Use of Cowry-shells for Currency, Amutets, etc. 157 
worth 3d. In Okwaon, on the contrary, they were 
reckoned thus :— 
35 cowries =I string (Obang). 
12 xi235 wee therefore P2°strings— 3d) 
(0 caren Male is 50) 5, (1750 Cowries) —w Head 
(Atramatiri). 
In the plural, Atiri, was used for 2-9, and Atramatiri, 
for 10 or more heads. A game with cowries (obviously 
the same game as elsewhere in this region) was named 
Atramaton, ze. to throw cowries. These words are com- 
binations with the word Atrama, which denotes cowries. 
“They were so named,” ‘says Perregaux, “in the Tshi 
language in Aquapim and Ashanti, while in Okwaon and 
the northern lands the designation Serewa was used. A 
single cowry was called Niwa, because of its likeness to an 
eye’”’ (Oniwa), and ten cowries were called Niwandu.”' 
Among the Mamprusi of the Gambaga country, north 
of Ashanti, cowries, together with kola nut, figure among 
the objects distributed to guests and musicians at wedding 
ceremonies." 
Apart from their use as currency, cowries play a very 
important role as amulets and in fetish-worship among 
the Ewe negroes of Togo district. They are worn on 
the neck, arm, wrist and ankle, and regarded as amulets 
against wounds and sickness, and for luck in hunting. 
Mischlich records that the hunt-fetishes, Gbofu of Dad- 
ease and Nakuku of Mjooti, both in Adeii,a district in the 
hill-country of Togo, were ornamented with cowries. Spiess 
mentions that they were worn in quantity by expectant 
women, to ward off danger. It was the custom among the 
195 The likeness of the aperture of the cowry to the closed eye may 
explain why these shells have been applied as eyes for fetishes, etc., in the 
Congo region, Borneo, New Zealand, etc. 
106 “de Schneider, of. c?t., pp. 144-5. 
107 Women of all Nations,” p. 344. 
