COIL FEATHER CURRENCY OF SANTA CRUZ — ETHERIDGE 289 



The TAVAU, or COIL FEATHER CURRENCY op 

 SANTA CRUZ ISLAND, SANTA CRUZ GROUP. 



By R. Etheridge, Junr., Curator. 



(Plate xliv.) 



" The basis of money is at times a shell, a bead, a robe, a skin," 

 says Mr. O. T. Mason.^ but, adds Dr. G. B. Tylor,^ " in this 

 roughest kind of barter we do not yet Und that clear notion of a 

 unit of value which is the great step in trading." 



An account of the currency used by the native races of the 

 South Pacific has yet to be written, and when investigated a very 

 fascinating study it will prove to be. A perusal of the curious 

 and interesting list of objects given by Dr. T. de Lacouperie as 

 " Shapes of Currency from Barter to Money,"^ used throughout 

 the world, will impress this fact on the reader. In a review of 

 Dr. Lacouperie's list Dr. J. D. E. Schmeltz^ adds some further 

 important facts, including the " feather money " of Santa Cruz. 



Feather money, according to the Rev. Dr. R. H. Codrington,^ 

 as a medium of exchange is also met with on Santa Maria, of the 

 neighbouring Banks Group, and on Meralava (or Meralaba), the 

 northernmost of the New Hebrides Group. A form of feather 

 money is again said to occur in Samoa by Professor W. T. 

 Brigham, who in his excellent " Preliminary Catalogue '"^ mentions 

 " Feather currency from Samoa." 



An opportunity was afforded the Trustees last year (1901) of 

 acquiring by purchase a coil of the Santa Cruz currency, and it is 

 now my purpose to describe this in detail, for, so far as I know, 

 very little, with the exception of a passage in Codrington's work, 

 has been written on the subject. This coil is twenty six feet ten 



1 Mason — Origin of Invention, 1895, p. 71. 



2 Tylor— Anthropology, 1881, p. 282, 



3 Lacouperie — Brit. Mus. Cat. Chinese Coins, vii. Cent. B.C. to A.D. 

 621, 1892, p. XX. 



* Schmeltz — Internat. Archiv. Ethnographie, vi., 1893, p. 57. 

 5 Codrington— The Melanesians, 1891, p. 324. 



*> Brigham — Prelim. Cat. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Mus., 1, 1892, p. 18, 

 No. 142. 



