HENDERSON ry 
nay ETHNOZOOLOGY OF THE TEWA INDIANS 61 
Mo.uusks ! 
The native Mollusca do not enter to any extent into the culture of 
the Indians of this region at the present time, and probably the same 
is true with reference to the former inhabitants. It is not unusual 
to find marine shells in the ruins, especially Olwella. They were 
probably obtained by barter with the peoples living to the south- 
westward. At El Rito de los Frijoles a few specimens of Olivella 
biplicata Sowerby and one of Erato vitellina Hinds were found. They 
doubtless were brought from southern California or from Lower Cali- 
fornia. None of the native land or fresh-water shells of the region 
have been found in the ruins,.which is not surprising. Ashmunella, 
Oreoheliz, Physa, and Lymnza are the only species large enough to 
be particularly noticed, and they do not exceed three-fourths of an 
inch in greatest diameter. This, it is true, is as large as the marine 
shells commonly found in the ruins, but the land shells do not appear 
to have become articles of barter, perhaps because they occur through- 
out the region and are therefore obtainable nearly everywhere and 
further because they are rather fragile. 
The shells of mollusks have been used as a medium of exchange 
and as ornaments, amulets, and ceremonial objects by primitive 
peoples everywhere. They have been used very extensively by the 
Indian tribes of the Pacific and Atlantic coastal regions in North 
America and by them introduced into the interior.?. Strings of beads 
made from the common Olwvella biplicata of the Pacific coast, worn 
about the neck as ornaments and used in barter, found their way into 
Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado, and Stearns * 
tells us that m New Mexico Dr. Edward Palmer was ‘‘witness to a 
trade wherein the consideration for a horse was a California abalone 
shell.”’ ; 
Bracelets of Glycimeris from the Gulf of California have found their 
way as far north and east at least as northeastern Arizona, where 
they are reported, together with Turritella tigrina, Conus, and 
Olivella, by Hough, who says‘ they are found mostly in the pueblo 
ruins situated in mountain passes, probably along routes of primitive 
travel. 
1 Henderson, Junius, Mollusca from Northern New Mexico, The Nautilus, Xxv1, pp. 80-81, 1912. 
2 Holmes, William H., Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans, Second Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethn., for 
1880-81, pp. 179-305, 1883; Report on the Ancient Ruins of Southwestern Colorado, Examined During the 
Summers of 1875 and 1876, Tenth Ann. Rep. U.S. Geol. and Geog. Sur. Terr. for 1876 (Hayden Survey), p. 
407,1878. Stearns, Robert E. C., Ethno-Conchology—A Study of Primitive Money, Ann. Rep. U.S. 
Nat. Museum for 1887, pp. 297-334, 1889. Powers, Stephen, Tribes of California, Contr. N. Amer. Ethn., 
IIL, pp. 335-38, 1877. 
3 Stearns, R. E. C., op. cit., p. 329. 
4 Hough, Walter, Archeological Field Work in Northeastern Arizona: The Museum-Gates Expedition 
0f1901, Ann. Rep. U.S. Nat. Museum for 1901, p. 295, 1903 (see also pp. 300, 305, 338, 344). 
