Mr. J. K. Lord on a Species of Dentalium. 453 
mainland coast from the Straits of Fuca to Sitka. Since the intro- 
duction of blankets by the Hudson’s Bay Company, the use of these 
shells as a medium of purchase has to a great extent died out, the 
blankets having become the money, as it were, or the means by which 
everything is now reckoned and paid for by the savage. A slave, a 
canoe, or a squaw is worth in these days so many blankets; but it 
used to be so many strings of Dentalia. In the interior, east of the 
Cascade Mountains, the Beaver-skin is the article by which every- 
thing is reckoned —in fact, the money of the inland Indian. 
The value of the Dentalium depends upon its length: those re- 
presenting the greater value are called, when strung together end to 
end, a “ Hi-qua;” but the standard by which the Dentalium is cal- 
culated to be fit for a ‘‘ Hi-qua”’ is, that twenty-five shells placed 
end to end must make a fathom, or six feet, in length. At one time 
a ‘‘Hi-qua’’ would purchase a male slave, equal in value to fifty 
blankets, or about £50 sterling. The shorter and defective shells 
are strung together in various lengths, and are called “ Kop-kops.” 
About forty ‘“ Kop-kops”’ equal a “ Hi-qua” in value. These 
strings of Dentalia are usually the stakes gambled for. 
The shells are generally procured from the west side of Vancou- 
ver’s Island, and towards its northern end ; they live in the soft sand, 
in the snug bays and harbours that abound along the west coast of 
the island, in water from three to five fathoms in depth. The habit 
of the Dentalium is to bury itself in the sand, the small end of the 
shell being invariably downwards, and the large end close to the 
surface, thus allowing the fish to protrude its feeding- and breathing- 
organs. ‘This position the wily savage has turned to good account, 
and has adopted a most ingenious mode of capturing the much-prized 
shell. He arms himself with a long spear, the haft made of light 
deal, to the end of which is fastened a strip of wood placed trans- 
versely, but driven full of teeth made of bone, resembling exactly a 
long comb with the teeth very wide apart. A squaw sits in the 
stern of the canoe and paddles it slowly along, whilst the Indian with 
the spear stands in the bow. He now stabs this comb-like affair 
into the sand at the bottom of the water, and after giving two or 
three stabs draws it up to look at it; if he has been successful, per- 
haps four or five Dentalia have been impaled on the teeth of the 
spear. It is a very ingenious mode of procuring them, for it would 
be quite impracticable either to dredge or net them out; and they 
are never, as far as I know, found between tide-marks. 
At one period, perhaps a remote one, in the history of the inland 
Indians these Dentalia were worn as ornaments. I have often found 
them mixed with stone beads and small bits of the nacre of the Ha- 
liotis, of an irregular shape, but with a small hole drilled through 
each piece, in the old graves about Walla-walla and Colville. In all 
probability, these ornaments were traded from the coast Indians ; 
but, as these graves were quite a thousand miles from the sea, it is 
pretty clear the inland and coast Indians must have had some means 
of communication. 
