Use of Cowry-shells for Currency, Amutets, etc. 161 
are also despatched to the dead in the same way. Slaves 
or prisoners taken in war are richly dressed and laden 
with cowries, and when they become intoxicated by rum 
they are slain. In this manner it is believed that not 
only messages, but the circulating medium with which 
the victims are laden, can be conveyed to the departed 
relatives of the people who have performed this pious 
sacrifice. With these people sixteen appears to be a 
sacred and mystical number. Thus, for instance, when 
meditating war the war priest throws into the air sixteen 
cowries. Much depends upon the way these fall. Those 
which fall with the aperture upwards portend peace; but 
if a greater number fall with their apertures downwards, 
then the divination is considered to be favourable to war. 
Some interesting details of the use of the cowry asa 
medium for the transmission of messages are given by 
the Rev. C. A. Gollmer in his paper on “ African Symbolic 
Messages.”*'' [In the Yoruba country, he informs us, the 
natives send messages to each other by means of shells, 
feathers, corn, stone, coal, etc., through which they convey 
their ideas, feelings, and wishes, good or bad. Cowry- 
shells in the symbolic language are used to convey, by their 
number and the way in which they are strung, a variety of 
ideas. Thus one cowry, strung on a short bit of grass 
fibre, or cord, may indicate “defiance and failure” ; two 
cowries, if strung face to face, “relationship and meeting,” 
but if strung back to back, “separation and enmity” ; 
two cowries and a feather, “speedy meeting”; three 
cowries, with their faces all looking one way, strung with 
an alligator pepper, “deceit”; six cowries may indicate 
“attachment and affection.” 
3 
According to Bloxam,’* cowries are similarly em- 
110 Journ. Anthrop. Inst. Gt. Bn, and L., vol. xiv., p. 169. 
TEV LOeda NOls SVluy Poe 295. 
