154 Shells as evidence of the Migratrons, 
in front. Being wishful to journey through the pagan-land 
of Runga, Nachtigal provided himself with cowries. In 
Darfur he saw no more cowry-ornament.” In Haussaland 
Robinson informs us: “The most common form ot 
gambling is a game called by the natives chacha. It 
consists in throwing up five cowry-shells, the player 
winning or losing according as the shells fall, the right 
or the wrong way up.” '” 
Regarding the use of cowries in the region of the 
northern Guinea coast we have ample material to draw 
upon in the accounts of numerous observers. In Sierra 
Leone, at the time of Thomas Winterbottom, three or four 
necklaces of cowries were worn at the mourning for a wife, 
and the husband of the deceased woman was also required 
to wear a necklet of shells. According to Major R. G. 
Berry™ 
the shells are used to play a game called jagay, 
or knuckle-bones. They also form part of the sacred 
contents of the medicine bag, or Borfimor, used at the 
initiation ceremonies in connection with the Human 
Leopard Society of the Sierra Leone cannibals. A 
Borfimor bag obtained by Major Berry was found to 
contain four smaller bags, one of which held two tau- 
shaped iron crosses, the stems of which were lapped with 
cotton, and to the top of each was tied a cowry-shell, or 
sign of life. “The tau cross, or crux ansata,” Berry remarks 
—and in quoting this passage I do not accept all of the 
statements—* was the emblem of Osiris, and is called the 
Sign of Life, the symbol of resuscitation and new birth, 
expressive of the idea entertained by the Egyptians and 
*® Schneider, of. cé/,, various pages (quoting Nachtigal, Barth, and 
others). 
1° ©, Hy, Robinson, ‘* Haussaland,” London, 1896, p. 206. 
he) R. G. Berry, The Sierra Leone Cannibals, with Notes on their 
Ilistory, Religion, and Customs.” /’rec. Roy. /rish Academy, vol, XXxx., 
Sect. C., No. 2, May, 1912, pp. 45, 53, and 67. 
