ARRI E NGTC?N] ETHNOZOOLOGY OF THE TEWA INDIANS 61 



MOLLUSKS l 



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 Olivella. 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 

 liplicata 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. Ashmunetta, 

 OreoJielix, Pliysa, and Lymnsea 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. 2 Strings of beads 

 made from the common Olivella 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 3 

 tells us that in New Mexico Dr. Edward Palmer was &quot;witness to a 

 trade wherein the consideration for a horse was a California abalone 

 shell.&quot; 



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 4 they are found mostly in the pueblo 

 ruins situated in mountain passes, probably along routes of primitive 

 travel. 



i Henderson, Junius, Mollusca from Northern New Mexico, The Nautilus, xxvi, pp. 80-81, 1912. 



2 Holmes, William II., 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., 

 m,pp. 335-38,1877. 



3 Stearns, R. E. C., op. cit., p. 329. 



* Hough, Walter, Archaeological Field Work in Northeastern Arizona: The Museum-Gates Expedition 

 of 1901, Ann. Rep. U. S. Nat. Museum for 1901, p. 295, 1903 (see also pp. 300, 305, 338, 344). 



