CURRENCY AND COINAGE 179 



the value of Gold and Silver. Iron and Steel they most 

 esteem, and prefer a Sword or a Hatchet before a Golden 

 Cup, a Nail before a Crown piece, and a pair of Cisers, 

 or a Knife before a Jacobus.' And during the Lushai 

 expedition above mentioned, a rupee, which is roughly 

 a florin, having been given for a fowl on one occasion 

 the savages would only thereafter exchange fowls for 

 rupees, though the rupees could be got back again for 

 the base metal coin of a neighbouring semi-civilized 

 state. In 1893 among the Shan tribes of the Chinese 

 border rupees could not buy a pony, though small silver 

 coins of the same number, and of course of much less 

 value to us, could. Amongst other Shans, copper 

 coins alone could purchase anything, any kind of silver 

 failing to be attractive, and there being no differ- 

 ence in the value placed upon a rupee and its eighth 

 part. 



The reason in each of the above cases is the same 

 and clear. The savages in question had either no use 

 for money at all, or they had a use respectively for the 

 base metal, the small silver and the copper, but none for 

 the rupee, which to us was of very greatly the highest 

 value. The adherence of the Lushais to a rupee as the 

 exchange equivalent of a fowl was due to an accident. 

 Having got into their heads by a chance that to us a 

 rupee was the proper exchange for a fowl, they stuck to 

 it from an unreasoning suspicion that, unless they did so, 

 we were in some unascertainable way cheating them ; 

 and their subsequent exchange of the rupees so acquired 

 for what was to us base metal rubbish was from their 

 point of view to their advantage. 



In the course of this small further progress on the 

 road leading to money, we have stumbled upon another 

 general anthropological law, which is true alike of these 



N 2 



