Use of Cowry-shells for Currency, Amutlets, etc. 175 
Cypr@a moneta appears to have been current also in 
other islands of the Pacific, as Brenchley states :’” “At 
Eramango [New Hebrides] a shell called ‘Nunpuri,’ the 
Cyprea moneta, passes as money, as also in New Caledonia.” 
In the Bismark Archipelago, says Schneider (of. c7t., 
p. 118), C. annulus was found as money in special cases. 
In Gilbert Archipelago, the Ellice and Kingsmill 
Islands, Crpr@a moneta and C. annulus are used as body- 
ornament and for decorating implements and tools." 
F. W. Christian, in his article “On Micronesian 
Weapons, Dress, Implements, etc,’™ figures a cowry-shell 
used in the Carolines for stripping off the outer skin of 
the bread-fruit. The figured shell looks like a Cvprea 
mauritiana. He also figures an Ovulum ovum shell 
(often alluded to as the white cowry) pierced for 
ornamenting prows of canoes. The use of this shell 
as a canoe-ornament is general throughout the Pacific. 
Amongst other places it is recorded from the Pelew Islands, 
Yap, Gilbert Archipelago, Samoa, Niné, Viti Islands, 
Solomon Archipelago and Torres Straits Islands. In 
some of these and in other islands it is also worn as an 
ornament for the neck, breast, or leg, and placed on the 
outsides of native houses. In Tonga it is used asa grave- 
ornament, and in the Solomons as decoration of an idol.'™ 
In Tahiti, Cvpre@a moneta and C. talpa are worn on 
the neck, and C. #gr7s occurs on the base of an idol from 
Tahiti, now in the British Museum. Sir C. H. Read, in 
his descripticn of specimens obtained on Vancouver's 
"59 Brenchley, ‘* Cruise of the ‘Curagoa,’” 1873, p. 299, quoted by C. 
Hedley, Alem. Aust. A/us., ii., pt. 7, 1899, p. 452. 
me Om Schneider, of) e222, pe 18. 
LOS Jn Arti nO poe TSU. 20 (1898-9), PP 2eoret SeGes: Pin XXIV. tn 5: 
162 Schmeltz, ‘*Schnecken und Muscheln in leben der vélker Indo- 
nesiens und Oceaniens,” Leiden, 1894. 
LSS Dah 
