Use of Cowry-shells for Currency, Amutets, etc. 17% 
regarded as an expansion and elaboration of the type of 
game represented by the Korean yout, and sacred and 
divinatory in its origin.” yout is played with staves. 
“The two faces of the staves, black and white, may be 
regarded as signifying the dual principles of nature, 
masculine and feminine. A feminine significatice is widely 
attributed to the aperture of the cowrie shell. Its convex 
side would naturally be regarded as masculine ; hence its 
substitution for the staves would seem to have been an 
easy transition.” 
Games like Pachisi, in which cowries are used as dice, 
are known in the Maldive Islands under the name D/o/a, 
and in Syria under the name of Hass a /in; also in 
Burma as Paszt. 
[In parts of Further India the cowry is still in circula- 
tion as money. In Siam and Laos it serves as a form 
of currency, and in the former country 6,400 cowries are 
said to equal about ts. 6d." At the end of the 17th century 
La Loubere found it in use in all Siam ; it was obtained 
from the Laccadives, from Borneo and the Philippines, 
where it was taken in as ballast by the ships. About the 
middle of the 18th century, according to Gervaise, the 
Siamese small-change consisted of small shells, which the 
Europeans called cowries and the Siamese Bia. Accord- 
ing to Hertz they were no longer in use as small-change 
at Bangkok in 1881. 
In Burma the women of the Taungthas wear a loose 
skirt adorned with a wide belt of cowries or silver filigree 
work.” 
Let Culins of. aee-, pp. 050-7. 
142 Deniker, of. cét., p. 324: See also ‘‘ Century Dictionary,” ii., p. 
1321; 
14% Schneider, of. ¢7/., pp. 107-8, 
144 “*\Women of all Nations,” p. 574. 
