the island.

Even

the gust are said to have depreciated, save

those with genuine pedigrees, of which there
are probably not more than a score in Sara-

wak.

As small change the Iban use cups

^_^

and plates reckoned at about 10 cents apiece,

and these are in common use for payment of
D
a
u
11
Buffalo
FIG. 115.
bell,
:
r
ITT
i_
it
local fines.
Borneo
Wages for a man to howl all
night in a Kayan house (if the man had no
friends and had to hire a professional) would be about 2 plates.
i

/*

Brass gongs found, like the jars, in all proper houses, are a
recognized standard of value and may be included in currency.
There are several varieties, their value calculated by span, by weight,
by tone or by age and reputation. The cheapest, gong kretas, or
paper gongs ', are worth about 2 dollars. These are used in fines
and in marriage gifts. The gonggilan is a very old kind with beautiful notes and may be up to 150 dollars which is the highest price for
a good male slave.
female slave would be only worth a tawak.
The tawak gongs are measured by the span and valued by weight
at about 74 dollars a picul.
These are used in various ceremonies
and their use as currency links them with the gong currencies of
'

Assam and Burma (Hose and McDougall,

I,

p.

62

Ling Roth,

II, p. 284).

The
1

value attached to metal

Twenty thousand

renowned

dollars

jar (Cole, 1915, p.

is

due in great part to

its

production
were offered (and refused) for a particularly
n).

ASIA

261

of gongs, and this accounts for the curious acceptance of bells

(Fig. 115), and of models of Portuguese cannon (Fig. 116) as money.
The cannon are solid and heavy and are estimated, like the ordinary
gongs, by weight, at 25 to 30 dollars a picul. They are used in
'
bride-price and in the purchase of slaves, a slave being valued
in friculs of brass guns. 1
The buffalo bells, formerly currency in
Brunei, were valued at 30 cents a catty (= T J- picul).
The bead currencies of Borneo are of special interest, and
although found now in the possession of the later invaders of the
island, such as the Iban (Sea Dyak), this is probably the result of
looting as they are connected with the culture of the earlier peoples,
Formerly these old beads
especially with the Kayan or the Dusun.
were one of the principal forms of currency and they still constitute an
'

important part of the wealth of many families. Some of the Kayan

women are remarkably expert in recognizing genuine old specimens
;

each variety has its definite name and its definite value. Single
beads are valued in dollars, from i dollar for the pale yellow or blue
labang, 10 for a special lukut, up to 100 for a lukut sekala (Hose and

McDougall, 1912, I, p. 226, PL VIII, p. 34 Furness, 1902, p. 118).

The importance of beads in archaeological research is only
beginning to prove fruitful with modern methods of analysis
(Chap. IV, ii), but Borneo and the Federated Malay States have
already provided links with Pemba, Zanzibar, Rhodesia and South
India to the west and with Java, the Philippine Islands and Korea
to the east.
One of the Borneo beads, a white one with a purple
manganese stripe, resembles Eastern Mediterranean products of
the 4th or 3rd century B.C. (Beck, 1930, PL K, Fig. 15) and a
cylinder bead with blue and red zones is similar to La Tene beads
from Corsica (ibid.. Fig. 16).
Chevron beads are not uncommon in Sarawak hoards but the
one described by Beck and illustrated (ibid., Fig. 17) is of unusual
It is apparently an imitation of the old cane beads found
interest.
;

in

Europe (and

called

'

'

druid's beads

')

or in Africa (where they are

is kelam batang umar,

and their Bornean name

bead worth part of a house '.

aggries

meaning

called
')

The true chevron bead, says Beck (ibid., p. 179), is made from an elaborate
cane with a radiating pattern in it, so arranged that when the cane is chamIn
fered at the ends or is ground spherical, it forms a series of chevrons.
1
W. W. Skeat recognizes a trace of the Malayan crocodile currency in
the Borneo cannon. In many of them the slow match, cast as if lying
lengthwise on the top of the cannon, has a crocodilian form, while the
cannon mouth is sometimes enlarged into crocodile jaws. But the local
explanation is that these beasts are meant to represent the naga or dragon,
familiar in mythology and a popular subject in metal-work as well as in

wood

carving and tattooing.

ASIA

263

these Sarawak beads a veiy similar effect is got by taking a blue base with
a small white centre and then elaborately producing the red and white
chevrons by applying threads of red and white glass. In some cases this
is so skilfully done that a casual observer could easily mistake it for a cane
chevron bead. The place of origin of these and other elaborate types
remains a mystery.

Strings of shell-disks of the ordinary South Sea pattern are

found among the possessions of the Dusun, who say that they are
very old and they do not know when they were made no one knows
how to make them now. They have a currency value, 3 or 4 double
strings are measured from the fork of the thumb to the elbow and
;

equal a dollar. Many of these strings are stained with blue dye
some are curiously threaded with the shell-disks strung in zigzag
lines on three or more parallel strings, others have the edge-to-edge
stringing especially characteristic of the New Ireland pig-money
;

(PL

'

24).

Human heads have been called a form of currency in Borneo, or at

least an essential item in the
Among the Iban or
bride-price
*

'.

who had taken a head might have a better chance of

success in courtship than one who had not, as he has thereby proved
his valour
or the mother of a marriageable maiden, seeing a man
hanging around may say, When you have something inside and
Sea Dyak, a youth
;

'

outside your house [jars within and heads in the gallery outside]
you can ask for my child.' But the possession of a head is not an
essential qualification in marriage negotiations (Hose and McDougall,
1912, I, p. 76 /.).

viii.

The
cowry

THE PHILIPPINES

coasts of the Philippine Islands, as of Borneo, abound in

and they have been exported to neighbouring lands,

shells,

probably even to India and Africa.

Da Morga,

writing in the i6th century, said

In any of these islands on the coasts a quantity of small white snails are
'
'
found, which they call siguey ; the natives collect them and sell them by
measure to the Siamese, Cambodians, Pantan men and other nations of the
mainland where they serve as coin, and they trade with them as they do in
New Spain with cacaos (1868, p. 285).

In exchange for cowries here as in Borneo the most highly valued

which became recognized as evidence of wealth, and partook
of the nature of currency, were the porcelain jars and the metal

articles,

gongs.

Magellan and Pigafetta noticed the jars and gongs in

households, and there are

many

references to

them

all

the chief

in the accounts

PRIMITIVE

264

MONEY

of early trade with the islands, though the importation of earthenware and common glazed pottery appears to have ceased about
1600 (Cole, 1912, p. 6). By this time not only the coastal peoples
but the tribes of the interior had acquired a number of the old
and, when the supply ceased, they began to mount in value until
a man's wealth was, and still is, largely reckoned by the number of
old jars in his possession. As they were handed down from generation to generation they began to gather to themselves stories of

jars,

wondrous origin and deeds, until today certain jars have reputations
which extend far beyond the limit of the tribes by which they may
be owned. Cole saw a famous jar called Magsawi, a talking jar of
supernatural origin (which he illustrates in Pis. Ill and IV, 1912).
In the Philippines as in Borneo the jars turn into animals, and back
again, and are credited with magical virtues.
Great prices are offered and sometimes accepted for the more
renowned jars, and successful war parties are accustomed to return
home with numbers of such trophies. All the wild tribes of the
interior of the islands possess some and they enter intimately into
the life of the people. Among some tribes the price paid by
the bridegroom for his bride is wholly, among others, in part, in

Tinguian youth goes to the house of his chosen bride at

him a Chinese jar, which he presents to his
and
thereafter
he may never address his parents-infather-in-law,
law by name. These jars are sometimes used to contain the rice
wine served out at ceremonies and festivals. In districts where headhunting is still going on a Chinese jar is readily accepted as payment
in full for a head, and many feuds are settled on this basis.
Cole
(1915, p. 15) describes how he accompanied a war party to a hostile
village in 1907, and peace was arranged on the payment of one jar
for each head that the one village held in excess of the other.
Eleven
were
handed
over.
jars
Gongs are a common medium of exchange, but far less valuable.
Da Morga (p. 302) described the Chinese gongs in the i6th century
as like large pans, and very sonorous, they strike on them at their
feasts and carry them in their vessels to the wars instead of drums '.
An ordinary brass gong is about equal in value to a buffalo. Gold
neck ornaments, and strings of amber-coloured glass beads are also
used in exchange, and are also worth a buffalo. Jars are worth at
least 4 buffaloes and often 4 times 4 buffaloes.
jars.

night carrying with

'

the pagans of the interior, buffaloes, pigs, fowls and rice

money for exchange, as standard of value and
evidence of wealth, and rice may almost be called their currency.
Bride-price ', wergeld, fines and indemnities for injuries are all

Among

suffice in place of
*

priced in carabao, pigs and rice, together with tools, such as axes,
knives and spearheads.
man sells himself into slavery for a hog

ASIA
(worth 20 peso)

265

and 500 bundles of

rice (worth 16-8 peso) (Barton,

in the lowlands was worth
slave
able-bodied
1938, p. 56).
5 carabao, and a carabao may be anything between 50 and 100 peso.
(With the stamping out of rinderpest, buffaloes increased and the

An

price

dropped considerably.) Indemnity for adultery might consist

woven shroud, one pig, one kettle, one blanket and some

of one

chicken

for breach of promise (from the kin of the girl) a Chinese

(worth 3 peso), a woman's skirt (worth 2 peso), a chicken

kettle-skillet

less than a peso), axes and spearheads (worth \ or J peso).

For personal injuries to a woman the kin of the aggressor agreed not
long ago to pay a long list, including kettles, pigs, chicken, a gong,
a jar and a gold bead, but when a more valuable jar was also
demanded, they refused. Whereupon her kinsmen killed a carabao
belonging to the man's kin, injured its owner, and made sorcery
until he died, and so squared the matter (ibid., p. 181).
Murder,
however, admits of no indemnity, save a life for a life, expressed
in heads, or, under Government supervision, jars.

(worth

'

'

Barton (1922) describes how rice is the currency of the Ifugao,

of the mountainous interior of Luzon, among whom everything can
be calculated in terms of bundles of rice. Rice keeps indefinitely
in the granary, without damage or deterioration, and though cumber-

some, yet for the small purchases of the Ifugao, this is no objection.
For large transactions, such as the buying of land, pigs and buffaloes
are the media of exchange, but these all have their values in rice,
'

'

from a very small suckling, the size of a bamboo at 2-| peso to a

very large one at 30
15 peso is the worth of a medium size pig or
A rice
pikat, and the carabao is about 5 or 6 pikat, i.e. 75 to go peso.
field would be described as 5 pikat and i kinlum (suckling) or three
carabaos and 4 pikat which equals 300 peso.
Rice has this serious disadvantage, from which pigs and buffaloes
;

'

'

are free, that it fluctuates in value,

half that during the growing season.

its

price at harvest being only

this disadvantage is more

apparent than real, as the price does not rise gradually, but jumps
suddenly with the season, and there is no fluctuation from one year
The harvest price is always the same, and does not
to another.
from
vary
year to year or with supply and demand.

But

The Ifugao's monetary system was based on rice. Rice was his one
universal medium of exchange. It suited the puipos>es of his crude civilization most admirably and he could even today get along with it almost as
well as with money so far as his domestic trade is concerned (Barton, 1922,
P- 430).

Peso, originally a weight, penswn, equals a dollar.

PRIMITIVE

266
ix.

MONEY

DUTCH EAST

INDIES

Human skulls have been described as

New Guinea, Borneo and the Philippines

'

'

'

'

currency or money
because they are highly

in
'
bridevalued, are hoarded as treasures, are used in negotiations for
'
and are accepted as indemnities in head-hunting societies
price
unfettered by Government interference.
Sulayman, the Arab merchant of the Qth century, in his enter-

taining descriptions, partly from observation, partly travellers' tales,

of the East Indies, reports that at Nias, off the West Coast of Sumatra,
when a man wants to marry he cannot do it, unless he possesses the
head of a man from among the enemies of his tribe. If he has killed

2 enemies, he marries 2 wives ; if he has killed 50 enemies, he marries

50 wives (Ferrand, 1922, p. 34).
Nicolo de* Conti gave a sensational account of the currency in
heads x of the Batak of the mainland of Sumatra 6 centuries later.
'

'

In one part of the island called Battech, the inhabitants eat human flesh
and are in a state of constant warfare with their neighbours. They keep
human heads as valuable property, for when they have captured an enemy
they cut off his head and, having eaten the flesh, store up the skull and use
it for money.
When they desired to purchase any article, they give one
or more heads in exchange for it according to its value, and he who has most
heads in his house is considered to be most wealthy (1857, p. 9).

Money even now is seldom used by the natives in Northern

Sumatra. Wealth is in buffalo and trading is by exchange of definite
measures of rice and salt. Both are scooped up in a half-coconut,
and

this measure, the gantang, constitutes the unit for bargaining.

Five gantang of rice will buy an axe or 4 packets of tobacco
12 will
buy a sarong or a pot. One gantang of salt is worth 7 or 8 of padi,
and 25 of padi will buy 30 of maize. Two and a half gantang of
salt buys 4 lengths [fathoms] of native cloth or 1,400 betel nuts
;

(Fischer, 1914, pp. 86-7).

Ring-money was not unknown in Sumatra. Millies describes

and illustrates (1871, p. 117, PI. XIX, Figs. 210, 211) a singular
means of exchange among a tribe (the Korintji) in the interior of
Palembang who formerly made use of yellow copper rings

'

exactly

our ordinary curtain rings, but of rather cruder make '. Many
have very small buttons or bosses on the outer surface. Their local
like

value was very low, 15,360 to the gold tahil.

Brass arm-rings used as currency on the island of Bali may be
seen in the Vienna Currency Collection (Loehr, 1935, p. 20) and the
copper wire, loloe amas (meaning chain-money), in the Leiden museum
1
Wiener thinks there is confusion here between Latin testa potsherd,
porcelain and Italian testa, head (1920, I, 14 ff.).

ASIA

267

may be included here. This is a hollow rope of four-strand plaited

copper wire said to be used in Sumbawa and Sumba Islands for
presents, for marriage gifts or in ratification of a contract, though
not in ordinary exchanges.
Buffalo and rice are the standards of value in Java as in Sumatra.
Trade beads, Chinese jars and metal gongs are used in important
transactions and represent wealth
the kris was used here, as in
Borneo, in presentations, and a decorative one from the Pitt Rivers
Museum Collection is illustrated in Fig. 112. In both islands gold
and silver bars or lumps were introduced with Indian dominion
buttons
(Millies, 1871, pp. 8, 12-14, PL I) and the little silver
with archaic and enigmatic lettering, which date from the same period,
were in use in Central and Eastern Java for several centuries (pp.
Short pieces of doubled copper or pewter
14-19, PL I, Figs. 13-24).
wire (tang) were issued by the Dutch, in imitation of the larins
which they found in use on their arrival (Bucknill, 1931, pp. 55-6).
The Arab merchant, Sulayman, already quoted, gives a picturesque description of the gold ingots of the Maharajah of Java,
;

'

'

and

his royal treasury.

There was a lake or rather an enclosed estuary in front of the royal

and each morning the chief steward came before his sovereign with
a golden ingot of a certain Weight [unknown to the narrator]. Then, in
the presence of the rajah, he threw the ingot into the lake. When the tide
came up, it covered the ingots when it receded, the ingots glittered in the
sun. The rajah kept an eye on them as he sat in his great hall overlooking
the lake. But no one touched them as long as he lived. When he died,
his successor fished them all out, save one, and they were apportioned among
the royal family, men, women and children, generals and slaves of the royal
household, and distributed to the poor and needy. The longer the reign
the larger the number of ingots, and the greater amount of wealth to be
palace,

distributed (Ferrand, 1922, p. 97).

Celebes, notorious for its adventurous traders, appears to have

developed a token currency in cloth, which has been collected as
far afield as Borneo.
This is in small fringed cotton mats, 3 to 5
inches (8-12 cm.) across, usually white, with fine coloured lines in
warp and weft forming the border. They are used as currency in
Central Celebes but appear to be derived from the island of Buton
off the South-East end of the island
whence their name of the
Sultan of Buton's bank-notes (cf. Loehr, 1935, p. 15).
Metal gongs (often called drums ') have been recorded as currency
'

'

'

Burma and Siam, in Borneo, the Philippine Islands, Java and

Celebes (Heger, 1902). The mokko of the smaller islands, Solor,
Pantar and Allor, to the east of Flores, probably belong to the same
cultural influence, but their history is somewhat obscure.
In 1851, the Resident of Timor described a sort of copper drum
called moko, in the shape of a spittoon with a cover '. Coif's description
in

19

PRIMITIVE

268

MONEY

later is both more elegant and more accurate.

J'ai vu
ils ressemblent i des supports
fleurs en
fameux moko
cuivre et rehausss d'ornaments, tous les memes, et avec quatre anses.
!

30 years

ces
Ils

sont conserves

commes

d'anciennes reliques et

ils

ont jusqu'a

'

une valeur de mille florins (Huyser, 193 1, p. 225). They are waisted
drums ', of hour-glass shape (PL 25, and Fig. 117) with projecting
handles, decorated with various patterns of lines, human faces and
They were the currency down
figures, animals and stylized flowers.
to 1914, in which year the Government withdrew them from comMore than thirteen hundred mokko Heaven knows
mercial use.
what beautiful specimens among them, were simply hammered down
and sold as old metal (ibid., pp. 227-8), and they are now difficult
to obtain.
Their local price is said to have been some 5 or 6 gulden
(florins), though museums would even then gladly pay up to 50 or
60 for good pieces, and more than double that now. There have
been various theories as to their origin. The shape suggests Tibet,
but no drums like this are found in Tibet, and there is nothing
Tibetan in their decoration. Neither is their derivation from the
'

'

'

'

'

kingdom of Cambodia supported by any valid evidence.

manufacture is unlikely, as no other objects of bronze
or copper are produced on the islands.
Nieuwenkamp, the mokko
expert as Huyser calls him, is of opinion that the oldest mokko
were made in East Java, after the model, not in size, but in form and
decoration of the famous drum of Pedjeng.
There are not many of
these mokko
drums in museum collections, so Cambridge is
ancient

Their

local

'

'

'

fortunate in having two. The larger one, illustrated in PI. 25, has
a plain lower part, and conventional heads and festoons above the
handles.
Though not identical, it is similar in design to many of
those illustrated by Huyser (1931, Figs. 31-3).

The

smaller one (Fig. 1170)

of even greater interest, as it was

district in Borneo,
by
though the villagers could tell him nothing about it. It is a small
specimen, 14^ inches (367 cm.) high, and 8 inches (20*4 cm.) across
the top. He noted the similarity of the designs to those on silver
and brass ware of the Malay Peninsula, as well as of Chinese pottery.
The squatting or dancing human figure (Fig. 1176) has the ends of
the clothes turned up on the thighs in a way that is reminiscent of
that seen in reproductions of mythical characters of Burmese
legendry, and of the figures used in Siamese and Malay shadow
collected

shows

I.

is

H. N. Evans in the Tempassuk

Man., 1918, n).

in the Leiden Museum shows the same little squatting
or dancing figures. Professor Kern, commenting on these, suggests
a I4th- or 15th-century date and that the designer of the figures may
have had a frog 1 in his mind. Huyser (p. 283, Fig. 4, iii) considers
1
Cf. the frogs on the Karen kyee-zees in Burma (p. 209).
(cf.

A mokko

MO, ii7(a).-~MQkkot

FIG. 117(6).

(I

Details of

Mokko

PRIMITIVE

270

MONEY

the inspiration to be derived rather from the squatting dwarfs, gana,

with upraised hands, familiar in Hindu-Javanese architecture, whose
relatives can be recognized on objects from Geelvink
Bay, Timor and

Soemba (Sumbawa).
Dr. Rassers, Director of the Leiden Museum, doubts both frog
derivation, and while recognizing the affinities between the
squatting figures and those of Sumbawa, especially those of the

and gana
textiles,

thinks that they represent a divine initiator, and that the

in association with a local cult.

mokko were venerated

Chapter VIII

EUROPE
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho
How pleasant it is to have money

CLOUGH

ALTHOUGH

this chapter is headed Europe, and an earlier one

there
can
be no definite division. Europe and Asia may be
Asia,
separated on a political map, but racial and cultural boundaries are
ill-defined. Geographically Europe is a peninsular appendage of Asia,

and Eastern Europe and Western Asia have been too often united
by races and by cultures to be anthropo-geographically separable.
This linkage is illustrated in the history of the evolution of
money, for the earliest coins appear in Asia Minor and the Greek
islands, and there has been much discussion as to whether Europe
or Asia can claim credit for the innovation.
moneta, originally the name of
Money ', says the O.E.D.,
a goddess (in classical times regarded as identical with Juno) in whose
'

temple

'

at

Rome money was coined.'

'

'

Money

in

common parlance,

So we turn with

special interest to the Eastern

Mediterranean where, according to tradition, upheld by literary and

suggests coins.

archaeological evidence, the first coins were minted ; those of

electrum by the Lydians and lonians of Asia Minor, and those of
silver, perhaps a little later, on the Greek island of Aegina.
These have been fully dealt with in a former issue of this series
(Seltman, 1933) and are the province of the numismatist, who can

read in them a history far more convincing than that of any ancient
Here we are concerned with the earlier stages of currency,

text.

which are aptly summarized by Seltman in his opening chapter,

part of which may be quoted here.
With the dawn of the Late Bronze Age, about 1600 B.C., the great
nations round the Eastern Mediterranean entered into more peaceful
relations with each other.

The age of internationalism had begun. It was about this time that
the peoples of the south began to come into contact with the races whose
standard of value was other than a gold standard. There were in Europe,
as well as in the highlands and pasturelands of Western Asia, many races
whose wealth lay not in metals but in flocks and herds, and among such
backward peoples the natural and obvious unit of value was the ox or cow.
This in Greece proper, as well as in the Italian peninsula, was the earliest
measure of value, for, to cite but a few instances, at Delos in early times,
at Athens under the code of Draco, and in the eaily laws of Rome, payments and fines were reckoned in cattle, while the ox was the standard of
value to Homer's Achaeans in the i2th century B.C.
271

PRIMITIVE

272

MONEY

While the northerners and highlandeis reckoned in cattle the Egyptians

and the peoples of Mesopotamia were using gold, silver, electrum (a natural
amalgam of silver and gold) and bronze which they had learnt to weigh in
the balance for the purpose of estimating its value. Such a state of affairs
existed when, about the beginning of the i6th century B.C., the peoples of
the great rivers came into frequent contact with the rest of the ancient world.
Traders from the Nile and from Babylonia began to meet with the traders
of the Hittites, with Phoenician Semites, Cietans, islandeis and rude tribes
hailing from the northern shores of the Aegean Sea, and it was generally
in the islands
very frequently in Cyprus and in Crete that they met.
Besides manufactured goods, linen and dyed wool, Egyptians and Semites
brought their commercial rings of gold and electrum, Hittite subjects their
silver and cattle, Cypriotes their ingots of copper
and for many decades
the bartering and bargaining of vociferous merchants, whose standards were
so diverse, must have rent the air (pp. 4-5).
;

These diverse standards were adjusted to a common unit, that

of the ox, and the ox had its equivalent in gold or in copper talents ;
the gold talent (weighing some 8*5 grammes) was in the form
of bars, which could be cut up into sections like Chinese silver
in rings of various shapes, and in dumps, the fore(Fig. 106)
runners of stamped coins the copper talent, beaten out into a flattish
;

weighed some 25-5 kilo or about 60 pounds.

The copper ingots are, as might be expected, more commonly
found than the gold coins-to-be, and they are recorded not only in
Cyprus and Crete but as far west as Sardinia, as well as on the
mainland of Greece and in the islands. Dechelette (1910, II, I,
plate,

pp. 399-40, 406) recognized in the outline a representation of the

double-axe, which constituted a widespread currency percolating
from Crete and Cyprus into Europe in the Bronze Age. Seltman,
who illustrates an example from the Palace of Mycenae (i4th cen-

tury B.C.), points out how these heavy pieces represent not only the
value but also the outline of the ox (Fig. n8a).

The ingots were cast

had been cut away one
;

other side resembled

in the shape of oxhides from which head and tail

side of the ingot mimicked the hairy cowhide, the
the raw inside with its edges curling inwards (p. 7).

Sometimes the cruciform character is exaggerated until the ingot

form of a saltire sometimes the outline shows little more
than the slight concavities that naturally result from the shrinkage
of the cooling metal.
This latter cause may well have been the
origin of the outline which suggested the double-axe or the ox-hide
according to the cultural bias or the imagination of Bronze Age or
modern times. The concavities when exaggerated were functionally
useful for transport, as may be seen in the Falmouth tin ingot of
the Bronze Age (Fig. 1186) or in the Katanga copper crosses of the

takes the

present day (Fig. n8c).

(a)

Bronze

(b)

(c)

(d)

Tin

talent,

ingot,

Copper

Mycenae

Falmouth

cross,

Katanga

Bronze axe-head, Germany

FIG.

1 1

8.

-Metal ingots

PRIMITIVE

274

MONEY

In Central and Western Europe there were copper ingots in the

form of lumps and bars, which show, as a rule, no distinguishing

FIG. 119.

features.

They might

Ridgeway

illustrates

Broken

bits of

Aes formatum

in parts of Africa today.

quadrilateral bits of bronze in
the British Museum how these bars

pass for

money

from roughly

were broken up and argues that

the primitive as of Italy

must

certainly

have been nothing more than a plain

rod or bar of copper, which passed from
hand to hand as the obols in Greece and
the bars of iron and copper pass at the
present among savages of Africa and
Asia. This is what was called by the
ancient writers the raw copper (aes rude),
as distinguished from the stamped copper
(aes signatum) of a later date.
It might seem an obvious process
of logical evolution from the irregular
bits of bronze (aes rude) to the cast
ingots or bars (aes signatum), and from
these to the circular aes grave and
civilized coinage, an evolution which
recalls that of the silver currencies
of Eastern Asia already described.
But there are doubts about the meaning of aes rude, which term appears
to include any broken up bits of
bronze, cast or otherwise, and about
the place of the cast ingots (aes
1
signatum) in the series.
Probably
the earliest form of currency was
1

namm

or ses ruae

For discussion of the meaning of

aes signatum and the doubt as to their

use as currency, cf. Mattingly, 1928,
pp. 8-9 ; Sydenham, 1926, pp. 12 ff. ;
and for the dating, cf. Mattingly and
Robinson, 1932, pp. 223, 253.

EUROPE
aes formatum, shaped like a bun or a biscuit (Fig. 119).
Next the
bronze was cast in long bars with simple designs upon them (Fig. 120).
Lastly the bronze was cast in true coins aes grave, either circular or
One of the latter bearing the figure of an ox, is shown
rectangular.

in Fig. 121.
'

Ingots appear, here and there, to have developed into a tool

'
currency comparable with the various axe- and hoe-currencies of
more backward lands, and with the more advanced knife- and hoecurrencies of China. And here we meet the double-axe again
Crete and Cyprus were both associated with the cult
(Fig, n8d).
of the double-axe ; both were rich sources of copper
both were
;

So

was from either

Crete or Cyprus that these ingots came, axe-head shaped at both
ends, which have been found in Germany, Switzerland and as far
west as France. 1 They vary in length from n to 16 inches or more
active in maritime trade.

it is

FIG. 121.

that

presumed

it

Aes grave

(28-42 cm.) ; they vary very much in shape (though always more
slender than the typical Cretan double-axe) ; and they vary so much
in weight (from under 600 to over 3,000 grammes) that their relation
to a fixed standard has been disputed.
They are certainly not
ordinary tools, as, although they are perforated in the centre, the
hole is not large enough for a working handle, and can only be for
stringing, while the majority are too light to suggest any serviceable
There seems no reason to doubt that they were a form of
use.

currency, or at least were intended for gifts or offerings (Cook, 1925,

2
r
These tool forms are not confined to the Bronze
II, pp. 6i4j .).
1
Ddchelette, 1910, p. 403, Fig. 163 ; Thilenius, 1921, pp. 15-16 ; but
Metal-Geratgeld '.
cf. also Regling, 1926, in Ebert's Reallexikon,
8
The * pick ' shape presents the same problems, though not the same
symbolism, and here too it is suggested that the small holes are for threading
several pieces on a cord (British Museum Guide ; Bronze Age, 1904, p. 98,
*

'

'

Fig. 100).

PRIMITIVE

276

Age or

MONEY

Double-axes occur in

to copper.

silver as late as the* Roman

These, being
period, and as far apart as Serbia and the British Isles.
associated with burials or sanctuaries, are usually called votive, not
currency, but, as Dechelette (1910, 405/11.) points out, the former
hypothesis does not exclude the latter, since in classical times money
was placed in graves as well as being offered to the gods, a custom

which

in China as in Africa at the present day.

That the double-axes were valued as a form of
currency is illustrated in the Homeric poems. The
prizes offered in the funeral games of Patroclus
included slave women and oxen, kettles and tripods,
besides talents of gold.
But Achilles set for the
archers dark iron, and he set down 10 axes and 10

is still lively

'

is taken to mean the double-axe,

a single-headed one ; the former
being the first and the latter the second prize.
The double-axe on the silver coins of Tenedos (Fig. 122) may
preserve the memory of the earlier currency as well as the religious
beliefs associated with the symbol, thus endowing it with votive
as well as monetary value (cf. Ridgeway, 1892, pp. 318-19 ; Cook,
FIG. 122.-

Coin,Tenedos

half-axes.'

and the

The

axe

half-axe

'

1925, II, pp. 655 ff. ; Laum, 1924, pp. 120 ff.).
There are some small socketed axes of the Late Bronze

Age

abundant in Normandy and Brittany, which

They are too small or too fragile for use, and

(Fig. 123), especially

carry on the

tale.

FIG. 123.

Socketed axe, Bronze Age

Some are even of lead, and obviously

yet are found in huge hoards.
useless as tools.
They may be talismans ; they may be votive
they may be currency ; and they may have been useful,
double-axes and Argive spits in commercial transactions l

offerings
like

as well as in religious rites (Dechelette, 1910, p. 254).

The frequent references to Ridgeway's work throughout this

book show how he blazed the

1

trail

by drawing

attention to the

many

'

The same may be said of the wheel-money or spoked circles of Gaul,

exhibited in many collections of primitive money, which were primarily
'

amulets (de Widranges, 1861, pp. 213-30 with six plates of illustration
Dechelette, 1913, pp. 885^.).

EUROPE

277

parallels between ancient currencies and their modern survivals or

analogies among backward peoples, and many of those who are

unable to accept his conclusions are glad to draw from his rich store
of facts. The inclusion of Europe in the cattle-currency-complex
has been noted above (p. 187). Ridgeway showed that in the
regions of Asia, Europe and Africa, where the system of weight
standards which has given birth to all the systems of modern Europe
had its origin, the cow was universally the chief object of barter
(1892, p. 387).
Cattle were the standard of wealth

and unit of value they had

a sacred character and were offered to the gods as well as presented
to potentates ; they were exchanged for slaves and extorted as
tribute.
The bride-price of a woman and the wergeld of a man
'

'

were calculated in cattle.

Evidence of the cattle standard can be found in the Rig Veda of
India and the Zend Avesta of Persia (as seen above), in the Brehon
Laws of Ireland and the Ancient Laws of Wales. We have seen it
actively at work in Eastern Asia and in Eastern Africa, and though it
has vanished from more progressive Europe, traces are still obvious.
There is the familiar literary evidence in the equation of cattle and
money, pecus and pecunia. Ulfilas translates pecunia by the Gothic
faihu, cattle, whence our word fee ', which meant cattle, wealth or
money in King Alfred's day. Gothic skatts, meaning cattle, tribute
or coin, becomes the O.E. coin sceat, or the scat ', still known as
*

'

a tax in the North.

Ridgeway notes (1892, p. 4) how accounts were kept in cows a
generation or so ago in the Caucasus, as they were also in Scotland
in Hungary the prospective bridegroom's conventional opening is
Pray tell me if you have a cow to sell ? (Kovalensky, 1891, p. 27)
;

'

'

'

and

bride-price

is

still

paid

in

cattle

in Albania

(Hasluck,

Where a cattle standard exists, this is adequate, and discourages

the growth of primitive currencies, as has been already seen. It is
noteworthy that the largest and most varied collections of primitive

money come from

cattle-less areas.

once asked a patriarch [in Mongolia] owner of several

why he did not sell some every year. He replied, Why
I do not need money.
If I had any I would shut
sell what I delight in ?
it up in a box where no one would see it.
But when my horses run over the
plain everyone sees them and knows that they are mine and is reminded
traveller

thousand horses

that

am

rich* (Bureau, 1888, p. 71).

Cattle cannot, however, provide all the requisites for money.

set the standard of value, they are less often units of exchange,

They

and never sufficiently portable or divisible. Barter and the ox

Barter has to find other aids in seaborne trade.
suffice on land.

PRIMITIVE

27 8

MONEY

The scanty evidence of a cowry currency in Europe has been

reviewed already (p. 29) and it is tempting to recognize in the
bronze cowries found in Etruscan tombs or the gold cowries in
'
Cyprus and elsewhere a parallel to the metallic cowries of China.
But there is no proof that these scattered examples are more than
ornaments or amulets. The earliest recognizable form of money
here is in metal bars and lumps (as seen above) or in gold and silver
'

in the shape of rings.

The great gold-producing land in prehistoric,

as in historic times,

was Africa, where in the I5th century B.C. gold was as common
as dust '.
Egypt was well supplied from the earliest ages, as her
treasure houses prove
and those of Assyria and the Indus Valley
c

FIG. 124.

Weighing gold

rings,
*

Egypt
'

high estimate in which this giver of life was held.

Both in Egypt and in Mesopotamia gold was treasured long before
the Age of Metals had begun, but it was as ornament, it was not yet
currency. And though ornaments here as everywhere else, might
be used in barter, it is in the ring form that we first recognize a
convenient form of money.
illustrate the

Egyptian wall-paintings illustrate the weighing of gold rings in

a balance, against weights in the form of animals (Fig. 124). Ridgeway, when discussing the origin of the weight system of Egypt, argued
that the unit of value was the ox, and adds (1892, p. 242)
:

The fact that weights formed in the shape of cows and cows' heads are
represented in Egyptian paintings as employed in the weighing of rings,
indicates that in the mind of the first manufacturer of such weights there
was a distinct connexion between the shape given to the weight and the
object whose value in gold (or silver) it expressed.

EUROPE

279

The- gold rings of the wall paintings which are taken to represent
the ox-unit or talent might be classed by the Chinese either as pi
or as yuan (cf. Fig. 102), of armlet or anklet size. Far more common

and more widely spread are the small rings with a

fairly constant

weight of half a talent made of a bar of gold bent into a circle, with
ends sometimes meeting, sometimes apart, or of finer wire coiled
Most of these rings could not be worn on the finger, and
spirally.
although they might be strung like beads, if securely ring-like, and
classed with personal ornaments, they are generally accepted as the
earliest type of
ring-money ', anticipating coined money in the
Western World, as in the Orient. Rings have been found in gold,
in silver, in bronze or in iron, from Scandinavia and Ireland in the
'

FIG. 125.

Mycenaean

rings

West, Minoan Crete, ancient Greece (Fig. 125) and Rome, to India
and Japan in the East, 1 often of sizes or shapes unsuitable for wearing
as ornaments, and often appearing to fit into a graduated scale of
this suggests that they were a form of currency, and their
weights
use in present-giving is abundantly seen in literature. Gold and
silver ornaments were frankly estimated at their current value in
metal calculated either by weight or in actual coins, when these were
;

already in use. Ridgeway quotes examples (pp. 35-9) and

are added below.
1

more

In China jade took a higher place than gold, and jade rings were used
and fines (cf. p. 241). In Mexico also jade was
more highly valued than gold, but rings are curiously lacking in the New
*
World, and there is nothing that can even be remotely claimed as ring
*
money save the copper bangles of Vancouver (p. 302, Fig. 136).
in present-giving, tribute

PRIMITIVE

280
It is difficult

enough

MONEY

to discriminate

between ornamental and

currency rings in recent or contemporary material ; with prehistoric

Bronze or Iron Age
or early historic examples it is impossible.
rings, though often admitted into currency collections, must necessarily lack proof.
writers are chary of admitting ring-money as currency at
and enclose the word in inverted commas, to imply, like brideBut this is to ignore some important
price ', that it is a misnomer.

Many

'

all,

considerations.

one of the essential functions of money is that it is a

And how can wealth be exhibited more clearly to
of
wealth.
sign
the world than in the form of possessions and personal adornment.
This aim can be seen in the expensively bedecked women of all
nations, from the Bongo, weighed down with her copper rings, the
Crow squaw with her dress spangled wjth elk teeth, and the
First,

'

women

strung round with actual silver coins.

is the absence of banks.
Mesopotamia
have had its treasury-banks 2000 B.C. Greece may have had

Indian

A
may

'

further consideration

some such institution about 400 B.C. But banks were still rare in
Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages and are distrusted in backward
parts of the Continent and of our own islands at the present day.
Among bank-less societies wealth is therefore best stored as well
as displayed either in large and solid forms, such as the extreme
examples of the Yap stone-money, the abnormal or supernormal
iron tools of Africa, the North American coppers ', the bowls, gongs
*
or drums of Eastern Asia and the East Indies.
Or it is exhibited
on the person in the almost universally distributed ring form, which
may be remotely linked with the holed stones of the Neolithic
'

Age.
Finally, though the ring form may owe much to religious, magical
or symbolic significance, common sense shows its practical value.
When clothing is scanty and pockets are not provided, an easily
portable form of money is wanted, which accounts for the popularity
of cowry, shell-disk and bead strings, of the anklets or armlets
(manillas and mitakos) or necklets of West Africa and the holed cash
for stringing in Eastern Asia.
Are we opossums have we natural pouches like the Kangaroo ?
Or how without Clothes could we possess the master-organ, soul's
seat, and true pineal gland of the Body Social ; I mean a PURSE/
asked Carlyle.
Early Man (or Woman) solved the problem by means of the
'
Sammelringe or Lake Dwellers' purses of Central Europe, often
classed as bracelets or earrings in archaeological finds.
These consist of a number of small
rings dependent from a larger one which is
The smaller ones are often in pairs of fixed
usually of armlet size.
'

'

EUROPE
'

281
'

weights and constitute the typical ring-money of the Bronze Age.

PI. 28, Fig. i, illustrates a fine gold bracelet with ring-money dug
up in Grunty Fen, Cambridgeshire, in 1850, together with a bronze
rapier and a gold armilla so called from the spiral form in which
'

'

'

it

was

coiled.

'

1
'

Currency rings do not form such an essential item in brideBut in early days the payments were
price as might be expected.
the perquisite of the father, uncle or other male guardian of the girl,
so although rings figure in lists in Africa or Melanesia where these
are male ornaments, livestock, spears or iron tools were more gener'

popular in Europe. When payment for the wife merges in

dowry, rings take a more conspicuous place, and the survival of the
custom of the wedding-ring worn by the bride suggests the flagrant
misappropriation of the earlier bride-price '.
The ingot torques of the Early Bronze Age may be included in
These are penannular neck-rings of thick wire with
ring money '.
flat-hammered ends rolled back into loops (Hawkes, 1939, Fig. 24, 3),
which were traded as bulk merchandise round the eastern end of the
Mediterranean and across the mainland of Europe, serving either for
ornament or for currency as did the manillas of Africa down to
ally

'

'

'

'

modern

times.

torque served the same double purpose in

divisibility of metal has been one of the chief reasons
for its popularity as money, for a rod or bar can be broken into small
pieces, so providing a transition between ingots and coins, as has been
'
illustrated by the aes rude (p. 274).
Just as our word shilling is
popularly taken to refer to the cutting off of a piece of metal, hence
called a scilltnga, 2 so in Russia the grivenik (a small coin) is derived
from the grivna, or neck-ring. This was cut up into segments, which
were later stamped with the same stamps that were used for coins.
Both torques and segments have been found together in graves in
the Government of Kiev (PL 26, Fig. 3).
Ring-money, bars, dumps or drops of metal are among the many
forms that bridge the transition from ingots to coins. The final
step is taken in the Eastern Mediterranean.
silver neck-ring or

Russia.

The

'

'

'

Both

are illustrated

on

PI.

of the Victoria County History of

Cam-

bridgeshire, 1939.

The Sammelringe

idea

is

seen again in the widespread mitako of the

Middle Congo, where the wire is coiled spirally, and several smaller rings
be added that spiral ornahang fiom a larger one (Mahieu, p. 30). It may
'
ments similar to the Bronze Age gold armilla in copper, brass or iron form
a currency in the Congo (p. 80). The enormously heavy minkata of the
Sankuru which Mahieu illustrates (p. 33) is in the Tervueren Collection,
'

Brussels.
2

The derivation of shilling is uncertain.

Schroder, 1918, p. 273.

Cf. Chadwick, 1905, pp. izff.',

PRIMITIVE

282

MONEY

That coined money should have been evolved here is not surprising, for it was an area of intense commercial activity, encouraged and
*

natural advantages. The Lydians,

the first shopkeepers as Herodotus called them, as well as the neighbouring
lonians, received goods from the caravan routes and river communications across Asia. They had access to safe and sheltered
harbours for easy coastwise trade. They exported their famous
fostered

by

'

Chian wines, their purple dye which gave its name to Erythrae,
and their Samian pots, but above all they were renowned for their
gold, which provided the fabulous wealth of Croesus, and still more
fabulous wealth of Midas (Seltman, 1933, pp. 18-19). Here, it
seems, coin of the realm was born and our study of primitive money
comes to an end. But before it ends, there are a few examples of
primitive types to be noted, before the universal use of coins obliter;

ates their

memory.

Greek

money

tradition represents Pheidon of Argos as the first to coin

in Greece, and to have done so at the island of Aegina.

There may be doubt as to the part played by Pheidon.

by Aegina.

There is none

as to the part played

'

the eyesore of the Piraeus ', as Herodotus called it

later,
intercepting the trade both of Athens and of Corinth,
owed its greatness to its position in the Gulf, in full sight of the
mainland. It was comparatively barren, so had not much to offer
in the way of natural produce, but it was here that traders coming
from Egypt or from Asia met with those from the Peloponnese or
from Northern Greece. There was no gold or copper in the
Peloponnese, but it was rich in iron, so it was but natural that

Aegina,

when

when currency developed

it should be in iron, heavy and cumbersome though it must have been. Plutarch's complaint that 10 minas'
worth required a large room for storing and a yoke of oxen for
transport, may be compared with the description of Torday's trials
in the Congo, where iron-currency alone was accepted (p. 58).
The passage describing the abrupt transition from iron rods to coins
is well known
:

men Pheidon of Argos struck money in Aegina and having

them [his subjects] coin and abolished the spits (obols) he dedicated
them to Hera in Argos. But since at this time the spits used to fill the hand,
that is, the grasp, we, although we do not fill our hand with the six obols,
call it a grasp full [drachma] owing to the grasping of them (Ridgeway,
First of all

given

1892, p. 214).

There have been various conjectures as to the actual form of the

but the question was settled in 1895 by the discovery in the
ruins of the Temple of Hera at Argos of a bundle of iron rods,
With
originally 180 of them, about 40 inches (i m. 20 cm.) long.
them was a heavy rectangular bar of iron of about the same length,
'

'

spits

EUROPE

283
'

'

The bundle of spits is very

end.
fragmentary, but together they weigh almost the same as the iron
bar, i.e. 73,000 grammes, which was obviously a fixed standard.
'
Seltman (1933, p. 35) has calculated that a drax or handful of
6 of the best-preserved specimens weighs 2,418 grammes, and a single
'
obelos 403 gr., and that Pheidon fixed the silver drachm at its
given standard because in his day the ratio of iron to silver was as
hammered out towards one

'

'

'

400 to i. He intended his new silver obolos and silver drachma to

have the same purchasing power which the now discarded obelos
"
"
and
of iron had possessed.'
drax
'

'

is perhaps unfortunate.
The
so closely associated with the special implement used
for roasting as to overshadow its more general use for any pointed
bar or rod, or indeed anything pointed, as a spit of land or sandbank. 2
The Argive spits are what would elsewhere be called iron rods or
even currency bars ', which take different shapes in Etruria, Central
Europe, Gaul, Spain, and Britain, West Africa or Eastern Asia.
Their latest European descendants may be recognized in the osmunds.
'
or Northmen's iron of the Middle Ages which were commonly
'
used as currency (Akerman, II, 2, 7, 1898).
In certain Greek coins, traces of earlier currencies have been
The ox on Athenian coins has been claimed as a
recognized.
link with the cattle-currency, but it may have been merely a civic
or family device or that of the magistrate responsible for the mint.
Cities often adopted as their device the export for which they were
famous, such as the amphora of oil for Athens, or of wine for Terone,
and the silphium, possibly a royal monopoly, for Cyrene (Seltman,
!933> PP- 44> 6 7 182).

The

translation of obol

word

by

spit

'

spit

is

'

'

There is more doubt about the tunny fish of Olbia (PI. 28).
Olbia was an important Milesian trading settlement in the Black Sea,
fishing being the chief industry, supplemented by trade in furs,
slaves and amber, and later, corn.
The fish-shaped bronze pieces
issued in the 5th century have been regarded as metal tunny fishes,
illustrating, like the metal cowries of China, a transition between
currency and coinage. Cyzicus on the southern shores of the Bay
of Marmora certainly issued coins with the device of a tunny fish,
'
'
their city badge ; but the Olbian fishes are now recognized to be
1
These are illustrated in Fig. 6, p. 34, of Seltman's Greek Coins, 1933,
in this series.
Mahieu (1924, p. 7) suggests that the bar is a spearhead,

and compares
*

It

is,

it with the Congolese Uganda.

however, possible, as Laum argues (1924, pp.

more exact

io6.{f.) that

'

roast-

translation, and that these weie the actual

implements used in sacrifices at the temple. If so their dedication to Hera
finds modern illustration in the dedication of the spits used at festivals for
sacrifice to the gods in Lapland or of the spears used in the sacrifice of cattle
at Shilluk and Dinka shrines.

ing spits

is

20

the

PRIMITIVE

284

MONEY

dolphins not tunny the fishing wealth there was not in either tunny
or dolphin but in sturgeon ; and the issue of round coins also with
dolphins attributed to the same period weakens the belief in their
The
transitional character and leaves their origin unexplained.
smaller dolphins, mostly so perished that we cannot establish their
but from
true weight, may very likely have been mere tokens
the way in which they are held in the hands of the dead
they
'
seem to correspond to the coins for Charon found elsewhere
(Minns, E. H., 1913, p. 482, PL II).
The inscriptions if read as 0y, an abbreviation of tunny ' on the
;

'

'

and APIXO for SQQI%O<;, basket on the larger-sized pieces

suggested that the one was the price of a fish, and the other of a
basketful.
But the slight difference in size does not warrant such a
'

'

smaller,

distinction, and, as Ridgeway pointed out, you do not usually sell

4 or more feet long, by the basketful (1892, p. 317 fn.). More-

fish

over, these are not the only inscriptions.

There are

others,

which

appear, like APIXO to be personal names, probably those of governors.

No satisfactory explanation of the fishy forms, which were apparently contemporary with conventional coinage, has yet proved
acceptable.
They may have been votive offerings, but it is safer
to regard them as minimized ingots rather than as coins, as saumons
rather than as dolphins. 1
It is in the outlying parts of Europe that culture lag preserves
relics obliterated elsewhere, and traces of earlier or antiquated
currencies can be discovered in the North and West, Iceland and
Britain.

The Icelandic sagas preserve the record of an age when the

currency was in cloth, wadmal, and in silver (commonly in the form
of rings estimated by weight).
Blood feuds were paid off in rings
Barter sufficed for
trading was regulated by the wadmal standard.
;

trade down to the i5th century at least, as may be judged from the
trade regulations of that date. The chief products of the island were
the wadmal, spun from the fleece of the sheep, and fish. The cloth
1
The abnormal shape of the ham-money of Nimes has suggested
comparison with the Olbian fishes. These are conventional round coins
of Octavius and Agrippa, with a crocodile on the reverse commemorative
of the conquest of Egypt, but there is a curious projecting leg, nearly as long
as the diameter of the coin, familiarly called
but more
pig's trotter
elegantly patte de sanglier '. They have a hole in the centre, so placed
that the leg hangs downwards, and as they have been found only in the
basin of the famous fountain at Nimes, it is assumed that they are votive
offerings connecting a boar cult with the cult of the nymph of the fountain,
and that they were worn as charms, hung up as offerings, and thrown into
the fountain itself (La Saussaye, 1842, p. 173, ill., PI. XX, Fig. 36, and
PI. XXI, Fig. 46 ; cf. interpretations of Babelon, 1901, p. 675
Thilenius,
'

'

'

'

1921, p. 23,
p. 118).

who

regards

them

as trade advertisements

and Laum, 1924,

EUROPE

285

was the standard for local exchange, with silver for higher values
and fish, stockfish or dried cod, was the unit for external trade
with the English. 2 Imported cloth, flour, iron, timber and other
goods were all estimated in stockfish. Four tuns of flour or of beer
or one tun of butter for 120 stockfish. Wine was cheaper, a tun for
100 fish. A pair of women's shoes cost 3 fish, and a horseshoe one.
The silver, or occasional gold, used in more important transactions was in lumps, bars or rings estimated by weight.
Rings and
;

'

'

wealth are almost synonymous in early literature.

chief or a hero
a ring-giver in Icelandic sagas as in Beowulf; both Scyld and
Hrothgar are praised as beaga-bryttan, distributors or givers of rings,
and one who gives not rings is described as a bad ruler. King
Eastmere (in Percy's Reliques) gives rings of gold or talents of gold
is

Frithiof breaks his ring in pieces and distributes

indiscriminately.
to his followers, so that they shall not be impecunious in the
underworld. Rings were used in marriage payments and in wergeld,
it

the latter being estimated by baugatal or ring tale

a silver ring
weighing 12 ounces was the compensation for the loss of a thrall
100 rings or 100 head of cattle for a freeman (Dasent, 1861, pp. 397 jjf.;
;

Chadwick, 1905, pp. 392 ff., 1912, p. 352).

Coined money came late into the out-lying islands and even to
the mainland of Western Europe. Sweden can boast a magnificent
series of 'coins', a series so primitive in

ox-hide

ingots

of the

Bronze Age.

form that they

These,

survivals but ingenious money of necessity.

of copper called plate-money (PL 26, Fig. i)

however,

The

recall the

are

not

large flat sheets

were produced during

the iyth and i8th centuries for the purpose of compensating for
the drain of silver needed to pay the Danish war indemnity (for the

Danes

insisted

on

silver),

riching the royal treasury.

of exploiting the copper mines and enThe 8-daler piece of 1659, measuring
broad, and weighing over 32 pounds, is

about 2 ft. long by i ft.

one of the largest coins in the world.

Still heavier coins were

of the lo-daler pieces of 1644 weighing 45 pounds
(though no larger than the 8-dalers) is in the Kungliga Myntkabinett

issued.
at

One

Stockholm. 3
1

1 7th

Taxes were paid in wadmal in Orkney and Shetland, down to the

century; and in Iceland in Dasent's time, a cow was still reckoned at

value in wadmal.
2
See the Proclamation for the regulation of English trade with Iceland,
between 1413 and 1426, quoted by Ridgeway, 1892, pp. 18-20. Stockfish
can still be used in place of money in Northern Europe. In 1937 the Bergen
Steamship Company paid an Italian firm over 7,000 tons of dried cod, as
part of the purchase price of a steamer (The Times, 1.1.37).
8
Only three of these lo-daler pieces are recorded as being still in existence (cf. A. Wahlstedt, 1930). The illustration, PI. 26, Fig. 2, of an 8-daler
piece in the Gflteborg Museum was kindly supplied by the Director.
its

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

286

We

are accustomed to the picture of our savage woad-decorated

ancestors first being lured into bartering with Phoenician traders
some centuries before our islands were linked on to the mainland

by Roman overlords
Some grave Tyrian trader
Theie, where down cloudy
:

Shy

unbent sails
through sheets of foam

cliffs,

the dark Iberians come

the beach, undid his corded bales.

traffickers,

And on

But if we turn from historians to archaeologists we get an impression

of early trade long before the Phoenicians visited this out-of-the-way
part of the world.
The Stone Ages afford evidence of exotic objects which had
found their way into the country, for even if amber and jet may be
attributed to local sources, jadeite or callais or Egyptian beads may
not ; while megaliths and beakers are proofs of culture contact before
the end of the Neolithic period.
claim has indeed been made that the squared blocks of flint,
found in some numbers in Palaeolithic sites near Woldingham, were
the first steps in the evolution of money (L. Mann). It is not
unreasonable to believe that flint, so valuable and so unevenly distributed in the British Isles, should early form an article of barter
or exchange, comparable with the honey-coloured flints of Pressigny,
or the obsidian round the Mediterranean. East Anglian flints are
found in Somerset, and the quantities of semi-prepared flints from
Antrim found in Wigtownshire suggest trading on a larger scale.
are on safer ground in the Bronze Age, and turn naturally to

We

main source of gold not only in England, but in

Western Europe as well.
The Cuchulain Saga, with paganism breaking through its Christian veneer, gives a good idea of what was considered wealth in
In the boasting match between the King and Queen of
Ireland.
Connaught, Medh begins by proclaiming her fame in dividing gifts
and giving wages. Ailell retorts As for giving of wages and dividing
The argument leads to a
gifts, you are no better than myself.
Ireland as the

'

comparison of their wealth, displayed for all to see, beginning

humbly with the vats and iron vessels of their households (recalling
the cauldrons of the Greeks and of the Annamese) next their rings,
chains, brooches and clothing, then their sheep, horses, swine and
Slaves were not mentioned in the calculation, but
lastly cattle.
higher valuables were always reckoned in slaves, a slave being nominA * chariot worth three times seven serving
ally worth three cows.
maids is offered, together with lands, and my own close friendship
along with that for the Brown Bull of Cuailgne. The tribute paid
by the King of Leinster in A.D. 106 is recorded as consisting of
'

'

'

150 cows, 150 swine, 150 couples of

men and women

in servitude,

EUROPE

287

150 girls and

with 2 passing large ones of the breadth and depth of 5 fists (Annals of
the Four Masters, O'Donovan; cf. Ridgeway, 1892, pp. 31-2).
Medh's brooch, with its exact weight in ungas (uncia
ounce)
and her enumeration of her rings and her thumb-rings, illustrate
the forms in which gifts were bestowed and debts were calculated.
The evidence of the use of ornaments as money in Teutonic lands
has been referred to above (p. 285). The custom continued in
England as late as the loth century and even later as is recorded
x
in legacies.
Arm-rings (beagas) of 30, 50, 80 or 120 mancuses
are bequeathed in Anglo-Saxon wills, and in one bequest the gold
the King's daughter in like servitude, 150 cauldrons,

FIG. 126.

Gold

rings, Ireland

off a wooden cup is given to be added to a ring, or 16 mancuses

of red gold instead, that amount of gold having been put on the
cup (Whitelock, 1930, pp. 12 ff.).
The wealth of gold and of bronze rings in the Museum of the
Royal Irish Academy bears testimony to their popularity in Ireland,
and if they fit into a definite weight scale, the belief in their use as
2
There are
money as well as ornament is supported (Fig. I26).
abundant references in Irish literature to the giving of gold ornaments,
and rings for bride-price and wergeld are mentioned in history or
legend. The wealthy ladies had their arms covered with rings,
ready to bestow on poets, musicians or story-tellers, whom they
'

'

irThe mancus was the name of a coin

(from the Arabic man-hash,
meaning stamped ')> traditionally weighing 70 barleycorns, equal to the
Roman solidus and of the value of an ox (cf. Chadwick, 1905, pp. 10, 23, 47).
'

a
.

The

standard

Irish rings are usually accepted as currency, but their weight

disputed (cf. G. Coffey, 1913, p. 70).

is

PRIMITIVE

288

MONEY

wished to reward, and provincial kings attending

the meeting summoned by their superior had to
bring a ring of red gold with them, and leave it
behind or get into trouble (Joyce, 1903, II, pp.
O'Curry, p. 169). Fand (in the Cuchulain
224-5
story) says When Manannan the Great married
me ... he gave a bracelet of heavy gold as the
And St. Finnian of Clonard
price of my beauty '.
(who died about A.D. 550) liberates a serf by means
of the gold ring that St. Brigid had given him,
which weighed an unga (ounce). 1
Many of tfte Irish penannular rings have slightly
expanding and flattened or cup-shaped ends, and
this is the pattern of the manillas of the West Coast
of Africa, the close resemblance (shown in the
;

'

on p. 89) linking together cultures

separated by three or four thousand years (cf. Evans,
1881, pp. 382, 387 ; Ridgeway, 1892, p. 42).
Before leaving the subject of rings reference may
here be made to the disks of shale, nearly as hard as
jet, pierced in the centre, often classed as currency
and labelled
Coal-money '. It is believed by
is lacking, that these disks,
evidence
some, though
illustration

'

which have been found in large hoards, were used

by the unsophisticated British as money (cf. Mosher,
1936, pp. 45-6, PI. XV), but they are more generally
regarded as the chucks left over after making the
armlets or bracelets which were such popular ornaments in Roman or Romano-British times.
'

as

The use by the Britons of bars of iron or bronze

money has better support. Caesar's statement

(E.G., v.12.4) about the currency of the ancient

Britons has often been quoted, but we are still in
doubt, owing to variant MSS. readings as to whether
'
he really wrote iron rods or iron rings ', iron
'

'

'

'

spearheads or something else. The orthodox reading is utuntur ant acre aut nummo aureo out taleis
ferrets ad certum pondus examinatis pro nummo, which
literally translated gives
They use either bronze or
or
iron
gold coinage
cuttings weighed to a definite
of
money.' Taleis; or something
weight by way
cut off' (which has provided our word tally),
:

in

[cm.

'

FIG.

127.

currency

from
shire

Iron
bar
Wilt-

Ridgeway (1892, App. C, p. 395) argues that as the

unga (ounce) was the price of a cow, so the gold
unga was the price of a male slave.

silver

EUROPE
'

289
'

'

admits- the interpretation of rods

or bars ; the substitute of
'
'
anulis provides
of
that
lancets
spearheads ; and alKis,
rings ;
1
other forms '. And as rods, bars, rings and doubtless also spear'
'
heads and other forms of iron could all be used by way of money
'

'

we can generously

accept

all

the variant readings.

How the idea of using iron bars as currency reached this country

'

present a mystery,' wrote Reginald Smith in 1912 (p. 442),

but they occur in considerable numbers in South-West Britain and
scattered along trading routes to North and East (see Childe's map,
Prehistoric Communities, 1947, p. 226).
They are of varying length,
feet
about
round
2
usually
(60 cm.) long and of graduated weights,
is at

apparently in an ascending scale of a J, , i, 2, 4, though this is

They are typical of the La Tene culture which reached
disputable.

probably through Brittany, some 4 centuries B.C.

currency-bar theory is too well established to be easily
upset, though doubts have been raised as to whether these swordshaped bars, with rudimentary socket handles (Fig. 127), should
deserve the name of money, or whether they are merely moods,
i.e. swords which have been moulded or forged, but not yet finished
1
Whether currency or not they provide an excellent
by the smith.
illustration of the recurring difficulty of attempting a rigid severance
of objects used (i) in barter, (ii) as a medium of exchange, or (iii)
as tokens of value.
It seems probable that these
currency bars',
which have been found in hoards of hundreds, can, like so much of
African currency ', claim a place in each section of the tripartite
Britain,

'

The

'

'

'

'

classification.

Copper bars are just as debatable as iron ones. The illustration,

shows 2 of the bars found in a Bronze Age barrow near
Royston, Herts, in 1861
13 of these were found all together as in
a nest '. They are almost pure copper, hammered square, and cut
into short lengths of a few inches.
There is no evidence to prove
that these were more than the stock in trade of an ancient bronzefounder, providing him with the raw material for making his implements and one of the bits, not found with the others, was indeed
fashioned into a roughly chisel-like shape. But they may have
served as currency, too, and are by many accepted as such. The
'
nest was at the base of a barrow called Money Hill, on the track
of the Icknield Way, one of the earliest trade-routes of the country,
and the bars may represent a form of aes rude which never developed
Fig. 128,

'

'

'

'

used to be thought a happy coincidence, that iron currency bars

weie found at the foot of one of the standing stones of Wayland's Smithy
in Berkshire
All readers of Kenilworth will remember how money deposited
on these stones ensured the shoeing of the horse by the invisible smith, a
legend which preserves one of the last lingering echoes of silent trade in
England, but a closer examination of the bars shows that they are unlikely
to be older than the i8th century (cf. Fox, 1940, Note 9, p. 433).
It

'

PRIMITIVE

2QO

MONEY

It
into aes signatum (Fox, 1923, pp. 36, 63, PL XVIII, Fig. -10).
worth while drawing attention to this hiatus, before reaching a
final summary of conclusions.
It is commonly assumed that as trading develops a need for a
is

convenient

medium

of exchange, the evolution of

money

progresses

in three successive stages, of tool, ingot, coin ; from bartered goods

to metal, which is first estimated by weight, and finally stamped and
'
becomes coinage.
Mankind learnt first to value, next to weigh,

and

last

It

of

all

to

stamp

may be conceded

metal.'

that

'

Mankind

'

progressed by these three

successive steps in the Eastern Mediterranean, though, as has been

seen, the literary evidence is uncertain and confused, and the tangible

evidence

is

fragmentary.
is not confined to the Mediterranean, and these
successive steps, obvious and logical though they may appear, are

But

Mankind

'

FIG. 128.

Copper currency

bars,

(J size)

seldom to be detected elsewhere. Apart from the Mediterranean

(and a few sporadic examples) a native coinage in metal has been
evolved only in India and China, in both of which countries Greek
influence has been claimed, and in more recent times, in Further
and seldom do we find convincing
India and the Malay Peninsula
;

evidence of this sequence.

In India the punch-marked coins are not a primitive form, but
as yet there is no trace of their development from an earlier weighed
Nor in China is there evidence of progressive evolution.
ingot stage.
tools and cash jostle each other through the centuries
bronze
Cowries,
side by side, with silver as a later commercial addition.
The larins of the Persian Gulf probably provide the best example
of an evolutionary process if we. could accept their origin in fish
hooks or in nose-clips, which is difficult ; and even with the help
of Russian grivna or Siamese ticak, Annamese stamped ingots or
Malay tampangs there is inadequate support for a universal theory.
When the final stage, that of coined money used in commercial

EUROPE

291

is reached, this is in most cases an entirely foreign

introduction, brought in by trade or conquest, and has no roots in
native economic development.

transactions,

The early coins of Europe show that they were all borrowings,
not native growth, and Britain may provide a typical and final
example. The local currency had advanced, we may presume,
beyond the barter stage to the use of metal estimated by weight, in
But none of these developed into
gold, silver, bronze or iron.
first
coins
found in Britain are Roman ones
The
coins.
stamped
brought over by trade, and the first British coinage is that of the
conquering Belgae.
This universal introduction of coined money by trade or conquest
It has been argued above that
brideexplains a further point.
in
an
the
evolution
of
price
early
played
important part
money.
It also plays an important part in the retention of primitive forms.
We have seen that besides Aristotle's four points, there are two
more essential qualities in money a religious or magical tinge, and
'
It is obvious that when coins and conquerors come
acceptability '.
over together, the question of acceptability does not arise, and the
'

'

So coins are unsuitable

tinge of magic or religion usually vanishes.
in an important ceremony such as marriage in which gods or ancestors
as well as the family are concerned ; the use of cowries and hoes in
Africa, shell-money in Oceania, daos

museum

and gongs in Burma

of primitive money was

and is still essential for bride-price '.
If, as many believe, money is the root of all evil,
marked out for blame.
the whole

full

first

in short

necessitated

'

Eve

is

once more

Chapter

IX

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

Wealth
i.

is

power

West Coast, it. Eastern maize area. iii. Northern caribou and CentralSouthern bison area. iv. Area of intensive agriculture, v. West Indies.

THE

money and the systems of exchange and barter

expands, are so intimately bound up with culture, and
culture is so dependent on environment, that a geographical and
cultural grouping of the American Indians provides a convenient
framework for the consideration of the scanty evidence of their
Holmes complained more
currency. The literature is abundant.
than 50 years ago that the references to wampum alone would fill
a volume. Much has been written since that time, and archaeology
has confirmed or confuted earlier speculations. Great interest is
taken in America in primitive currencies, as is shown in such fine
displays as the Knox Collection at Buffalo and the Chase Collection
in New York.
But what is still lacking is evidence as to how these
were
used, and, in many cases, what right they have to be
objects
called money at all.
That the objects were used in ceremonies, in
in

evolution of

which

it

ostentatious displays, in presentations, in bride-price *, in fines and

compensations and in exchanges, is sufficiently recorded, but it is
difficult to prove that more than a few of them were used as currency

before the coming of European traders, who adopted native objects

of value to serve as money.
Swanton's article, Media of Exchange ', in the Handbook of
American Indians, 1910, gives a comprehensive survey and a full
'

bibliography.

His material, supplemented by the collections of

currency in American museums, can be distributed anthrogeographically in the following scheme, based on Wissler's map of the
food areas of the New World. 1 This map divides the American
Indians into culture groups with occupations dependent on the
main food supply, and, slightly simplified, can be used to group
the types of currency which are equally dependent on local material
and local needs.
For this purpose the areas may be described as :
i.
The West Coast from Alaska to California, with salmon to
the north and wild seeds to the south. Slaves and coppers were
standards of value and exchangeable goods in the North, even after
1

The American Indian, 2nd

292

ed.,

1922, Fig.

i.

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

293

the adoption of the blanket as currency, and there were various kinds
of shell-money.
2.
The Eastern maize area from New Brunswick to Louisiana.
Wampum, made on the East Coast, spread throughout the region
and across the continent.
The Northern caribou and Central-Southern bison area from
3.
Alaska and Labrador in the North narrowing down to the Gulf of
Mexico. Here there was no native money, though teeth and skins
had barter values and are included in collections of currency.
Shell-money came in from both East and West.
The area of intensive agriculture, stretching for 5,000 miles
4.
from the South of California across Central America and down the
coast of Chile in South America, including both Mexico and Peru.
Beads and disks of shell, stone or clay are often exhibited as Aztec
money ', forerunners of the authentic trade beads which were still
in use in Mexico in recent years.
There may have been a tool-currency in Mexico, and cacao beans
'

were used for small change and, packed in bags, for large purchases.
There is no mention of currency or even of markets in the early
histories of Peru, though coca was used in exchanges, and although
there are a few sporadic specimens of primitive currency from
farther south in museum collections, the manioc and guanaco areas
of South America are blank.
'

'

After the Discovery the coming of the colonists opens a new page
and the West Indies are linked on to the mainland of America.
It is instructive to
difficulties

note their early struggles to cope with financial

to barter necessitated by the absence of

and the return

coins.
i.

'

WEST COAST

Before the arrival of Europeans/ says Swanton

inter-tribal trade had resulted almost everywhere in America in the adoption

of certain standards of value, the most important being shell, beads and

skins.

down the Western Coasts, both in the northern salmon area and
the acorn and other wild seed districts to the south, there were shellcurrencies with definite values, which were used both for gifts and
for exchange.
The best known of these are the Dentalium strings,
the clam disks, the Olivella apices and pieces of abalone (Haliotis)
All

shell. 1
'

'

tusk shells occur along the sea coast, especially

in the neighbourhood of Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands,

Dentalium or

clam

Schneider, 1905, figures strings of Dentalium, PI. 15, Fig. i, hazvock

disks, PI. 14, Fig. 5 ; and abalone (Haliotis), PL 16, Fig. i.

PRIMITIVE

294

MONEY
The

and are collected by the Indians.

which have to be
which are washed up.

live shells

dredged are better coloured than the dead ones

They let down long poles to which are attached pieces of wood fitted
with spikes or teeth, between which the shells become fixed. The squaws
A small bit of dried sinew taken from the caribou is
string them neatly.
passed through the shell lengthwise, there being a hole at each end. The
string is generally ornamented with fragments of Haliotis shell and tufts of
dry wool of the mountain goat (Stearns, 1887, p. 315).

Such a
string of 25 fair-sized shells equals about a fathom.
was
called
hiaqua (variously spelt) in
string
the Chinook trading jargon of the Coast, or
allikochik (Fig. 129), a corruption of oil we-tsik,
human beings their shell-money ', the name
given to it by the Indians in Northern California, to distinguish it from the money of the
whites (Kroeber, 1925, p. 25). This represented the highest standard of currency, which
would purchase one or two slaves. Kop hop
was a name for inferior strings made of smaller
or broken shells in various lengths. While the
'

hiaqua represented pounds, one string fetching

40 to 50 dollars, hop kop represented shillings
and pence.
Although there are dentalium shells on the
Californian Coast the Indians did not collect
there, but obtained their supplies, with

them

FIG. 129.

Dentalium

shell-money, California

added prestige, from the far north. Hence

they had high values, and the importance of
allikochik among the Yurok suggests a comparison with that of diwarra among the natives
of New Britain.
*
The persistence with which the Yurok
desire wealth is extraordinary/ says Kroeber
(1925, p. 41)

They are firmly convinced that persistent thinking about money will
bring it. Particularly is this believed to be true while one is engaged in any
sweat-house occupation. As a man climbs the hill to gather sweat-house
wood always a meritorious practice, ... he puts his mind on dentalia.
He makes himself see them along the trail or hanging from fir trees eating
the leaves. ... In the sweat-house he looks until he sees more moneyshells perhaps peering at him through the door.
When he goes down to
the river he stares into it and at last may discern a shell as large as a salmon,
with gills Working like those of a fish. . . . Saying a thing with sufficient
intensity and frequency was a means towards bringing it about.
man often kept calling ' I want to be rich ' or ' I wish dentalia ' perhaps
.
The practical efficacy of the custom is
weeping at the same time.
unquestionable.

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

295

In California strings were not measured by the fathom, but from

the thumb-tip to the shoulder, about 27^ inches (70 cm.)
of
the largest shells filled such a string, 12 of the next largest, down to
15 of the smallest that were strung
;

in this

way

to

form a count.

Single shells were measured by

the creases on the left hand. The
longest shells known were about
2^ inches (65 mm.) long and one of
these would reach from the crease of
the last joint of the little finger to
the crease on the palm opposite the
knuckle of the same finger. The

value of such a shell in early days

was about 5 dollars.

As all hands and arms

are not of the

same length it was necessary for the man

on reaching maturity to establish the
values of the creases on his hand by
comparison with money of known length.
He had a set of lines tattooed on the
inside of the forearm.

These

lines indi-

cated the length of 5 shells of the several

standards. This was the principal means
of estimating money. The first 5 on the
string were measured by holding the tip
of the first shell at the thumbnail and
drawing the string along the arm and
noting the tattooed mark reached by the
butt of the fifth shell (Goddard, 1903,
p. 446).

Kroeber (1925, PL II) illustrates

Hupa measuring a string in this

way.

If a string of 5 shells reached

from the thumbnail to the first tattoo

mark, it [would be worth 25 dollars,
but only i in 10,000 would achieve
this

1883, p. 477).
a pair of such strings
would be renowned far and wide,
and, even for a high-born wife, he
would not part with more than one. FIG.
130. Dentalium shell-money,
In North-Western California, the
California
Yurok, Karukand other tribes decorated the shells (Fig. 130) by scratching patterns on them. They
also wound strips of garter snake-skin round them, and tied on little
tufts of tiny scarlet woodpecker feathers.
But the value still
(Ingersoll,

man owning

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

296

depended on

size, not on decoration.

Only the larger shells were
thus treated, and only the larger shells counted as money. The
small shells, more than 15 to the count, were strung as necklaces,
and had no currency value except among the inland tribes.
The function of shell-money is most clearly illustrated among
the Yurok of the North-West, who regard every possession and

every privilege as personal ; every injury and offence is against an

individual, not the community, and can be exactly valued in terms
of property ; hence every invasion of privilege or property and every
This was the idea behind
offence must be exactly compensated.
wife purchase, which was compensation to the kinsmen of the woman
for her loss.
There was no fixed price, for that depended on the
rank and wealth of the individual, and social status depended on the
amount paid. The higher the price, the higher the standing, not

only of husband and wife, but also of their children. Even when two
men traded sisters as wives the full amount of money must be paid,
as this (among the Yurok) was indispensable (Kroeber, 1925, pp.
For a wife from a wealthy family 10 strings seem to have
21-2).
been expected, perhaps one of them of
or 12 shells, together with
headbands of woodpecker scalps, an obsidian blade 1 and other
The average Shasta bride-price is 15 to 20 full-sized
treasures.
dentalium strings, 10 to 15 of clam disk strings, 20 to 30 woodpecker
scalps, with perhaps deer skins added (ib. p. 298).
Wergeld was calculated and negotiated in the same way. For
the killing of a (Yurok) man, 15 strings, obsidian, woodpecker
scalps and other property would be exacted, perhaps including a

daughter (ib. p. 28). Both marriage and wergeld were definite,

all property possessed a value
commercial, negotiated transactions
fixed by custom, or by previous changes of ownership, but negotiations were a cause of much dispute, each side claiming as much as
y

dared, and usually ending in compromise.

Among the Shasta injuries of all sorts, from loss of property and
petty theft, to murder and killing in avowed warfare, were settled
by payments. The blood-money payable for every individual was
exactly the same as the amount paid for his or her mother by her
'
'
husband, so bride-price and wergeld were easily computed.
Strings of dentalium shells were not the only form of money in
California.
They were predominant in the North-West, but the
it

Porno farther south and the

still

more southern Chumash, were

'

'

centres for the distribution of what are generally called clam disks
or hawock (ill. Schneider, PI. 14, Fig. 5). The Porno made them
1
Obsidian blades had standard values. Those of half a foot to a foot
were worth a dollar an inch ; a 2o-inch piece would be worth 50 dollars,
but a giant of 30 inches or over would be beyond price (Kroeber, 1925,
pp. 26-^7 and PI. 2).

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

297

grarilis, farther south they were made of

Dentalium and clam disks were used side by side over
much of California, but to the south, dentalium petered out and was
scarcely counted as money.
The large shells are found along the Coast

of Saxidomus aratus or

Pachydesma.

these were collected, broken up, ground approximately round on sandstone,

bored, strung and finished by being rolled on a slab. The value varied
according to the diameter of the disks, and the thickness of the shell, and
the degree of polish. The handling of a lifetime imparted a gloss unattainable in any other way, and was appreciated as fully by the natives as by any

ethnographic collector (Kroeber, 1925, pp. 248-9).

These strings were a popular form of ornament over much of the

West Coast area, penetrating inland on to the Plains. The disks
are found in early graves and prehistoric sites, which proves their
1
antiquity, though there is no evidence that they were used as money.
The value of the clam disks, which might be used singly or in
Among the Porno
strings, varied very much from tribe to tribe.
it seems to have been low, about i dollar a yard, or 2,\ dollars for
400 beads. Among the Wintun, inland from the Pomo, the beads
were counted, not measured, the largest being 5 to the dollar;
20 beads was the fee for each ceremonial initiation. Among the
Maidu, still farther inland, the largest beads nearly i inch across
were valued half a century ago at 4 to the dollar, smaller ones, less
than \ inch across, 5 to the dollar, down to smaller still at 20 to the
dollar.
Among the Chumash in the South the measurement was,
as is usual for Southern and Central California, by the circumference
of the hand, half the circumference being equal to a Spanish real
or American bit or eighth of a dollar (Kroeber, 1925, pp. 249,
359, 421, 565).
Ingersoll, writing in 1883 (p. 478), said that the shells were bored
with a flint-tipped bow drill, and were, 10 years earlier, still used
by the Indians as the equivalent of silver, the Pomo stone beads
being gold money '. When the metal drill was introduced the
value of the beads decreased.
Similar shell-disks were made also on the Atlantic Coast and
traded inland, being very popular as ornaments among the Iroquois.
These were made from Busycon perversum and other shells and,
like wampum, were used and imitated by traders.
*

'

'

Drake is believed to be referring to these strings when in 1579 he was

repairing the Golden Hind on the Californian Coast. He speaks of the
'
'
Chains (which he thought were of bone) worn as ornaments the Links
'
'
almost innumerable and says that the Links
being in one Chain
'
of these Chains were also hung on the feather baskets characteristic of the
Pomo. But the description of * chains ' and * links ' are more applicable
to the edge-to-edge dangles with tiny Haliotis pendants (which he also
admired) that still decorate the finest baskets.
'

PRIMITIVE

298

Olivella shells also counted as

little

MONEY
money

in California, but were

valued, and appear to have been more used for funeral

offerings

than as currency. The shells are fairly common along the coasts,
and, after rubbing off the tip, they were strung, like the dentalium,

mouth

to mouth, and called kol kol.

Among the Maidu, and
other inland tribes, the value was i dollar a yard (Kroeber, 1925,

pp. 421, 448).

More valuable than the shell-money
'
was the gold-money ' consisting of cylindrical stone beads, made by the Porno
and traded by them from tribe to tribe at
least as far as the mountain barrier of the
Sierra

Nevada

FIG. 131.

(PI. 29,

Abalone

top row).

(Hallotis) shell pendant,

California

FIG. 132.

Buttons, St.
John's River

These are cylindrical beads, from i to 3 inches in length of a variety of

magnesite found at White Buttes, near Cache Creek in the territory of the
South-Eastern Porno. These were ground down, perforated, baked and
polished. The heating changes the colour of the stone from a dull white or
streaked grey to a lustrous buff, salmon or red, often beautifully banded or
*
'
shaded. These cylinders, which the Indians often call their gold
as
'
*
compared to the more numerous silver disks of clam shell, were too
valuable to be sold by the string, and were negotiated for individually or
inserted like jewels as finishing pendants in lengths of the shell-beads.
The material seems quite similar to the meerschaum of our pipes (Kroeber,
P- 249).

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

299

These reached very high values inland, the Maidu estimating one
i -inch long at 5 dollars.
But their individual variability in size
and quality, and consequently in value, was too great to allow them
to be reckoned as ordinary money ', though they were too precious
to be properly classifiable as ornaments '.
They rank rather with
the obsidian blades * of North- Western California, as an equivalent
*

'

of precious stones

ourselves* (Kroeber, 1925, p. 825).

among

There are many other valued ornaments which are often called
money though it is difficult to establish their claim to the name.
Conspicuous among these are the long cylindrical white beads made
of the columella of a univalve or the hinge of a bivalve, used in
decoration both in California and on the Plains, as well as forming
the wampum sticks to the East.
Abalone (Haliotis) shell occupies the same intermediate position
*

'

between ornament and money it is primarily decoration, but as it

had a trading value it is included in collections of American currency.
The shells themselves were treasured on account of their iridescent
beauty, and the estimation may have been heightened by magical
concepts (cf. Jackson, 1917, p. xii). Whole shells were used in
barter and bits were cut out into rectangular shapes i inch to 2 inches
long and about half as broad, perforated and strung together with
dentalium shells, or shell-disks (PL 32 and Fig. 131) as necklaces or
ear pendants and stitched on to clothing. As hawock represented
each of the
silver, so ullo (uhl lo) or abalone represented gold
rectangular pieces was worth i dollar and a necklace of 10 pendants,
;

10 dollars (Stearns, 1869, p. 326

Schneider, 1905, PL 15, Fig. i).
These shells were traded all down the West Coast from Alaska
to Mexico.
Even at the end of last century the Indians of New
;

Mexico were as glad to receive shells as money in horse-dealing,

and 6 dollars or a good abalone shell was a fair price (Ingersoll,
1883, p. 479).

Buttons and thimbles were popular in trading with the Indians

as decorations, the buttons stitched on to clothing
and the thimbles as dangles on skin fringes. So strings of buttons
came to have a definite exchange value, and were passed from hand
to hand like wampum (Fig. 132) and bits of abalone and other shells
were rounded and perforated with holes in the centre in imitation
of European buttons (PL 29).
Scalps of the red-headed woodpecker have already been mentioned as items in the
and wergeld of Californian
bride-price
tribes and they were a form of currency among the Karok of the
Klamath River district (Fig. 133). They were valued according to
A large scalp was one in which
size, from a dollar to half a dollar.
the scarlet reached to the bill (though the bill was seldom left to

who wore them

'

'

'

21

See /., p. 296.

'

PRIMITIVE

3 oo

measure by)
of tobacco,

'

MONEY

this was worth a third-sized dentalium shell or a hatful

'
but the old men kept a small-sized hat for measuring

(Harrington, 1932, p. 162).

Shell-money was in use

all

down

West Coast from the Alaskan

to Southern California.

the

coasts

But there were

two

classes of objects which are usually

recognized as assuming the role of money

that are peculiar to the culture of the

North- West
the

the

'

'

coppers

(PL 30) and

'

property

celts

(Fig.

137).

The

former were associated with the coast

tribes,

the

Kwakiutl,

the

Haida, the

Tsimshian and the Tlinkit; the

with the Salish of the

latter

interior.

The coppers, consisting of beatenout sheets of conventional shape some

2 or 3 feet high, were more a sign of
wealth and position than a medium of
exchange, and they played an extraordinarily important part in tribal ceremonies. They were used for presentation

on occasions of great parade, for cementalliances, and for

bride-price
'

ing

'.

They might be exchanged

broken up and distributed
to

for slaves or
at a potlatch

show power and disregard of property.

They were displayed beside the dead or

nailed to the mortuary column of the
house.
per,

made of

native cop-

abundance in

this region,

Originally

found

in

they continued to be made of copper

obtained from the whites. They are
now rare, but some queer specimens

FIG. 133.

Woodpecker
California

scalp,

which find their way into store-rooms of

American museums suggest that recent
counterfeiting may have been profitable.
Boas (1895, pp. 344 ff.) whose account
of the potlatch has been quoted on

pp. 14-15, describes the coppers of the

Kwakiutl and the ceremony connected with their purchase or
presentation.

The upper part is called the face '. This part is covered with black lead
which a face, representing the crest animal of the owner, is graven. These
coppers have the same function which bank notes of high denomination
'

in

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

301

The

have with us.

actual value of the piece of copper is small but it

is made to represent a large number of blankets and can always be sold for
blankets, some of the more famous, which have been often sold, being rated
at six to seven thousand blankets.
Coppers are always sold to rivals
and often a man will offer his copper for sale to the rival tribe. If it is not
accepted it is an acknowledgement that nobody in the tribe has money
enough to buy it, and the name of the tribe or clan would consequently
.

lose in weight.

Boas describes (with

illustrations,

Pis.

6-10)

the

elaborate

ceremony of buying a copper, the piles of blankets, the rivalry and

the boasting. Each copper has a name 1 and the one whose sale is
described was Maxtsolem, meaning all other coppers are ashamed
to look at it*.
The price ultimately paid was 7,500 blankets.
With the blanket at 50 cents this would be 3,750 dollars or some
*

Rivalry between chiefs and clans finds its strongest expression

chief will burn blankets, or a
canoe or even break up a copper, thus indicating his disregard of
the amount of property destroyed, and showing that his mind is
If the latter is
stronger, his power greater than that of his rival.
not able to destroy an equal amount of property without much delay,
in the destruction of property.

name
The

his

'

is

broken

'.

'

origin of these coppers and of their peculiar form and

use is not known (Swanton, 1907, p. 346). The shape has sug'
gested a shield, and many writers describe them as shields or
shield-shaped ', a description which is not only tendentious, but
ambiguous, shields being of various shapes and, in America, mainly
circular.
Confirmation of the shield origin has been detected in
wood carvings of the North- West Coast. In the Provincial Museum,
Victoria, B.C., there is a carving showing the first man to bring
copper to the Indians. But as he is holding the object before him
in both hands it is less suggestive of a shield than of an offering.
On a house post now in the Museum of Natural History in New
York (Fig. 134) 3 there is the figure of a man with a copper, but the
unwarriorlike attitude in which he is clasping it to his body does
'

'

'

The

importance both of names and of coppers was pointed out by

in a MS. note.
The male name of highest rank among the Nass
River Indians is Wucinxpeltk, which means dividing copper into 10 pieces '
This may be compared
this being the indication of the chief's generosity.
*
with the old Scandinavian term of praise, Ring-breaker ', applied to a

Ridgeway

'

liberal
2

man.

Owing

to the reckless rivalry exhibited at the potlatch the celebration

was forbidden by the Canadian Government, and the owners of coppers

were invited to hand over their treasures and receive compensation. One
famous copper was valued at $20,000.
3
The drawing was kindly made by Miss Helen Cabot, Museum of
Natural History,

New

York.

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

its use as defensive armour.

explanation seems to be that as the
actual coppers that a man possessed were
placed on his grave to indicate his wealth
and position, so the same coppers, each one
of which would be known by name, were
carved in wood on his mortuary column or
on his ' totem pole '. Coppers of abnormal

not indicate

The

standing some 6 feet high, were placed

one on either side of mortuary columns or
totem poles
at Alert Bay, and figures
clasping similar but smaller coppers were
size,
'

'

carved on the columns.

There

the same uncertainty, though

literature, on the subject of the
miniature coppers (Fig. 135). They may
be small models of the larger coppers they
may be derived from the broken pieces
they may be the original type, the later
ones representing the enlargements ( Wucherformeri) characteristic of material wealth in
the other continents ; they may be money
is

far less

ornaments. These
diverse interpretations are not totally irre-

they

may be merely

concilable.

They

are classed

*
by Emmons
'

used
together with the larger coppers as
as medium of exchange before the coast was
visited by Europeans ', and some, though
this is rare, have the totem animal engraved
on them. But all are pierced at the upper
edge for suspension, and a Tlinkit one in
the Dresden Museum is described as a
forehead ornament worn in a dance, also
used as money.

Among copper quasi-currencies of the

North- West Coast must be included the
Nimkish

bangles illustrated
described by
(Fig.
136).
are
and
now in the
Temple (1899, p. 118)
Pitt Rivers Collection.
They were kept in
tens on sticks and used as wedding dower,
each married woman having hundreds of

(Kwakiutl)

These

FIG.

134.

Museum
History,

House
of

post,

Natural

New York

were

Several of his specimens ranging in height

from 2 inches to 8 inches (5-20 cm.) are in the

Museum

of Natural History,

New

York.

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

FIG. 135.

them.

Miniature copper, British Columbia.

303

(J size)

Nowadays they are still worn as ornaments, though silver is

and they have no currency value. They are the nearest

preferred,

'

'

approach to ring-money in the whole of the continent, and the

only link with that popular form which stretched from Asia to Ireland and continued in use as money from the Bronze Age in Europe
to Africa at the present day.

FIG. 136.

Copper Bangles, Vancouver

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

304

The

property

narrow

celts

'

chisel-like pieces of

are

very long
green stone

which rarely show any

The one illussigns of having been used.
trated (Fig. 137) is i6 inches (42 cm.) long
and i J inches (3-5 cm.) thick, of a deep green,
mottled and flaked in lighter green. 1 It was

jadeite or nephrite

obtained by Emmons from an old living site

at the mouth of Steen Creek, on the Eraser
River, some 8 miles above Lytton, British
Columbia, and the natives called it a war

implement.

Emmons

(1923,

26-7)

pp.

quotes the

him concerning these tools.

was not hafted as a common

information given

The

long celt

it seems that at least most of them were

not used as tools at all.
According to the
'
'
old Indians these long celts were property and
ones
were
for
value.
considerable
good
exchanged

adze,

and

The rock is found abundantly in boulders

brought down by the Eraser River and its
tributaries, but only for a stretch of about
30 miles above its junction with the
was the best material
coming
of the Europeans with iron, so it was as
precious and as widely traded as good flint
in Britain.
But it was even harder to work,
and these long celts must necessarily have
been rare. The high value, arid acceptance
as a medium of exchange, may be due to

Thompson

River.

It

available for native tools before the

'

'

their beauty or their rarity, but those who

are looking for alien influences along the
North-West Coast are struck by their
similarity to the pieces of Chinese jade of

the same shape which may have been tools

(unused) but were recognized badges of rank
and used for investiture and for presentations
FIG. 137.
Jade
pro(</ P- 2 33)perty celt ', British
Smaller pieces were made into the axes,
Columbia
adzes, chisels and knives characteristic of the
Eraser River territory and traded by the Salish as far as Vancouver
The coast tribes such as the Kwakiutl, Tsimshian, Haida
Island.
!*

Cf. the coloured illustration,

',
1923, PI. VI, Fig. a.

specimen

which

Emmons

describes as

'

a perfect

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

305

and Tlinkit were dependent on stone

tools, among which jade was

pre-eminent, for their house-building, their wood-carving, their
totem poles or mortuary posts and their canoes. Among the Tlinkit
the value of a jade axe-blade 2 or 3 inches (5-8 cm.) long was
from i to 3 slaves. When its owner used it his wife should refrain
from all frivolity, for should she be guilty of misconduct, and should
his blade break, the Tlinkit Adam threw the blame on his Eve

(Emmons,

1923, p. 18).

ii.

EASTERN MAIZE AREA

The eastern maize area is distinguished by the most familiar of

American currencies, the one which explorers and settlers themselves used and so introduced the word wampum into our language.
Wampum is the shortened form of wampumpeag, 1 the Algonquian
name for the purple and white tubular or cylindrical beads made
from Venus mercenaria and other shells. Strings of these were used
in ceremonial presentation, for fines and compensations (' bloodall

money

for peace-making after hostilities, for conveying messages,

ornaments and also as a medium of

')

for recording tribal history, as

exchange.
Unfortunately the early references to wampum are hopelessly
confused as the same names are used for the purple and white tubular
for the long white tubular beads
beads made of Venus mercenaria
made of the inner whorl of a conch shell (Strombus gigas and others,
PI. 29) which were a medium of exchange ; and for the strings of
disks of South-Sea type, 2 made of various (usually white) shells,
worn, as were all the shell-strings, as ornament. Few of the contemporary writers give sufficiently accurate descriptions and most of
them are second-hand. Much has been written since their time,
but there is still no clear agreement as to when or where wampum
was first made, whether it was a native industry before the coming
of the white-faces or the result of European contact, 3 or whether
any strings now in museums are of purely native manufacture.
;

'

'

1
Wampumpeag. -ag is the Algonquian plural ending, and the word is
not wampum peag, as mistakenly divided by the early writers, who made
peag into an abbreviation, and accepted it as a synonym for wampum.
Rpanoke is the name for white or inferior strings in Powhatan or Virginian
dialects, but the name did not come into such general use.
Wampum
became the general name for all kinds of shells and ultimately a synonym,

for

in general.
cy. p. 115..
The derivation of

money
3

and

wampum belts from France, via Brazil to Canada

and overland from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great
traced by Wiener, 1922, II, Chap. IV.

New York by

Lakes,

is

sea,

PRIMITIVE

3 o6

MONEY

Beverley, writing of Virginia (1705, III, pp. 58 ff.) says

The Indians had nothing which they reckoned Riches before the English
went among them, except Peak, Roenoke and suchlike trifles made out of
the Cunk shell. These past with them in stead of Gold and Silver and
It was the English alone that
serv'd them both for Money and Ornament.
taught them first to put a value on their Skins and Furs and to make a
Trade of them. Peak is of two sorts or rather of two colours, for both
are made of one shell, tho of different parts. One is a dark Purple Cylinder,
and the other a white. They are both made in size and figure alike, and
1
commonly much resembling the English Buglas, but not so transparent
nor so brittle. They are wrought as smooth as Glass, being one third of
an inch long and about a quarter, diameter, strung by a hole drill'd thro the
Centre. The dark colour is the dearest, and distinguished by the name of
Wampom Peak. The English men that are called Indian Traders value the
Wampom Peak at eighteen pence per yard, and the white Peak at nine

pence.

The quahaug

'

hard clam ', Venus mercenaria (PI. 31, at top)

white inside, but has a purple rim arid it is of this part that the
purple beads are made, which vary between a deep rich colour,
some are merely
almost black, the most valued, and pale violet
streaked with purple. The size of the beads varies from the shortest
(probably also the oldest) J inch (6 mm.) long to f inch (i cm.). Six
wampum beads were measured from the end of the thumbnail to
the first thumb joint. The white beads are often much longer than
the purple in the same string.
The shells are fairly common along the eastern coasts, especially
in the neighbourhood of Long Island, which was a centre for manuor

is

facture

and

distribution. 2

The contrast between the comparative rarity of the beads along

the Coast and their abundance inland suggests that wampum was
sent as tribute to the powerful Iroquois in Central New York and
Pennsylvania. The Narragansetts are associated with wampummaking, and it is probable that the tribe called la Porcelaine
(? Rhode Island) were given that name on account of their shell
industry, porcelaine being the usual French name, as porcelan
the Dutch, for both shell and beads (Farabee, 1922, Eckstorm, 1934).
The Narragansetts (said Ogilby, 1671, p. 151) are the most
*

'

numerous and

'

'

'

'

rich

being the Storehouse of all such kind of wild Merchandize as is among them.
These men are the most curious minters of their Wampompeage and
Mowhakes, which they form out of the inmost Wreaths of Periwinkle-shells.
The Northern, Eastern and Western Indians fetch all their Coyn from the
Southern Mint Masters.
1

Bugles, small tubular glass beads,

Indian name of Long Island was
corrupted by the Dutch into Sewanhacky
But cf. Wiener's derivation (1922,
1901).
2

i.e.

The

then fashionable in Europe.

Si-wan-aki or Land of Shells,
'
or Wampumland ' (Tooker,
Vol. II, p. 250).

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

307

He mentions the use of wampum in dowry, adding that a fathom

worth 7 or 8 shillings had to be paid to the Sagamore or King for
every marriage, and that it was also spent at funerals, being buried
with the dead (p. 154).
It has been assumed, though proofs are difficult to obtain, that
wampum beads were made by the Indians before the coming of the
whites, and that the industry was due to the same causes that produced the shell-money of Melanesia that is the need of dwellers
on small and comparatively barren islands to manufacture something
exchangeable for goods on the mainland. Disk beads are found in
ancient graves and other deposits and their antiquity is unquestioned.
But it is difficult to believe that the fine cylindrical beads could be
bored without a metal drill, for the diameter is rarely more than
;

\ inch (4-5 mm.). Roger Williams, writing in 1643, said that

before the Indians obtained awls from the Europeans, they made
shift to bore their shell-money with stones '.
The old catalogue of
the Sloane Collection in the British Museum has this entry which
'

relates to

1700 or 1702.

collar consisting of blue and white shells whereof four blue ones make
a penny and six white ones. They drill the holes with the point of a sharp
flint, and worle them round on a fine gritty stone (Bushnell, 1906).

Bushnell believes that some (though very few) of the bi-conical

beads now existing were drilled with flint, but it is possible that
metal was already available on the coast, along which ships and

had been adventuring since early

in the i6th century.

Society Catalogue (1681) recording the rarities preserved at Gresham College, describes Indian Money called wampum

traders

The Royal

'

peage

',

adding

Strings pass among the Indians, in their usual Commerse, as silver and
gold amongst us. But being loose is not so current. The meanest is in
Of which here is both the white and black. By measure,
single strings.
the former goes at five shillings the fathome the latter, at ten. By number
the former at six a penny ; the latter at three.
;

After mentioning the bracelets which

The

best

is

woven

ornament
noblest presents, and
their richest

come next in value,

it

continues

into girdles
.
these ... are sometimes worn as
but chiefly used in great payments, esteemed their
laid up as their treasure.
.

belts were a feature of the Iroquois and Algonand spread inland, as far as the Great Lakes (Sauk and
It was so
Fox). Wampum in beads or strings spread farther.
useful in trading for furs with the Indians in a country where all
commerce was by barter and coins were practically unknown that
it was given the status of
legal tender, the values being fixed by the

These

quian

wampum

tribes,

PRIMITIVE

3 o8

MONEY

colonists in each district, and varying from state to state and from
time to time.
This extensive use of wampum led to its manufacture by the
colonists as well as the Indians and to its progressive deterioration

and depreciation. The Dutch in the neighbourhood of New York

with the help of steel drills and lathes, provided strings for trading
along the Coast and inland, and in 1760 or 1770 J. W. Campbell
started his factory (Pascack, Bergen County, New Jersey), which
worked for a century. An expert could make 15 to 20 strings about
These were tied up in bundles and distributed
i foot long in a day.
to the traders.
European competition destroyed both the native
industry and the high value of wampum, and with the recession
of the fur trade, together with the Indians, the settling of the country
and the gradual incoming of coins, it ceased to have any currency
value.

iii.

CARIBOU-BISON AREA

Between the salmon and wild seeds area of the West Coast, and
the agricultural woodlands of the East, lie the vast stretches of
country occupied only by wandering
dent on the caribou and the bison.
Indians, as it was also of the colonists
To the north fur-trading was
day.

hunting tribes, mainly depen-

Barter was the custom of the

from 1580 down to the present
encouraged and developed in
response to commercial demands, and the beaver skin became the
unit and standard of value.
It was usually reckoned as worth about
2$., and it represented two marten skins, which were again divided
by skins of lesser value 20 beaver skins would buy a gun, nominally
worth 405. Moose skins were declared legal payment for debts in
1674, and an enactment five years earlier had feed wheat as legal
tender at 4 francs the minot or 3 French bushels (Chalmers, 1893,
When trading developed further, and barter proved inp. 175).
convenient, tobacco and wampum were used in dealings with the
:

Indians, until the Hudson Bay blanket, graded according to quality,

established itself as the standard of value.

The blanket was also the standard of value on the Plains, as the
gradual extermination of the bison and the pressure of emigration
But before the
disintegrated native resources and native culture.
of
there
had
the
white
man
been
extensive
coming
exchanges between
the Coast and the interior, for sea-shells are found far inland,
Clam-shell
increasing as usual in value the farther they went.
disks came in from the West, and wampum from the East.
Copper
from the Great Lakes is found in mounds and graves west of Ohio
and Mississippi valleys and as far south as Florida, though there is
no record of its use. Pipes of catlinite from the borders of Minnesota

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

and South Dakota have been found
Canada, and, though mainly used as

all

309

over the States and far into

ceremonial significance,

gifts with

certain trading value (see below).

Red ochre, for face1
In America, as in
painting, was a medium of exchange in Arizona.
Africa, European beads were brought over by early traders and ousted
the shell or stone beads of native make ; and to continue the com-

had a

parison, the part played by the length of calico in Africa is here

taken by the blanket, which served as a unit of currency, a standard
of value, and, in the mass, as a symbol of wealth.
Beads ', said Richardson (1861, p. 391) who explored the country
between the Mackenzie and the Coppermine in 1825-6,
are the riches of the Kutchin and also the medium of exchange throughout
the country lying between the Mackenzie and the West Coast, other articles
being valued by the number of strings of beads they can procure. No such
near approach to money has been invented by the nations residing to the
eastward of the Rocky Mountains, though their intercourse with the fur'

traders has given them a standard of value in

the beaver's skin.
.
To be accounted a
chief among the Kutchin a man must possess
beads to the amount, of 200 beavers. The
.

standard beads and the one of most value is

a large one of white enamel which is manufactured in Italy only and can with difficulty
be produced from thence in sufficient quantities.
Fancy beads, i.e. blue and red ones of various
sizes and the common white ones, are, however, in request for

ornamenting their dresses.

Dentalium and Arenicola shells are transmitted
from the West Coast in traffic and are greatly

FIG. 138.

Wapiti teeth,

North America

valued.

The beads were

strung in 7-foot lengths, which were joined

i foot, and the whole was called naki eik,
or bead clothing. Each string was worth one or more beaver skins
according to the value of the beads and the whole naki eik was equal
together at a distance of

to 24 (Swanton, 1907).
Farther south teeth could

ornament (PL 29 and Fig.

be used for currency as well as for

138).

This particular form of money [Balfour, 1890, p. 54] consists of the canine
eye teeth of the wapiti (Cervus canadensis) which goes by the name of
The canines are alone used, and of these there are
elk in those regions.
but two in each animal. They pass as currency among the Shoshone and
Bannock tribes of Idaho and Montana and probably, no doubt, other tribes
also, passing as a substitute for coin amongst the natives themselves and
not between natives and whites. They represent at present a value of
25 cents of American money but with the increasing scarcity of wapiti it
is reasonable to suppose that the value will rise, if these teeth retain their

or

'

'

'

'

function as currency.
1

Cf. Pitt Rivers

parallel in Australia,

Museum. This is worth recording on account of the

both possibly perpetuating a relic of Stone Age culture.

PRIMITIVE

3 io

MONEY

Elk teeth are conspicuous in the culture of the Crow of the

Yellowstone. The larger the number displayed, the greater indication of a man's prowess in hunting, his wealth and importance, so
they were strung in necklaces and stitched on to clothing and

A wealthy woman's dress might have 1,000 teeth on it.

possessions.
This would be too heavy for comfortable wear, but was suitable for
The teeth were used for purchases 100 would buy a good
parade.
horse.
The main purpose, however, was for presentation on marriage
for no Crow dared to think of marrying until he possessed enough
;

'

elk teeth to decorate his bride's best dress

'

(Mason, 1926, p. 398).

Imitation elk teeth were manufactured for trading with the
Indians, and, being rather larger than life size, were highly prized
until familiarity bred contempt.
They are still used as decorations

and are

still

stitched
'

on
'

The wapiti or elk

The horn was hollowed
dentalium

to dresses, but no longer used as money. 1

also provided the Indians with purses.

out and slit," and was used for storing

the bladder was dried and also used as a purse, for

These quills
storing porcupine quills.
tions of currency, for, being a popular

sometimes figure in collecform of decoration on the

Plains for belts, clothing, pouches and other possessions, they were
bartered from tribe to tribe, spreading far beyond the range of the
porcupine itself.
The bladder purse full of quills (a Sioux purse
PI. 31) was used in exchanges, and so
passed for

is illustrated

in

'

iv.

money

'.

AREA OF INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE

The area of intensive agriculture is the one in which money

would be expected to develop, and it seems surprising that the
advanced civilization of Mexico, with its organized government, its
armies, its established priesthood and educational system, its schools
(girls separate from boys), its remarkable skill in architecture and
metallurgy, with advanced methods of smelting and casting copper,
silver and gold, yet had no better money than cocoa beans.
Yet if one reviews the many queer forms of primitive money,
cocoa beans are seen to be superior to many of them. The beans
and convenient to handle as cowries, and as easy to
count
and though not as durable, they more than compensate for
that deficiency by their food value.
In early times they were rare
are as pleasant
;

importations from the south, and were extorted as tribute from

conquered states, thus establishing a currency value. And they
1

'

Caribou teeth also had a certain trading value, and, mounted as moneyOne from Alaska in the Chase Coin
', were accepted as trading units.
Collection contains 134 teeth.
belts

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

3 11

suffered 'the fate of all popular currencies at the hands of counterfeiters.

Certain dishonest persons used to bore holes in the kernels
'

through which they extracted the contents, filling the hollowed kernel
up once more with earth/ They were also imitated in clay, disguised with a coating of varnish. The beans were used as currency
all over Central America.
Indeed, one early writer, not a cleric,
tells us that in Nicaragua a lady's favours could be had at the price
of 8 cocoa beans (J. Thompson, 1933, p. 67). The use of cocoa
bean currency persisted in Nicaragua down to 1875 and has survived
into the present century in some of the remoter parts of Southern
Mexico and Guatemala.
The scarcity of primitive money in Mexico, as in the rest of the
'

'

area of intensive agriculture,

FIG.

139.

partly explained by the universal

is

Copper

axe

',

Mexico.

(J size)

system of slavery, for the slave, male or female, constituted the

wealth of the owner, and provided a standard, if not a unit, of value.
In slave-owning as in cattle-owning communities, there may be need
for smaller change, but only as subdivisions of real wealth.
The
Aztec
unit
was
a
sack
monetary
highest
containing approximately
24,000 cocoa beans, so the subdivisions were ample. When coins
were introduced later, 8,000 went to the xiqui, a coin of varying values,
current in Mexico and Yucatan down to the i7th century.

Brown

(1937, p. 149) states that

pieces of cotton cloth served as a medium of exchange, and these were a little
bit more valuable than cocoa beans.
For extremely expensive purchases
tiny nuggets or flakes of gold packed in perfectly transparent

duck

were used for money.

Such

quills

may be

seen in the

Knox

Collection, Buffalo.

quills

PRIMITIVE

3 i2

MONEY

The existence of a token currency in Mexico in the form of

axes (Fig. 139) may be compared to the existence of axe-currencies
of the Bronze Age in Europe, both in the amount of speculation
involved, and the absence of conclusive evidence. Ridgeway's notes
prepared for the 2nd edition of his Origin of Currency may be quoted
here
'

The

Aztecs of Mexico were using axes of a well-known type at the time

of the Spanish Conquest. These axes have a shank that varies in length,
sometimes short, sometimes long. This flat shank widens out into a broad
crescent-shaped blade. The shank is flat, but has each edge flanged especiThese axes are often very thin and light and seem illally near the blade.
adapted for work. Hence it has been commonly held that they were used
for money.
It has been said that if they were merely monetary tokens the
flanges would not have been put on, but experience shows that in the transition from the real implements of everyday life to mere models to be used as
tokens, primitive peoples are very careful to reproduce the characteristics of
the original. However, the small copper axe from Mitla [Fig. 140] shows that
the Aztecs had certainly employed miniature axes fashioned exactly like the
need not treat with
axes of real life, flanges and all complete.
incredulity the statement of the Indians
that these axes were used as money, for
it is beyond doubt that everywhere the
axe is one of the most prized forms of
money in early primitive communities.
It is also quite possible that for a long
time after the Spanish Conquest and
the introduction of iron tools, the old
copper axes, when discarded for pracMiniature copper axe ',
FIG. 140.
tical purp oses, may have continued in
Mexico
uge as currency^ as did wampum in the
New England States and as at the present moment the stone axes of New Guinea, these being still highly valued
as a medium of exchange although the English steel axe has displaced them
.

We

'

from

practical

life.

A considerable
or

'

'

hoe-money

have been

'

'

amount has been written about the axe-money

of Mexico, the earliest American coins as they

called.

They were

'

frequently

referred

to

by

early

Spanish writers, and Pradeau (1934) summarizes the most important

document written in 1548 by Tenorio, a Spaniard, resident in
Oaxaca, then part of New Spain.
This is the form of copper coins that were in use in New Spain. The
value placed and at which they were commonly accepted, was of 4 such
If worn, many refused to accept
pieces, if new, for 5 Spanish reales.
them and then they were sold to be melted down and remade into coin at
10 pieces for our Spanish real.

These copper objects are found in tombs in large numbers.

They are so common in some parts, that a farmer growing sugar cane
found a sufficient quantity to make the cylinder of his sugar mill of
them. Pradeau says that an explorer in the neighbourhood of

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

313

Mount* Alban, near Oaxaca, found an urn containing more than

a hundred of these pieces which, he was told, were brought into
Oaxaca in great numbers
Maximilian's reign.

He

to

be melted down for bullets during

them hide-scrapers, and added

called

While this scraper-money is not coinage in the true sense of the word,
undoubtedly represented personal wealth, and being valuable, durable
and portable, it stood in lieu of money among the Mixtec, Toltec and Zapotec
tribes and was passed from hand to hand and buried with their dead.
It undoubtedly deserves a place in all collections of ancient money (Pradeau,
it

1934, P- 88).

These debatable objects have been identified as tools for varying

purposes, as ornaments to be worn on the head, and also as religious

FIG. 141.

Copper 'axe

Peru

symbols, besides being claimed as money. Pradeau's own opinion

that they were pottery implements, tajaderas, of varying sizes,
used to mould the revolving mass of clay. The Zapotecs, not having
money, used any article that had any practical or ornamental value
as a medium of exchange.
He notes that no historian made any
reference to this so-called axe- or hoe-money being in circulation
before 1548, that is, 25 years after the Conquest, and
years after
the establishment of the first mint in New Spain.
is

am

inclined [he says] to think that the scarcity of coins of small

denominations with which to carry on the meagre commercial transactions

between the newly-rich Spaniards and the impoverished natives was responsible for the introduction of the tajaderas as medium of exchange (Pradeau,
1934, P- 89).

PRIMITIVE

MONEY

These objects are included in most, if not all collections of

currency in the Old World, as in the New, but it is in the latter that
special information is sought, and the varying labels are significant.

The Knox

Collection in Buffalo accepts not only these, but many

'
other tools, as
Money of the Aztecs in Ancient
'

Fig. 26) ; Washington is more

*
cautious, with the label,
T-shaped object probably
used as a medium of exchange ; and the Heye

Mexico (Mosher, 1926,

'

Foundation

Museum

is

more cautious

'

still,

imple-

ment of copper, taw-shaped, perhaps intended for use

as money '.
Farther south, and off the main trading routes in
Central as in South America, money has little appeal
to the natives, who live by barter, without any medium
of exchange. The trader ih Nicaragua may exchange
handfuls of salt, or even empty food tins, for gold dust
balls of rubber may be accounted a medium of exchange
in the Amazon region, and accepted as fines or tithes,
and tobacco approaches more nearly to a currency
but south of Mexico, money (properly so described)
;

cannot be said to exist.

Some thin axe-heads
*

'

of copper or bronze (Fig.

the enigmatic taw-shaped pieces of
Mexico have been found in considerable numbers in
Peru, in association with Inca burials, and it is possible that they have the same dubious claim to be
better claim can be made
classed with currency.
for coca, which is mentioned in all descriptions of
141) similar to

primitive

As

money

in

South America.

early as 1675 Rice

Coins wrote

Vaughan

in his Discourse of

In Aethiopia they use certain stones of Salt instead of

in Ginney, Shells, in New-Spain, Cacao, Coca in
Peru, of one which is a fruit, the other an hearb (p. 6).

Money,
F

Subsequent writers have repeated the statement without

adding to the information.
string," Gran
Chaco
The lack of any conception of money value in the
vast hoards of Inca gold seems as strange to us as it
It was all dedicated to
did to the Spaniards four centuries ago.
religious service and neither external trade nor money were included
in the strictly regulated state.
So although coca leaves, so highly
prized and so widely distributed, and traded beyond the regions
where they could be grown, were bartered and paid as tribute, they
have small claim to inclusion in collections of primitive money.

S'

I4

'i

S h'ir

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

3x5

There are a few claimants from farther south. The Pitt Rivers
Collection includes a hank of dyed wool from the Gran Chaco (ill.,
Ling Roth, 1908, Fig. 2, I, p. 9), and a long string of snail-shell
(Bulimus) disks from the same region, a part of which (the whole
is

16 feet long)

seen in Fig. 142.*

is,

Geographically British Honduras should have been parenthetically

inserted between Mexico and Peru, and it must not be omitted, for
the logwood that served the colonists for currency down to 1784
is an instructive example of primitive
money.
'

In this colony the local standard of value, within little over a

century from the present time [says Chalmers, 1893, p. 139] has in
succession been mahogany, the gold doubloon, the British shilling,
the fractional parts of dollars, and lastly the Guatemalan dollar '.
The determining motive in each case has been acceptability ' ;
popular agreement being the dominant factor in colonial procedure.
The very first law of the first popular Convention in 1765, and the
first article in the law provided that
whoever shall be found guilty
of profane cursing and swearing shall
forfeit and pay for every
such offence the sum of 2s. 6d. Jamaica currency or the same value
in merchantable unchipped logwood '.
Later (1766) it was provided
that all debts contracted in the Bay of Honduras shall be payable
in logwood, unless there shall be a special agreement made between
the parties in writing to the contrary '. And penalties of
5 /.
logwood currency and 50 /. Bay currency show that the terms
'

'

'

'

'

'

'

were used indiscriminately.

In 1784 it was resolved that the established price of mahogany
that all wood under 15 inches shall be
shall be 15 /. per 1,000 feet
deemed unmerchantable, and not admitted in payment for debts
that the established price of logwood shall be 6 /. per ton for chipped
and 4 /. per ton for unchipped logwood and that such price shall
'

continue in force until the ist of June, 1785 '. At the same time
the Colony was put on a metallic basis by the resolution that all
business in future shall be kept and transacted in Jamaica currency ',
the doubloon (16 dollars), the dollar (6$. 8d.), and the variable
'

'maccaroni* (Chalmers, 1893, p. 140).

In Africa and Melanesia, where local currencies once flourished,
tobacco has assisted at their extinction, and whether this may be
regarded as a reversion to barter, or whether tobacco should be
included in primitive money, it is not easy to decide.
In the New World tobacco was almost universally cultivated
within

its

climatic limits

and traded

far

beyond them, from Hudson

'

'

Strings of pierced disks strung in the usual South Sea fashion and
looking like pele (p. 156) are worn as ornaments in Chile but there is no
suggestion of any use as money.

22

PRIMITIVE

316

MONEY

Bay in the North to Gran Chaco in the South, and no account of

the early money of America would be complete without some
mention of its use.
Chalmers in his general survey of colonial currency, records how
in the West Indies and the Plantations on the mainland of America,
'
which were so closely linked together in colonial history, the early
insufficiency of metallic currency led to the monetary use of tobacco,
'

'

corn, wampum, sugar, rum, cotton wool,

molasses, ginger, indigo, skins &c.'.

mahogany [logwood],

In Virginia tobacco was money, and one of the first laws passed
General Assembly of the colony was an act (1618) fixing its
the
by
It was declared a currency, and the treasurer of the colony
price.
was directed to accept it at a valuation. It was rated at 35. per pound
for the best quality and not more or less, on the penalty of three
.
years servitude to the colony '.
Curious, adds Chalmers, as a detail in the history of prices is
the statement from Holmes' American Annals quoted in Hankey's
History of Banking in America that the hundred and fifty young and
uncorrupt girls imported into Virginia in 1620 and 1621 as wives
for the colonists were rated originally at 100 pounds of tobacco
(15), but subsequently at the increased rate of 150 pounds (22 ios.).
'

'

'

The Rev. Mr. Weems, a Virginian, wrote, it would have done a man's
heart good to see the gallant young Virginians hastening to the waterside
when a vessel arrived from London, each carrying a bundle of the best
tobacco under his arm and taking back with him a beautiful and virtuous
young wife (Chalmers, 1893, P- 6/.).

They must have been

stalwart, as well as gallant, to hasten with

a roll of tobacco weighing 100 to 150 pounds under the arm.

So important was tobacco to the colonists that in 1642 a law was
passed making it the sole currency. Contracts payable in money

were forbidden.
But the act had an unexpected effect. Anyone could grow the weed,
and soon ministers, clerks, laborers, carpenters and others were cultivating
money in their own backyards. For a time everything went smoothly
tobacco had a ready sale and the price was fixed. Unrestricted production
however brought about overproduction and the purchasing power of tobacco
began to diminish, until by 1665 it had fallen to two cents a pound. A
1

'

business depression settled over the colonies.

Many persons signed
government to forbid planting of tobacco for one year.
These requests were not granted. The people then took matters into their
own hands and went about the country destroying crops and tobacco plants.
The unruly element became at length so strong that it threatened to undermine the government, so in 1684 a law was passed adjudging as traitors any
group to the number of eight or more persons who should go about destroying tobacco plants. The penalty was death (Mosher, 1936, pp. 62-3).
.

petitions asking the

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

3'7

Ogilby, writing in 1671, says

the general trade of Maryland
depends chiefly on Tobacco,
the Planters greatest concern and study to store
himself betimes with this Commodity, wherewith he
buys and sells and after which Standard, all other
Commodities receive their price there (p. 188).
.

it

being

;f,j

Even as
Maryland
Tobacco

Money

late

is

as

it

1705

could be said of

Meat, Drink, Cloathing and

their

that they have both Spanish and

pretty plenty, which serves only for

Not but

English Money
Pocket-Expences and not for Trade, Tobacco being
the Standard of that as well with the Planters and
others as with the Merchants (Oldmixon, quoted by
Chalmers, 1893, p. 5).
'

Wherever the trader has been he has left

tobacco and vice behind him is as true of the
New World as of the Old, though it is popularly
believed that, in North America, tobacco was
there first. 1 Ritual smoking is of such importance in native ceremony that pipes which were
'

largely

used in presentations are sometimes

included in objects used as currency.

The pipes were made of wood, horn, bone,
clay or stone, the most highly valued being those
of steatite (soapstone) or of catlinite (pipestone), the latter only obtained from the quarries
of Dakota and Minnesota (McGuire, 1897).
Pipes were used for presentation and for native
barter in Northern Canada among tribes such
as the Bungay and the Cree of Northern Manitoba
they were also media of exchange (Fig.
143).
They were equally important in the East.
Ogilby (167 1, p. 151) refers to large stone pipes
made by the Indians of New Netherlands imitating the English pipes so well that, save for
the difference in material it were hard to disThese were bartered by the
tinguish them '.
;

'

Indians for trade goods and European pipes were

articles for exchange.
Specimens of
of
i7th-and iSth-century shapes,
early clay pipes
FIG.
together with trade beads, bits of pottery, combs,
thimbles, &c., are seen in the collection of articles
traded to the Indians in the Peabody Museum at

popular

Cf. Wiener, Vol. II, Part II.

143.

New

Cree pipe

Haven.

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

318

V.

WEST INDIES

added here of the money substitutes

in the West Indies, where the inconthe
colonists
adopted by
early
veniences of barter necessitated the selection of some commodity
desired by all, which was given a legal though fluctuating value.
This primitive money differs from that of native development
'
heretofore discussed, for coins (reals and
pieces of eight ') were
already in existence, so the colonists had a nominal standard of value,
but the coins themselves were so scarce that their task was to find
brief review should be

'

some

It is instructive to compare
practical everyday substitute.
their efforts and the results with those of less civilized peoples.

Chalmers (1893) from whose book much of the preceding and

of the following information is drawn, says

all

The three centuries of colonial currency have exhibited the phenomena,

singly or in combination, of barter, monometallism (gold, silver and even
copper), bimetallism, and paper currency of all grades of imperfection ;
there are few experiments in currency which that history does not record
and no blunders of which it does not indicate the punishment : the general
lesson which it enforces is that the ukases of governments are futile when
opposed to trade relations and the natural trend of commerce (pp. v-vi).

The list of substitutes starts with cotton and tobacco, and the
use of the latter has already been discussed in the Plantations on
the mainland.
It was equally important in the islands
up to 1640
in Barbados, up to 1670 in the Leeward Islands, and still later in the
;

Bermudas.

The town officers were paid in tobacco, and so were the tradesmen, who occasionally objected
:

in tobacco housewives reckoned their marketings, and tenants paid their

rents, and with tobacco fines, eked out with lashings, the Government battled
against the social irregularities of the islanders (p. 151).

In the Bermudas in 1670

'

was ordered that tobacco in all cases

be the payment [for accommodation of persons at the assizes] and
not to be 'refused for current payment and in 1698
it

'

shall and may go and pass Current

pay and fully satisfie all Debts ... at the Rate and Current
Value of Three Pence per Pound (p. 152).

that

all

tobacco being merchantable

Payment

to

After the middle of the I7th century tobacco was supplanted by

sugar in most of the islands. Oldmixon (1741) wrote
:

As to the product of the country [Nevis] and its trade, what has been
said of Barbados, Antego and the other Charibbee Islands will also serve
for this.
Sugar is the staple commodity here as well as there, and serves
for all the uses of money.
For all the trade of the island is managed by

AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES

319

sugar. Pounds of sugar and not pounds of sterling is the balance of all
their accounts
and exchanging that commodity for others did the
inhabitants' business as well as if they had silver (Chalmers, 1893, p. 63 fn.).
;

In Barbados wages, fees and fines were computed, if not paid,

Muscovado or brown sugar, rated at los. for too pounds, the
Merchants
rating being raised and lowered by Act of Assembly.
bartered the goods they imported for sugar, cotton and ginger, and
often complained that the islanders had no money but brown sugar '.
The Act (? 1645) concerning morning and evening prayer in families
in

'

provided that whosoever shall swear or curse, if a master or freeman he shall forfeit for every such offence 4 pounds of sugar if a
servant, 2 pounds of sugar '.
In the Leeward Islands tobacco was the earliest currency.
One
thousand pound of good Marchantable tobacco in Role was the fine
for commerce with the heathen in Antigua in 1644, and a like fine
was imposed by a Montserrat Act of 1668 for Sabbath-Breaking by
unlawful gaming, immoderate and uncivil drinking or any other
;

'

'

'

prophane and illicious Labours of the Week-days, as digging,

houghing (hoeing), baking, crabbing, shooting and such like indecent
Actions '. In 1691 the Governor wrote that trade was almost wholly
by way of Truck, there was very little money and it was not the
standard of trade, the merchants keeping all their books and accounts
in sugar, and calculating all their debts in the same.
An able preaching Minister was maintained by 14,000 pounds
of sugar a year, or the value thereof in Tobacco, cotton wool or
Indigo and such Minister could not demand more than 100 pounds
'

'

of sugar for solemnizing a marriage.

In 1700 an Act was passed that money might be tendered instead
of goods, at the rate of I2s. 6d. for 100 pounds of Muscovado, 2s.
for i pound of Indigo, gd. for i pound of ginned cotton, and \\d.
for i pound of tobacco or ginger.
Nevertheless, through the i8th
continued
to
used
be
as currency, and to be legal
century sugar
tender for debts. In Antigua in 1756 taxes were to be paid onethird in coin, and two-thirds in
good Marchantable Muscovado
late
as
as
still be
could
Sugar ;
1779 sugar
paid as a fine for not
of
and in
the
full
white
servants
quota
keeping
required by law
1784, on St. Kitts, it was permitted to pay taxes in cash, sugar or
rum, at the option of the person or persons liable to pay the same.
Even in Jamaica, which, as the head-quarters of the military
and naval forces as well as of the buccaneers, abounded in coins,
notably the Spanish pieces of eight ', sugar was legal tender by
Act of 1751 'where both parties agree for payment in sugar and
other produce of this island '.
It may be argued that these colonial currencies are barter, and
not money and have no place in this discussion. It must be admitted
'

'

'

PRIMITIVE

3 2o

MONEY

that, to confine ourselves to the main commodities, tobacco and sugar,

these are deficient in those qualities conventionally demanded of
money. They are not sufficiently durable^ as both deteriorate with
age.
They are not conveniently portable and although both are
divisible,

yet

dispute as to

their

occasioned continually recurring

marchantable '. All these disabilities were,

recognition

what was

however, outweighed by the possession of the most important

Tobacco and sugar were univerquality of all, that of acceptability.
sally accepted in taxes, in wages, in rent, in fees, in fines, in legacies
and in dowries. If this is not money it is something behaving
as such, and so comes within our definition in the opening chapter.
'

'

SUMMARY
WRITERS

on the origin of the use of money often start with a

consideration of barter and its inconveniences.
From c silent trade
(a primitive though abnormal form of barter) they trace the evolution
of trading and money side by side, relying mainly on literary evidence
'

for probing into the past.

This study relies mainly on the tangible evidence of the actual

types of primitive money or money-substitutes used by unrisen
people and others all over the world, and is concerned with the
*

'

purposes, when discoverable, for which they were used. The evidence suggests that barter in its usual sense of exchange of commodities was not the main factor in the evolution of money. The

commonly exchanged in barter do not develop naturally into

money and the more important objects used as money seldom appear
objects

Moreover, the inconveniences of barter

in ordinary everyday barter.

do not disturb simple

complexities

of

societies.

uncivilized

The

attitudes

variety of material

towards

and the

money preclude

generalizations, but the evidence appears to support the following

line of

argument.
In the beginning Man lived in self-supporting and self-contained
groups. Except in an area where provisions are unlimited, a society

depending on hunting and food-gathering for its subsistence is

and has no truck with its neighbours.
in
the way of present-giving, and were exwere
Early exchanges
of
with
no ulterior economic purpose, although
pressions
friendship
the latter an expectation of an adequate or even improved return
cannot be excluded from human dealings. Present-giving or giftexchange, seen in simple forms in the Andamansf, Torres Straits or
necessarily unsociable

New Zealand, may develop

'

'

into elaborate ceremonial as in Fiji or the

North-West of America, but remain distinct from trading with money.

Barter develops between areas of contrasted produce, such as
We see the barter
coastal and inland, forested and open country.
of fish or shells for vegetables, game for bananas, &c., in Melanesia
or the Congo, and the establishment of regular markets. Trading
voyages such as those of Torres Straits and New Guinea take us a
But so
stage further by the introduction of conventional presents.
far there is no need for any medium of exchange such as is commonly
described as money.
This is the state of affairs over about half the world at the present
Barter suffices for most of the natives of Australia, New
day.
Zealand and the islands of the Pacific, and for the less-advanced
peoples of Africa, Asia and the Americas, where native economy is
not upset by the trader and the missionary.
321

PRIMITIVE

322

The

use of a conventional

medium
'

'

MONEY
of exchange, originally

'

full-

'

bodied but developing into token money, is first noted in the

almost universal customs of 'bride-price* and wergeld. When
sister-exchange is not practicable, some other value must be substituted
where life for life is not demanded, some equivalent must
be found. The history of bride-price and wergeld (which has
yet to be written) shows how formal the customary gifts become,
It is not without significance that
fitted to definite scales of value.
in any collection of primitive currency the majority of the items are
described as used in bride-price '.
When once a system of conventional gifts or payments with a
definite scale of values has been established (and this is necessary
for
bride-price and for wergeld) the first steps are taken in the
;

'

'

'

'

'

It develops thereafter in response to human

evolution of money.
needs into the accepted medium of exchange. Nutzgeld still remains
Nutzgeld. Cattle may constitute wealth and form a standard of

They cannot, strictly speaking, be called money. Money

be generally acceptable, needs more convenient material and finds

value.

to

',

the four essential qualities (portable, divisible, durable, recognizable)

in shells, beads or metals.
Two further qualities have been shown

be necessary, one geographical and one more difficult to define.

objects that come to be used as money are mainly non-local,
or if local are the product of a special area or a special class
and
they have prestige or essential virtue, religious or magical. Cowries
and beads, most universal of all forms of primitive money, have
magical as well as monetary value and still hold their own over a
large part of the world, though everywhere disappearing now with
the advent of the trader and trade tobacco. Metals best illustrate
the transition from full-bodied to token- money.
The spears
and hoes of Africa, the knives and spades of China, and the spits

to

The

'

'

of Argos are familiar examples.

The tools may become amorphous
and valued according to their weight in metal, or survive as attenuated imitations of their former selves. Metal, whether gold, silver,
copper, iron or tin, is everywhere useful and everywhere valued,
and estimated by size, shape or weight. Ingots are preliminary

stepping-stones to coins. Ingots, as lumps or bars, develop in

response to local needs or whims in special forms, such as manillas,
Katanga crosses and Kissi pennies, Malay hats and Siamese bullets,
'
or our own currency bars and ring-money '.

To

backward, the next step appears obvious and

was
inevitable,
only in rare spots (possibly only in one rare
spot) in the Old World that the final stage was reached, and definite
weights of metal, rounded, flattened and stamped, can be called
coins.
Here the study of primitive money comes to an end.
us, looking

but

it

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'

Pituri

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',

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Penetration of

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1929-32.

INDEX OF AUTHORS
Acharya, G. V., and R. G. Gyani, 190
J. Y., 43 77., 283
Alexander, B., 54
Allan, J., 190, 195
Anderson, J., 210
Andersson, J. G., 225, 227, 241
Andree, R., 38, 43, 149
Ankermann, B., 93
Annevoie, D. M., de M. d', 79, 80
Arkell, A. J., 95
Armstrong, W. E., xi, 183-6
Arnot, F. S., 77
Aymonier, E., 212, 213, 215, 218

Chalfant, F. H., 221, 236, 238, 23971.,

Akerman,

24O 77.
Chalmers, R., 191 7f., 2zz, 24271., 308,
314, 316-19
Chamberlain, W. H., 250
Chase, S., 3, 4
Cheeseman, E., zz7 ., 167
Chinnery, E. W. P., Z33, 157

Babelon, E., 21, 215, 28471.

Balfour, H., ix w., 309
Barbot, J., 30, 31, 37, 38, 41, 57, 59, 63,

74 n., 89, 91
Barret, W., 195
Bartels, M., 41, 107
Barth, H., 6 w., 32, 33, 53 n. t 58, 84,
94

77.,

06

77.

Culwick, A. T., and G. M., 98

Gumming, R. G., 93
Cunningham, A., 191, 215 77.

Barton, R. F., 265

Basden, G. T., 82, 83, 89
Bastian, A., 214
Battell, A., 50, 54, 79-80
Batuta, Ibn, 29 ., 31, 53
Beasley, H. G., zz8 n. t 135, 136
Beck, H. C., 42, 43, 261
Benedict, R., 15, 18
Bentley, W. H., 6, 64 w., 77
Bcvcrley, R., 306
Binger, L. G., 84, 106 n.
Bishop, H. R., 233, 241
n.
Blackwpod, B., 24, 129
Boas, F., 14, 300, 301
Bosnian, W., 30, 91
Bowdich, J., 37, 60, 90
Brelsford, W. V., 75, 103

Dakers, C. H., 253, 254, 257

Danks, B., 150 77., 151 n. 154
t

Dapper, O. M., 46, 57, 80

Dasent, G. W., 265
De*chelette, J., 38, 272, 275 77., 276
Denham, D., and H. Clapperton, 33
Driberg, J. H., xi, 2, 100 77.
Dundas, C., 9

Dupuy, W.

Evans,

15077., 151, 153

Bucknill, J., 195 w., 267

Biihler, A., 117, 159

Bureau, P., 277

Burger, F., 152
Burns, A. R., 5
Burton, R. F., 104
and V. L. Cameron, 32, 91
Bushnell, D. L, 307

Cameron, V. L., 6, 32, 78

Cardinall, A. W., 39
Carne", L. de, 210, 213-14
Chadwick, H. M., 281 n., 285, 287

A., 133

Earthy, E. D., 92, 105

Eckstorm, F. H., 306
Elton, F., 117
Emmons, J. T., 302, 304, 305
Enriquez, C. M. D., 208
Evans, I. H. N., 258, 268

Brent, J., 43
Brewster, A. B., 129
Brown, F. M., 311

Brown, G., no, in,

Christian, F. W., 43, 143 n., 147

Churchill, J., 30, 31, 63, 74 n. 9 91
Codrington, O., 197
Codrington, R. H., 116, 129, 132, 134,
135, 154 w., 163-7
Coffey, G., 89 77., 287 n.
Cole, F. C., 260, 264
Colle, le R. R., 2
Conti, N. de', 192, 266
Cook, A. B., xi, 275, 276
Coombe, F., 154/1.
Coote, W., 123, 126, 132
Cotton, Powell, 55, 96, 106
Cowan, A. C., 89

n.

J.,

288

Fabri, C. L., 190

Farabee, W. C., 306
Felkin, R. W., 96, 97
Ferrand, G., 214, 222, 230, 266, 267
Finsch, O., 118, 121, 126, 130 77., Z3& 77.,
Z40, 141, 143, 148, 151 77., 152, Z55,
157, 18477.
Firth, R., 7, zz,.i3, 14, no, 134
Fischer, H. W., 266
Fitzgerald, C. P., 248
Fleming, P., 223, 231
Fouche", L., 94

335

PRIMITIVE

336

Fox, C., 289 n. 290

Foy, W., 150 n.
Furness, W. H., 9, 139, 146, 147, 261
t

Gardner, G. B., 42 n.
W., 223
Goddard, P. E., 295
Goodwin, A. L. H., 107
Gouldsbury, C., and H. Sheane, 59
Graham, A. W., 216
Granet, M., 19
Grant, J. A., 31, 97, 99, 101
Grenfell, see Johnston

Keate, G., 120

Gill,

Grierson, P.

W.

H.,

Kimble, G. H. T., 37 ., 89
Kingsley, M., u, 12, 39, 50, 61, 71-2
Kirk, J., 50
Kloss, C. B., 200 n.
Knowles, L. C. A., 5
Knowles, W. H., 216 n.
Knox, R., 196

Haddon, A.

C., vii-viii, xi, 16, 17, 107,

80, 182, 183
Halliday, W. M., 14/1.
Hamilton, A., 55, 210 n. t 251, 259
1

Hamilton, W., 193

Hanitsch, R., 257
Harrington, J. P., 300
Harvey, G. E., 210, 218 n.
Hasluck, M., 277
Hawkes, C. F. C., 281
Hawkes, W., 90
Hedley, C. H., 143
Heine-Geldern, R. V. von,
137 -, 139, '45, 150 w-

125

Hopkins, L. C., 232, 236

Hose, C., 257, 258

and W. McDougall, 260, 261, 263

Hose, E. C., 54
Humphreys, C. B., 168
Hunter, W. W., 207
Hurry, J. B., 69
Hutchinson, M., 46, 102
Hutton, J. H., 193, 198, 199, 201-3, 206
Huyser, J. G., 268
Ingersoll, E., 295, 297,

W.

299

G., 163

Jackson, J. W., 26, 27

., 28, 29 n., 34,

299
Jobson, R., 59, 83-4
Johnston, H. H., 50, 51, 56, 57 n., 60,
63*., 66, 67, 71,74, 76, 91
Johnstone, J. H., and J. B. Cleland,

36,

224

io8ff.

n.,

Saussaye, L. de, 284

Lacouperie, A. T. de, 20 n., 224-45
Landtman, G., 12 it., 16, 181
Lane-Poole, S., 226
Laufer, B., 233
Laum, B., 3, 276, 283 w., 284 n.
Layard, J. W., xi, 126, 133
Lewis, A. B., 114, 118, 122, 140, 150 n.
155-8, 161, 163, 170, 172, 174, 175
Lindblom, G. K. f 107
Ling Roth, H., 5, 85 n. t 89 n. t 109 .,
130 w., 133, 210 w., 211, 214 w., 219,
248*1., 258, 260, 315
Livingstone, D., 50
Lockhart, J. H. S., 226, 227, 229, 236,
237, 239 w., 240 n. 242 ., 243, 246
Loehr, A., 195 M., 218, 266, 267
Loir, H., 57
Lugard, F. J. D., 47 n.
t

n..

Hodson, T. C., 201, 204

Honjo, E., 251
Hopkins, A. I., 126-8

Ivens,

Kubary, J. S., 42/1., 120, 137, 143,

144 ft., 145, 148, 149

11471.,

Hilton-Simpson, M. W., 53 n., 58

Hobhouse, L. T., 22
Hobley, C. W., 55 ., 58 H., 98, 99
w.,

Kovalensky, M., 277

Krause, F., 140
Kroeber, A. L., 294-9

La

Hemsworth, H. D., 107

Herberstein, S. von, 188
Herbert, T., 195, 257
Hill-Tout, C., 14

100, 101
Hocart, A. M., 123

MONEY
Jones, N., 64 n.
Joyce, P. W., 288
Junker, W., 31
Junod, H. A., 104

McCarthy, F. D., 109,

118, 123, 128,

133

McGuire, J. D., 317

Maes, J., 34, 60, 68, 81, 102
and O. Boone, 61 w., 63 n.
Mahieu, A., 22, 26, 34, 47 ., 48-50,

53,
54, 56, 57 n>, 58, 62-6, 74-8, 80, 81,
82 n., 102, 106, 281 w., 283 n.
Malinowski, B., 4 n., 18, 120
Marshall, H. I., 208, 209

Marshall,

J.

H., 190

Mason, J. A., 310

Maspero, G., 94
Masudi, A. ul, 28
Mattingly, H., 274 n.
and E. S. G. Robinson, 274 n.
May, R. le, xi, 198, 211, 214-19, 248 n.

Mead, M., 15, 175-7

Meek, C. K., 32, 85
Meinicke, K. E., 144, 168
Merensky, M., 41
Millies, H. C., 266, 267
Mills, J. P., 203, 204 n.

n.

INDEX OF AUTHORS
Minns, J. H., xi, 284
Montandon, G., vii, 12, 20

TI.,

27

78 n.
Morga, da, A., 263, 264
Morse, H. B., 221, 227
Monteiro,

Mosher,

S.,

21

195

218

TI.,

TI.,

TI.,

46

J. J.,

TI.,

73,

233

TI.,

Moubray, J. M.,
Mouhot, H., 213

80

ft.,

in

H.,

288, 314, 316

Mtiller-Wismar, 144, 147

Munro, N. G., 249

n.

170
Nieuwenhuis, A. W., 149
Norden, H., 53 n. 9 79
Northcote, G. A. S., 100
Nott, S. C., 233 n.
H.,

Ogilby, J., 40, 47 TI., 59, 192, 196, 306,

317
O'Riley, E., 206, 209
Overbergh, C., and de Jonghe, 77

Pacheco Pereira, D., 37, 89

Palgrave, W. G., 197
Parkinson, R., 122, 123, 128, 130,
15071., 153, 157, 161
Parry, N. E., 207
Petri, H., 3, 114, 120, 123, 12671.,
13871., 139, 140, 143 7i., 144,
147, 149, 15071., 156, 158, 161,

167

TI.,

168

TI.,

TI.,

232-4, 236, 238, 239 TI., 240 TI., 242

Schmeltz, J. D. E., and J. P. B. de J.
de Jong, 63 TI., 64, 65, 70 TI., 71, 74,
76, 80 TI., 87, 97
Schneider, O., 27 TI., 32, 33, 35, 47, 49,
50, 114, 121, 123, 138, 139 w, 140,
141, 143, 144, 150-2, 155-8, 161,
162, 166, 167, 172, 214, 224, 225,
249, 293 n., 296, 299
Schoff, W. H., 43

Nachtigal, G., 68

Nadel, S. F., 32 n.
Nalder, L. F., 97
Nevermann, H., 127

337

Salviac, P. M. de, 55, 95 n.

Sarazin, F., 125, 169-71
Sarfert, H., 130, 142 TI., 147, 148
Schlosser, R., 225, 226, 228, 230, 231

140,

128,
145,
163,

172

Schroder, 281 TI.

Schurtz, H., vii, 20, 27 TI., 40, 51, 1 14 n.
Schweinfurth, G., 96
Scott, J. G., and J. P. Hardiman, 202
Seligman, C. G., 9, 18, 121, 125, 126,
172-4, 179, 180
Seltman, C. T., xi, 21, 231 TI., 271-2,
282, 283
Shaw, W., 203 TI.
Sherwin, H., 155
Skeat, W. W., xi, 198, 252-4, 256,
261 TI.
and C. O. Blagden, 252
Smith, E. W., and A. M. Dale, 103
Smith, H. S., 64
Smith, R., 289
Speiser, F., 118, 131, 133, 136, 164 .,
167, 168 TI.
Stack, E., 202
Stanners, W. E. H., 109
Stearns, R. E. C., 27 TI., 150

TI.,

294, 299

Steel, E. H., 202

Stephan, E., 150 TI.
Stuhlmann, F., 101

Pickering, C., 35
Polo, Marco, 29, 192, 220-1, 248-9

Pope-Hennessy, U., 232

Pradeau, A. F., 312, 313

Swanton, J. R., 292, 293, 301, 309

Swayne, J. C., xi, 258
Sydenham, E. A., 274 TI.

Prasad, D., 190, 191 n.

Purchas, S., 55
Pyrard de Laval, F., 28, 196

Takizawa, M., 251

Radcliffe-Brown, A. R.,
Ratzel, F., 33, 95, 120
Read, C. H., 36
Reeve, L., 27 TI., 193
Richardson, J., 309
Richie, J., 168

8, 13, 198,

Ridgeway, W.,

199

vii, x, 42, 71 TI., 95,

187-8, 19371., 21 1 TI., 212, 221 TI.,
274, 276-9, 284, 285 71., 287, 288 71.,
301 71., 312
Rivers, W. H. R., 113, 116 TI., 123, 130,

164, 165

Robertson, H. A., 167

Rockhill,

W. W.,

222

Romilly, H. H., 150 n.

Roscher, W., 54 n.
Roscoe, J., 31 TI., 98, 100
Ross, W., 35, 178
Rydh,'H., 209 n.

Talbot, P. A., 32, 82, 85

Tavernier, J. B., 189, 192, 193, 197,
198, 252

Temple, R.

C., vii, i, 20, 41, 42, 52,

71 TI., 96, 97, 192, 200, 202, 203, 210,

211, 219, 252, 253, 255-7, 302
Tessmann, G., 71 TI., 72
Thilenius, G., vii, 3, 20, 70, 74, 96, 144,
147, 155,27571., 284 TI.
Thomas, E. S., 70 TI., 71

Thomas, N. W., 88
Thompson, J., 311
Thomson, B., 16, no
Thurnwald, R., 24 TI., 162
Tooker, W. W., 306 TI.
Torday, E., 11,58,69,76
and T. A. Joyce, 34, 47, 48, 53,
54, 60, 63 TI., 64, 65, 68, 69, 79,
81

PRIMITIVE
Vaughan, R., 314
Viljoen, S., 178
Vissering, W., 229, 230

Wahlstedt, A., 285

Walker, C. H., 55

n.

Weeks, J. H., 76, 77, 80 n.

Westermarck, E., 7
Whitehead, G., 199-201
Whitehead, R. B., xi, 191
Whitelock, D., 287

MONEY

Widranges, de, 276 n.

Wiener, L., 27 n., 30, 41 n.
266*1., 305 n. 306 n. 317
Wild, R. P., 39 ., 40, 60 n.
Williams, R., 307
Winstedt, R. O., 252, 253, 257
Wirz, P., 35
Wissler, C., 292
t

46

n. t

Withers, H., 12
Woodford, C. M., 117, 118, 162, 163

INDEX OF SUBJECTS
Abalone

(Haliotis), 293, 294, 297 n.,

299, PI- 32 and Fig. 131
Abyssinia, salt, 54-5, Fig. 8 ; gold
rings, 94, Fig. 28 ;. iron, 95 n. ;
coins, 1 06
Achatina, 49, 118 w.
Admiralty Islands, 116, 117, 133, 155,
159, 161

Acs formatum, 274, Fig. 119; grave,

230, 274, Fig. 121 ; rude, 274, 281,
Fig. 1 20 ; signatum, 274, Fig. 120
Africa, Ch. V; cowries, 25 ff., 29-34,
58; East, 45, Sow., 92^.; North,
46, 92^. ; South, 92, 107 ; West,

61-92
'

Bagi, 18, 172, 173, PI. 13

Bali,

266

Banana

seeds, 100, 173, Fig. 37

Banks' Islands, HI, 116, 118, 135, 164-6
Barbados, 318, 319
Barkcloth (tapa), 15, in, 134
Africa,
Barter, i, 12, 21, 24, 319, 321
5i, 54, 61-2, 80, 82, 93, 94, 97 J
America, 307, 308, 314, 315, 317 ;
Borneo,
Annam, 213
257 ff. ;
Britain, 286, 289 ; China, 220, 238,
Iceland, 284 ;
Europe, 277
244
India and Further India, 189, 192,
201, 207
Malay PeninJapan, 251
Melanesia, 159, 168 ;
sula, 252
Micronesia, 148 ;
Nicobars, 199 ;
;

Aggry beads

',

see

Beads

Alaska, 195 n., 292, 299, 300

Almonds, 192

Ch. IX; axes, 312 ff.;

302-3
beads, 43, 293,
cocoa beans,
305 ff., 309

America,

6,

bangles,

297 ff.,

310-11;

292,
301 ff.\
gift-ex193 ;
change,
14, 15, 321 ; ochre, 19972.;
'
celts
', 304
property
shells, 293 ff.,

coppers,

26

cowries,

n.,

36,

3Sff-t

309-10

teeth,

woodpecker

299-300

scalps,

Andamans,

the, 13, 22, 23, 198-9, 321

Angola, 31, 46, 49, 57

Annam,

119, 138, 187, 198, 206, 209,

212, 213, 224 ft., 290

Ant-coins ',218
'Ants' noses' money', 225, 226, 231,
Fig- 93
Arabia, 8, 197
Arabs, 45 ; beads, 38, 40, 41, 43, 102,
in
28 ff.,
102
cowries,
105
'

West Indies, 293, 318-20

Baskets, see Mats
Beads, 36-44. 322 ; Africa, 59~6i, 99,
101 ff., 104, 105, 107, PI. 3 Fig. 2 ;
'
aggry ', 36^., 60, 61, 149, 261,
Figs. 2, 3, and Frontispiece, Figs.
6-8 ;
America, 43, 293, 297^.,
305 ff-, 309, PL 29; 'boiled', 37,
60 ; Borneo, 42, 258, 260-3, PI. 24 ;
brass, 59, Fig. 9; Britain, 37, 43,
Further
261, 286 ;
copper, 59 ;
India, 202 ; India, 190 ; Japan, 249,
PI. 22 ; Java, 267 ;
La Tene, 38,
261 ; Malay Peninsula, 252 ; MelaMicronesia,
137;
nesia,
16472.;
New Caledonia, 171-2, PI. 17 ;
Pelews, 42, 148-9 ; stone, 42, 59,
148, 293, 298, Fig. 10

98, 99, 101

Arangit, 114, 157, 158, PI. 13 Fig. 2

Bechuanaland, 93
Beeswax, 5, 258, 259
Beetle-legs, 130, Colour plate opp. p. 184
Bell-coins ', China, 231, 232, 234,
Fig. 95

Arrows, 164

Bells,

Uganda,

Asia, Ch. VII ;

bars, 198-201

201-11
220-49
Japan,

251-7
263-5

;
;

Andamans and NicoAssam and Burma,

Borneo, 257-63
China,
Dutch E. Indies, 26670
249-51 ; Malay Peninsula,
Minor, 271
Philippines,
Siam and Indo-China, 212-

Belts,

107,

Fig.

18

shell,

34

.,

50,

n8w.,

16411.,

307, PI. 3 Fig. 5

Bermuda, 318
Beroan (biruan), 24, 161,

PI.

10 Figs.

3,4

19
187, 201 ff., 206
Australia, 6, 7, 23, 108, in, 199 n.
Axes and axe-heads, Africa, 634, 712,
89, 204, Fig. 1 6 ; America, 304-5,
312 ff., 314, Figs. 140, 141 ; Europe,
213, 275-6, Figs. 1 1 8, 123 ; Melanesia, 18, 19, 117, 155, 172 ff. t 178-9 ;
Philippines, 265

Assam,

74-5,

Fig. 2

Africa,

Borneo, 257, 258, 261, Fig. 115;

Further India, 206, 207, PI. 19

Bismarck

Archipelago, cowries, 35 ;
diwarra, 115 ff., 149 ff. ; dogs' teeth,
127 ; pele, 156
Blankets, 14, 19, 265, 292, 301, 308
Boars' tusks, see Teeth
Borneo, 187, 257-63 ; beads, 42, 115/1.,
149 ; cowries, 29, 34 ; gift-exchange,
9
gongs, 206 ; kris, 257

339

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

34
Bornu, 6

Ch'ing, 229

'

'

., 23 n., 33, 54, 56, 59, 84, 85

Bougainville, 23-4, 161-2
Bracelets ', Siamese, 216, 217, PI. 20

Figs. 5-7

Brass rods, 76-7, 87, 94, PI. 2 Fig. 2

47

Brazil,
'

',
4, jff., 12, 291, 322 ;
Africa, 32, 49, 50, 54, 56, 58, 64, 78,
79, 84, 85, 92, 93, 97-8, 99~ioo, 104,
105, 107; America, 15, 292, 296,
300, 307, 308, 310 ; Assam, 203, 204 ;
Borneo, 257, 258, 263 ;
Burma,
206 ff., 209; Europe, 277, 281, 285,
287 ; Melanesia, 17, 23, 24, 113, 117,
n8w., 121, 125 ff., 132, 135, 136,
r
151, 152, 159, 160, i62jg ., 167, 168,
i?3, 176-7, 179, 183, 185 ; Micronesia, 144, 146, 147 ; Nicobars, 199 ;
Philippines, 264, 265 ; Siam, 215,

Bride-price

Sumatra, 266
286 jff.
beads, 37, 39, 43
291 ;
currency bars, 258,
288 Jf., Figs. 127, 128 ; rings, 19,
285, 288, 289, PI. 28 Fig. i, and
Fig. 126
British Honduras, 315
Bronze Age, 76, 80, 89, 91, 229, 271,
272, 275, 276, 280, 281, 286, 289

219

Britain,
coins,

5-9

Burma,

187, 201

ff.,

206, 207, 209-11,

255

Bushmen,

the, 45, 100, 107

Buttons, 299, Fig. 132

Cambay, beads, 40, 41, 44, 101, 149

Cambodia, 213-15, 221 n. 268
Camphor, 258
Cannon, 257, 258, 261, Fig. 116
Canoe-money 215, 218, PI. 21 Figs.
t

'

',

1-4

252, 280
Cash-trees, 256 n.
Cattle, 322 ; Africa, 8, 9, 31, 45, 92-3,
96^., 101, 104, 125 ; Asia, 187-9,
199, 202 ff., 207, 212, 257 jff., 264-5,
267 ; Europe, 272, 277, 283, 286 ;
India, 8 ; Melanesia, 1256 ; Scandinavia, 8

Celebes, 267
Ceylon, 29, 189, 194, 196
pacifica,

288

',

3^ffCoix seeds, 136

n.

Communism, 22, no,

Conch shell, 202-4

113

61-81
axes, 51, 58,
Congo,
70 beads, 59, 60 ; bells, 74-5, Fig.
2, 6, 22,

18 ; cloth, 56^. ; cowries, 26, 33,

hoes, 74 ; knives, 68 jff.,
34, 48 ;
Figs. 14 and 15 ; olives, 46, 47 ; salt,
snailshclls, 48, 49 ;
spears,
53 ;
and 12
63 ff'* Figs,
Conus, Africa, 50, 103, Fig. 7 ; Melanesia, 1 8, 116, 120, 121, 125, 157,
161, 169, 172, 175, 180-2, Figs. 73,
74, and 77
Copper, Africa, 62, 75^., 93, 101, 103,

America, 15, 280, 292, 300-2,

30 and Figs. 134 and 135 ;
Britain, 289
China, 229
crosses,
6, 77 ff., 103, 107, 272, PI. i Fig. 3
and Figs. 38 and 118 ; Europe, 272,
India, 190, 192 ; Japan, 250
274
Persian Gulf, 196-7
Coral, black, 168
red, 223
Cowries, 6, 25-36, 322, Fig. i
Africa,
46^., 62, 93, 94, 99, 101-4, 107;
Annam, 138
Borneo, 258, 259 ;
China, 224 jff., 242,
Ceylon, 196
Europe, 29, 278 ; Fiji, 26,
243, 245
no, in, PI. 5 ; Further India, 202,
India, igiff.;
209, 211
Japan,
249 ; Malay Peninsula, 252 Oceania,
112, 168, 174, 177, i?8, Fig. 75;
Siam, 214 '
Crabs' eyes (Abrus precatorius), 26,
83, 91 n., 179, 191, 211, 252 n.
Crete, 272, 275, 279
Crocodiles ', 254 j(f., 257 n., 261 n.,
PI. 23, and Fig. 116
Cups and plates, 260
Currency bars ', 63, 258 n., 283,
288 .#"., 322, Figs. 127 and 128
107

PI.

Cheetems

',

China, 23 w., 187, 220-49

coins,
225 jff.
cowries, 25, 26, 29, 224 ff.,
243-5
rings, 119
;

'

88, PI. 2 Fig. 3

Chile, 315 n.

'

138, 140, 157, 160-2,

172
'

Coal-money

Coca, 293, 314

Cock, Malay, 255, 256, Fig. in
Cocoa beans, 263, 293, 310-11, 314
Coconuts, i, 192, 198 ff., 221 w.
shell,
140, 157
Coins, Annam, 213 ;
Assam, 201 ;
Britain, 291
China, 228-48 evolution, 290, 322 ; Greece, 271, 275,
282, 283 ; India, 189, 190
Japan,
Melanesia, 117, 129, 183 ;
250-1
punch-marked, 190, 201, 290 ; Siam,
214 ; Sweden, 285 ; West Indies,

Caroline Islands, 118, 119, 130, 137

Cartridges, 107
Cash, Chinese, 227 ff., 240 #, 245-6,

Chama

Cloth, Africa, 46, 51, 55-9, 62, 94, 96,

97, 101, 102 ; America, 311 ; Celebes,
267 ; Iceland, 284 ; Melanesia, 130 ;
Micronesia, 141 ; Mongolia, 223
'

Buffalo, see Cattle

'
Bullets ', Siamese, 215^., PI. 21 Figs.

231-3, Colour .plate opp.

w.,

p. 184, and Fig. 94

Clam disks ', see Hawock

INDEX OF SUBJECTS
'

Currency bowls
Cyprus, 272, 275
29, 278

',
;

206, 208
beads, 42

Gongs, Africa, 74-5

;

Further

Czechoslovakia, beads, 36, 42, 44

117;

Daos

212, PI. 19 Fig.

Philippines, 263-5

(dahs), 200, 203, 204, 213, 240,

'

Ham-money

',

Nimes, 284

//.

Hat-money ', 253,

and Fig. no

254, PI. 23 Fig.

i,

Hawaii, 34, 35

Hoes, Africa, 74, 93, 95 jf., 101, 104,

88, 272,

278

beads, 41

and Fig. 17
Annam,
212, 213; China, 228, 22971., 230,
Matiipur, 204
236-8, 244, Fig. 98
Holed stones, 60, 61, 91, 144, 190, 280,
PI. 3 Fig. 3
Hottentots, 45, 107
PI. i Fig. i,

Electrum, 272
Elephant hair, So
Ellice Islands, 137, 142
Eskimo, the, 7, 22, 23

Iceland, 284-5
India, 187, 189-98
beads, 41, 42,
*
261 ;
bride-price and wcrgeld, 8 ;
coins, 190-1 ;
cowries, 25, 28-9 ;
rings, 190, 279
Indo-China, 187, 212^.
Indus Valley, 29 ., 190, 193, 278

joff., Fig. 16
Feather-money, 119, 131, 135, PI. 9
Fernando Po, 50, 118 n.
;
Fiji, 140 ; cowries, 26, 35 n., no,
soleviiy 15, 16, 321 ;
tanibua, no,

axes

Hawock, 293, 296-7, 299

Heads, 202, 263, 265, 266
Hiaqua (allikochik) 294, Fig. 129

cowries, 28, 29

'

202-4, 2o6j(f.
Java, 267

Hashshash, 95, Fig. 29

Easter Island, 34

Fan

Dutch

Grivna, 281, PI. 26 Fig. 3

*

Drums, see Gongs

Dutch East Indies, 266-70

India,.

and Fig.

Gran Chaco, 315

Figs. 84 and 85
Darfur, 94, 95
Dentalium, 199, 293 #, 309, 310, PI. 32
and Figs. 129 and 130
Diwarra (tambu), 114, 115, 139, 149-55,
PI. 10 Fig. i and Fig. 55
Double-axe, 272, 275, 276, Figs. 118 (d)
and 122

Egypt, 93-4,

Borneo, 257, 258,

260, 261 ; China, 232, 233

East Indies, z6jff. PI. 25

cowries,

',

'

in

129-30
Fish-hooks, 143, 195 n. y Fig. 54 ; see
also Larins
'
Fish-money *, China, 233 n. ; Olbia,
283-4, PI. 28 Fig. 2
'
Flying fox fur, 125, 134, 168^., 170,
171, 172, Figs. 55 and 56
France, 276

Ingot torques

'

Gambars, 253 jff., PI. 23 Fig. 2

Gau, 1 1 8, 138, 141
Ghost's head money ', 225,

231,

Fig. 93

Gift-exchange, nff. America, 14-15 ;

Asia, 199, 203, 204, 206
Australia,
109; Fiji, no, 129-30; Melanesia,
16-19, 23, 24, 134, 135, 168, 178 ;
Micronesia, 137, 147, 148, 173-4;
New Zealand, 13-14
Polynesia, 109
Gilbert Islands, 126, 137, 139, 140
Gold, America, 311, 314; China, 223,
246; Egypt, 93, 94, 96, 278, 279;
Greece, 271, 272, 276, 279, 282 ;
Ireland, 286 ff. ;
India, 190, 192
Japan, 250, 251 ; Mozambique, 105,
;

281

'

',

Ingots, 281, 322 ; Africa, 63, 76, 79,

93 9S *03, 105, 107 ; Annam, 212,
215, Fig. 87 ; Britain, 63, 288-9 ;
China, 213, 223, 246 Egypt, 93, 272 ;
Europe, 272^., 278, 281, Figs. 118
and 120; Further India, 198, 201,
209, 210, 213 ; gold, 221, 223, 246,
267 ; Greece, 282-4 ; Iceland, 285 ;
India, 189, 195, 197, PI. 19 Fig. i ;
Java, 267 ;
Japan, 250 ;
Malay,
252 ff-> PL
23 Fig. i ; Siam, 214, 215 ;
*
'
see also

currency bars

Ireland, 8, 279, 286-8

Iron, Africa, 46, 51-2, 62 ff., 93, 95^-,
101, 107, 112 ; Borneo, 258 ; Britain,
288 ; China, 220 ; Greece, 282, 283 ;
India, 192 ; Malay Peninsula, 257
;

Northmen's,
283
Torres Straits, 182
Italy, 271, 279
Ivory, 98 ff., Fig. 36

Siam,

213

Fig.

40;

rings,

19,

94,

Fig.

28;

Tibet, 221
beads, 36^., 60, 61
coins, 1 06 ;
cowries, 31, 32, 91
gold dust, 91 ; holed stones, 60, 61

89

304-5

Gold Coast,

manillas,

Jade, China, 229, 233, 241, 279 ., 304

New Zealand, 13 ; North America,

salt,

84

;
;

Japan, 23

.,

34, 41, 149, 224, 249-51,

279
Jars, 212, 257-60, 263-5,

267

Java, 195 n., 257, 261, 267, 268

PRIMITIVE

342
*

Katanga crosses ', see Copper crosses

Kenya, 8, 50, 98, 101
Kettles, 212, 265, 276
'
Key-coins ', 222, 231, 232, 234-5,
Fig. 96
Kissi pennies ', 87, 322, PL i Fig. 1 1
Knives, China, 228, 229 w., 230, 238 j(f.,
244, Figs. 99 and 100 ; Congo, 68 ff.,
PI. i Figs. 15-19 and Figs. 14, 15 ;
4

Naga, 204 see also Daos

Kokonon, 114, 157, 158
Kol kol, 298
Kop hop, 294
Kordofan, 95
;

MONEY
137 ; Nicobars, 201
Philippines,
265
Polynesia, 109 Siam, 212 ff.
Sumatra, 266 ; West Indies, 318-20
Mongolia, 189, 222, 223, 277
Mulberries, 192
;

Museums

Australian, 123 n., 128,

xii, 74, 12071., 123,

12911; Berlin,
143 n., 147, 148

British, xi, 36, 37,

;
60, 697*., 71, 7771., 88, 91, 95, 96,
118, 120, 130 7i., 136, 210 7i., 225 7i.,
236, 255 7i., 256, 274, 307 ; Chase
Collection,
York, 21971., 292,

New

310 ft. ; Dresden, 120 w., 141 w., 302

Dorsten
Collection,
Westphalia,
Field,
Dublin, 287
234, 242
Chicago, 122, 158
Goteborg, 285

Kris, 257, 258, 267, Fig. 112

La Tene,

38, 261, 289

Larins, 93, 192, 194 ff., 267, 290, Fig. 81
*

Leaf-money ', Siam, 218, Fig. 88

Leather money, 188, 248 n.
Leaves, silver, 219, Fig. 90
Liberia, 87, 92

Logwood (mahogany),
'

Lotus-root coins

',

315, 316

see

key-coins

Hamburg,

in n.,
Heye Foundation, New
70,

xii,

74,

104,

142, 143 n.
Horniman, London,
York, 314;
104 7i., 134/1., 17071.; Knox Collection, Buffalo, 21 7i., 80 7i., 1 1 1, 292,
311, 314; Leiden, 266, 268, 270;
Natural History, New York, 301,
302 n.
Peabody, New Haven, 317
Pitt Rivers, Oxford, xi, 21, 27 w., 61,
12871., 136 w., 164,
7*
95, 9 6
;

Loyalties, the, 119, 134, 168, 172

Magic,

3, 25, 36, 51,

120, 168, 190, 234,

260, 264, 291, 322

42, 187, 251-7, 290,

Malay Peninsula,

322
Malays, 143 n., 149, 252
Maldives, the, 28, 194, 196

Marshall Islands, 133, 137, 140, 143

Mats, basketry and plaitwork, Africa,
57^., PI. 2 Fig. 6; Borneo, 258,
16
PI. 24 and Fig. 113;
Fiji,
Melanesia, 119, 130 jf?., 135, PI. 8;
Samoa, in
Micronesia, 137, 147-8
Melanesia, 35, 108, 111-36, 149-86
Mesopotamia, 272, 278, 280
Metallic cowries ', 225-8, 283, Fig. 93
Mexico, 279 n., 293, 299, 310-12
Micronesia, 108, in, 112, 115, n8ff.,
129, 130, 137-49, 223 n.
Minkata, 80
Mitako, 64, 76, 77, 94, 195, 280, 281 .,
PI. 2 Fig. i

Africa, 46, 52, 76, Ch.

Asia, 198, 201, 204, 206,
Australia, 108-9;
207, 210, 211 ;
Borneo, 257 ; China, 224 ff. ; defini-

Money,

1-4 ; Europe, 271 ff. evolution,

i2j!f., 22 ff., 271 ff., 290-1, 321-2;
Further India, 201, 203, 207, zogff.,
r
2i3j6
Japan, 251
Melanesia, 117,
119, Ch. VI passim;
Micronesia,
',

Maria Theresa dollars, 46, 82 n., 105-7

Mariannes (Ladrones), 144, 145

tion,

N. Rhodesia, xii, 75, 104

Royal Scottish, Edinburgh, 168 w.,
Victoria,
Stockholm, 285
197
Vienna, xii, 80, 155, 157,
B.C., 301
Washington, 314 Wii195 w., 266
berforce House Collection, Hull, 314
stone,
;

Manillas, 6, 78, 8gff., 195, 280, 281,

288, PI. i Fig. 14 and Fig. 26
Maori, 13, 23
Mapungubwe, copper currency, 94

passim

19971., 206, 210, 211, 25371., 267,

Rhodes-Living302, 30971., 315;

Nassa, 18, 115, 138, 139, 150, 155, 172,

J 75, Figs. 69 and 70
Nephrite, see Jade

m,

New

Britain,
144, 149-57

New

Caledonia,

126, 127, 130/7., 134,

115,

119,

125,

134,

168-72
New Guinea, axe-blades, 147 cord,
134; cowries, 35, 175, 176, 178;
feathers,
135
peace-making, 9,
J 73~4 ;
shell120,
rings,
172;
;

money,

115, 116, 138, 14071., 172 ff. ;

trade, n, 1271., 17 ff., 109, 112, 120,
127, 321 ; tusks, 126
Hebrides, 117, 119; cowries, 35,
168 ; mats, 131-2, 135, 167; rings,
shell-money,
125,
167-8 ;
167 ;
tusks, 126
Ireland, 115, 118, 120, 127, 128,
138, 151, 155, 156-9
Zealand, 13, 34, in, 321

New

New
New

Nicaragua, 311, 314

Nicobar Islands, 22, 198, 199-200
Nigeria, 45, 81-9
bangles, 85, Fig. 21
brass rods, 87
beads, 59, 60
coins,
81-3, 106
cowries, 26, 29 n., 32, 33,
82-3 iron, 82, 85, 87, 88, Figs. 23
;

INDEX OF SUBJECTS
and 24

manillas, 89 ff. ; salt, 82,

83, 85, Fig. 20
Nissan, 120, 121, 128, 141
Nutzgeld, 3, 14, 20, 56, 69, 143, 322
Nyasaland, 98, 102

Obsidian, 296, 299

Ochre, 108, 109, 199/1., 309

Ogoja pennies ', 87, PI. i Fig. 10
Olive shells (oliva, olivelld), 17, 26

.,

46-7, 112, 180, 293, 298, Figs. 4

and 78
Osmunds, 283
Ostrich egg shell, 100, 107, Fig. 36
1

Pearl shell, Micronesia, 141

New

Caledonia, 170

PI.

jff.,

Guinea,
Torres
18, 175, 178^., Fig. 76;
Straits, 17, 183, Fig. 76
Pele, 114, 150, 155, 156, PI. 13
1 1 8,
130; beads, 42, 148-9;
coconut strings, 140
pearl shell,
143, 144; rings, 120; shell-money,
137,
144;
stone-money,
144^.,
;

147

n.

Peru, 23

n.,

293,

194^.

3H

Pestles and mortars, 146-7, PI.

Philippines, beads, 261 ; cowries, 29,
34, 263 ; gongs, 206
Phoenicians, 39, 42, 43, 149, 286
'Pig-money', 115, 158-9, 163, PI. 13
Fig. 4 and PI. 15
Pigs, 93 w. 1 1 7, 1 25-6, 1 32, 1 67, 1 99, 264
Pigs' mouth money ', 214 w., 219,
PI. 21 Fig. 12
Pipes, 308-9, 317, Fig- U3
Pituri, 1 08, 109
Plate-money, 285, PL 26 Figs, i, 2
,

260

Plates,

w.

Porcupine

Rubber, 314
Rupees, 99, 100, 101, 192, 194, 198,
201, 203, 211, 223
Russia, 1 88, 281, 290

Saddle-money

211, 246-8, Fig. 109

',

Sakania, 95, Fig. 30

Salt, Africa, 46, 47, 51-5, 62, 67, 97,

101, 103, 106, Figs. 8, 20 ; Borneo,

China, 220, 221; Fiji, 15,
16 ;
Further India, 202 ; India, 192
Samakupa, 118, 172 ff., PL 14
Sammelringe, 280, 281 w., PL 28 Fig. i
Samoa, up, 134, 152
San Matthias (Musau Island), 130-1, 148
Santa Cruz Islands, 116, 118, 119, 130,
131, 164; feather-money, 135-6
Sapi sapi, i, 19, 114, 115, 138, 157,
172, 179, Frontispiece Figs, i, 2
Sardinia, 272
Scandinavia, 8, 29*1., 279, 285

Scarabs, 93
Scotland, 8, 277
Secret societies, 49, 113, 132, 152-3
Senegal, 31, 33, 45
101
Africa,
100,
Shell-money,
America, 293-300, Pis. 29, 31 and
Figs. 129, 130 ; Borneo, 263, PL 24
manufacture, 115-18, 165, PL 6 and
Figs. 41; 42, 62 Oceania, 1 12, 1 13 ff.,
117, 126, 137-41, Pis. 10, 16-18 and
;

Polynesia, 6, 35, 109-11, 112, 135

Porno, beads, 298 ; feather baskets,

115

19, 285,
Fig. i ; China, 119, 139, 233, 241,
242, Fig. 102 ; Egypt, 93, 272, 278,
279, Fig. 28 ;
Europe, 279-81
Iceland,
Greece, 279, Fig. 125 ;
284-6 ; India, 190 ; Ireland, 286 j(f.,
126 ;
Japan, 249, PL 22
Fig.
Melanesia, 9, i6ff. t 23, 24, 119-25,
162, 167, 168, 172-5, 178, 181, PL 7;
Micronesia, 144, 145 ; Sumatra, 266
Rossel Island, 112, 119, 1836

257-9;

Pelews,

Persia, 29, 187, 188, 190,

Britain,

Bali,

'

New

266;
288, 289, PL 28

119;

'

Pagodas ', see Hat-money

Paper-money, 192, 245, 248-9

343

Annam,

136;

'

quills, 310, PL 31
28, 29, 47, 102

Portuguese,

East

Africa, 98, 104-5

Present-giving, see Gift-exchange
Property celts ', 300, 304, Fig. 137

Figs. 52, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 63, 64,

67, 69, 70 ; silver, 215, 219, Fig. 89
Shells, America, 293 ff. ; Andamans,
199 ; Australia, 108, 109 ; Melanesia, 119, 175, Fig. 72 ; silver, 209,
210, 215 ; see also Achatina, Chama

padfica,

Nassa,

Quartz

balls, Africa,

60

n.

Reef Island, see Santa Cruz Islands

Rhodesia, Northern, n, 50, 59, 75,
78 w., 98, 102-4 Southern, 40, 102,
J

103, 261
Rice, 202-4, 212-14, 220, 244, 245,
249 j(f., 258, 2^4-7
Rings, Africa, 52, 76, 79, 80, 94, 95,
105,. PL i Figs. 2, 5, PL 2 Fig. i,
PL 3 Fig. i ; America, 302-3, Fig.

Cowries,
Conns,
Olive,
Snailshells, Spondylus, Trt-

dacna
Shield, plaitwork, 133, 163, PL 8
Shoka, 51, 64, 66-7, PI- i Fig. 7, PL 3
Fig. 4
Siam, 26 n., 187, 198, 206, 209-19, 290
Sierra Leone, 87, 92
*
Silent trade ', 11-12, 252, 289 n., 321
Silk, 189, 198, 220-2, 244,
Silver, Annam, 215, Fig.

245
87

China,

222 w., 241, 246, 290, Figs.

Further India,
106-9
Egypt, 93

216,

Silver (contd.)

119, 126, 127-8, 175; dog, 17, 18,

119, 126, 127, 155, 158, 175, 180,
Fig. 47; 'elk', 280, 309-10, Fig.
138; fish, 119, 126, 128, 129; porpoise, 24, 119, 126-8, PI. 10 Fig. 2 ;
whale, no, in, 126, 129, 130, Pis. 4, 5
Tekaroro, 118, 140, 141, PI. 10 Fig. 6
and Fig. 52

209 ff. ; Greece, 272 ; Iceland, 284,

285 India, 190-2 ; Laristan, 194^.,
Fig. 81 ; Russia, 281, PI. 26 Fig. 3
r
Siam, 2i4jg ., Fig. 90
;

Skins,
PI.

MONEY

PRIMITIVE

344

88, 189, 293, 296, 306, 308, 309,

i ;
see also White Stag

27 Fig.

Notes

Thimbles, 299, 317

Tibet, 207, 220-2, 268

Slaves, Africa, 47, 50, 57, 59, 63 ff., 68,

75, 79, 80, 89, 90, 92, 98, 101-3 ;
America, 292, 294, 300, 305,
;
Annam, 212-13 ; Borneo, 257, 260,
261
Cambodia, 214; Greece, 213,
276 ; Ireland, 286-8
Snailshells, 47, 48, 49, 101, 162, 164,
314, Figs. 6, 61, 142; silver, 209,

3"

r
Ticals, 210, 2i5jg ., PI. 21 Figs. 5-9
Tikopia, 7, no, 13471.
Timor, beads, 42
Tin, 252j(f., 272

Tobacco,

14, 24, 103, 109, 117, 127,

136*1., 159, 183, 200, 257-300, 308,

210, 215

Solomon

Islands, 23-4
axe-heads,
fish hooks, 143 ; mats, 132,
155
I33J rings, 120, 1 22-5, 144; shellmoney, 115-18, 157, 160-4; teeth,

Togoland, 32
Torres Islands, 126, 164
Torres Straits, canoe trade,

*35

126, 128, 129

Som, 115-17, 135, 165-6, PI. 10 Fig. 8

and Fig. 62
Sombies ', 74, 87
Spade-money, China, 228, 229 ., 230,

180-3
Tortoise, 255, 256
Tortoise-coins ', China, 233 n.
Tortoiscshell, see Turtleshell

235-6, Fig. 97
Spades, Africa, 96
Sparta, 23 n. t 93
Spatulas, 1 8, 172-4, 179
Spear-thrower, 168-9, Fig. 65
Spears, Africa, 63^., 101, 112,
PI. i Fig. 12, PI. 3 Fig.

147,
Britain,

Toweelah, 196-7, Fig. 82

Tridacna, 120, 121, 123, 147, 174.
Trobriands, the, 18, 119, 121, 174
Truk(Ruk), 118, 137, 140
Tukula, 80, 81, Fig. 19
Turkestan, 192
Turquoise, 223

288, 289 ; Further India, 204, 206,

Fig. 86
Greece, 283 n.
'
Spits, see Currency bars

Turtleshell, 141, 144,

229, Figs. 57 and 60

Spondylus, 18, 117, 138, 157, 160, 161,

o 172, 184
Spoons, 200, 20 1

Uganda,

;
'

Stockfish, 285
Stone implements,

18, 19, 61, 108, 109,

144, 155, 304-5
'
Stone-money (fae) t 137, 141, 144^.,
280, PI. 12 ; cats' eyes, 192
Sudan, the, 94^., 101, 106

123

16, 17, 127,

dogs' teeth, 127, 180, 183 ;

gift-exchange, 16, 17, 321
shells,
J

2,

98 ff.

6,

155,

rings, 94,

98;

salt,

224,

beads, 99
hoes, 98

cowries, 6, 31, 99, 101

164,

54; shells,

;
;

50, 100

Virginia, 306, 316

.,

'

Sugar, 318-20
Sugar-loaves ', see Hat-money
Sumatra, 211 n., 257, 266
*

Sumbawa,

267, 270

Swords, 258
Tang, 195 w., 267
Tanga, 120-2
Tanganyika, 50, 54, 74, ?8, 97, 101, 102
Tapsoka,

114, 150, 155, 157, 158,

PI. 13 Fig. i
Tautatt, 18, 115, Fig. 69
Tea, 220, 222, PI. 27 Fig. 2
Teeth, bat, 24, 119, 126, 128, PL 10
Fig. 5 ; boar, 119, 125-6, 164, 167,
1 68,
174, 175 ; cuscus (opossum),

Wampum

(Venus niercenaria), 26 .,
46 n., 293, 3<>5 ff>, 316, PI. 31
sticks,
299
Wergeld, 7^., 12, 23, 24, 54, 58, 103,
;

104, 164, 173, 204, 206, 215, 258, 264,

265, 277, 284, 287, 296, 322
West Indies, 316-20
*

Wheel-money ', 276 n.

White Stag Notes, 248
Woodpeckers, 295, 296, 299,

Fig. 133

Yap, 118, 140, 142, 143, 144 #-, H7,

151, 155, 190

Zanzibar, beads, 42, 261

PI. i Fig. 13
Zeichengeld, 3, 20, 56, 69
Zimbabwe, 42, 64, 75, 77 n., 103
Zulu, 19, 105, 107

Zappozaps, 63-4, 66,

PLATTl?

40

If

-JL.

AFRICA
1.

2.
3.
4.

Marriage hoe, Uganda,

p. 98
Anklet, Congo, p. 76
Katanga cross, p. 77

Copper

5.
6.
7.

wire, Nigeria,

76
Collar, Congo, p. 76
Iron bar, Nigeria, p. 87
Shoka, Congo, p. 66
p.

Axehead, Nigeria, p. 89
Copper ingot, Trans-

13.

107
Ogoja penny, Nigeria,
p. 87
Kissi penny, Liberia,
p. 87
Spearhead, Congo, p.

14.

vaal, p.

64.

Congo, p.

Zappozap,
64

King
p.

manilla, Nigeria,

90

15-19. Congolese
pp. 70-1
20.

Throwing
Congo,

p.

knives,

knife,
69

4
i.

3.
5.

Mitako, Brass wire, Congo, p. 76

Cheetems, Copper wire,
Nigeria,
p. 88
Cotton spool, Sierra Leone ;
cf.
P. 85

2.
4.

Calabar bar or brass rod, Nigeria, p

Copper ingot, Transvaal, p. 107

6.

Mat-money, Congo,

p.

57

PLATE

AfKlUA
1.

Brass rings strung on leather

thong, S.E. Africa

2.

Native bead currency, Nigeria, p. 60

stone, Togo, p. 60
Lokele boy with shoka and ngbele,
Yakusu,
p. 64
yibbu, Bubi belt. Fernando Po. n. co

p.
3.
*.

>.

Holed

94

PLATE

WHALE'S TOOTH USED IN PRESENTATION,

pp.

no, 129-30

FIJI

PLATE

WHALES' TEETH AND ORANGE COWRIES,

pp. no-ii, 129-30

FIJI

PLATE

MONEY-MAKING, SOLOMON ISLANDS

pp. II7-I8

PLATE

ring,

Hum

shell ring,

Pelew Islands,

p,

119

Rubiana, Solomon Islands,

p.

ews.

Stone navela,

New

Hebrides, pp. 125, 167-8

RINGS, MELANESIA

123

PLATE

|T|Tt|p'j|r"Tf

Guadalcanar Shield, pp. *33f l62

St.

New

Hebrides Mat, p. 133

MELANESIA

Matthias Belt, p. 131

PLATE

PLATE

10

SHELL- AND TOOTH-MONEY, MELANESIA

I. New Britain, diwarra, p. 150
porpoise teeth, white and purple beroan and flying-tox teeth,
pp. 129, 161
6. Gilbert Is., tekararo, p. 140
7. Guadalcanar, p. 162
8. Banks Is., sow, p. 165
9 New Hebrides, p. 167

2-5.

Solomon

Is.,

PLATE

11

I
8
I
y
S

PLATE

12

Stone-money, Caroline Islands, p. 144

PLATE

BAGI,

NEW

GUINEA, p. 172

PELS, DUKE OF YORK ISLAND, FIGS.

A
A
A
9. A
10. A
n. A
12. A
13. A
6.

ntui

7.
8.

pirr

NEW

mbui

FIGS.

mbiubiu
lillie

kalakalung kambang

bingam

Pou

s,

615
IRELAND,

/>.

158

munbun

14. Drill
_i

13

1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

15 NEW

Arangit

Baw

(ttkutkut,
titpele)
'

Birok or

Mui

j^r'-'x

PELS,

IRELAND

Tapsoka

DUKE OF YORK ISLAND, p. 156

pig-money

ttkutkut

'

PLATE

14

SAMAKUFA AND ARM -RING, NEW GUINEA

pp. 173-4

PLATE

PIG-MONEY
/>-

*,

NEW

158

15

IRELAND

PLATE

16

SHELL-MONEY, SOLOMON ISLANDS

P. 163

PLATE

17

BEADS AND SHELL-MONEY IN PURSE,

pp. I70-I

NEW

CALEDONIA

PLATE

18

Nko
ROSSEL ISLAND
P. I8 4

MONEY

PLATE

19

1.

INGOTS, CEYLON, p. 189

2.

DKOGANTA, ASSAM, p. 2O7

3.

KAREN KYEE-ZEE,

p. 208

PLATE

SI AM, p.

2l6

K'a Kim

1-4.
'

5-7-

20

Bracelets

'

PLATE

SIAM,
'

canoe money
1-4. Ldts, or
'
'
bullets
5-9. Ticals, or

'

/>/>.

21

215

.#".

lo-n. Ngfin hoi

'
12.
Pig's mouth money

'

PLATE

22

o.o.o
w
iBf

JAPAN,
1-4.

Beads

,4. Affiant*
cfii, 'Ring-money

IBi

10

Wt2

/>.

lf

249
"-13. 'Bean money*
H-1516-19. Coins

PLATE

i.

23

MALAY PENINSULA,
Tin ingots

/>.

2.

253

Gambars

PLATE

24

BORNEO
Shell-money, p. 263, and Baskets, p. 258

PLATE

MOKKO DUTCH EAST

y

25

INDIES, p. 268

26

I,

2..

3,

PLATE MONEY, SWEDEN,

aiur.YA. RUSSIA, p. 281

/>.

285

PLATE

i.

27

Squirrel Skin, p. 189

2.

Brick Tea, p. 222

MONGOLIA

PLATE

1.

2.

28

RING-MONEY, BRITAIN, />.

OLBIAN DOLPHINS, /. 283

PLATE

29

STONE BEADS, SHELLS, TEETH, NORTH AMERICA, Chap*

IX

PLATE

30

COPPER, NORTH-WEST COAST AMERICA, p. 3OO

31

WAMPUM, PURSE AND PORCUPINE

QUILLS,

NORTH AMERICA,

p. 306

PLATE

32

DJENTALIUM AND ABALONE ORNAMENTS, BRITISH COLUMBIA, p. 299