THE CULT OF SHELLS 69 



again with a click, must have seen what seemed to 

 be just the familiar slow-going shells moving quickly 

 and even fighting. What a fine basis for a doctrine 

 of a demon in the shell the hermit-crab's tenancy 

 would afford ! But in any case Aphrodite was one 

 of the earliest of man's deities, and the cowrie 

 (Cypraea) which brought her to Cyprus was her 

 emblem. It was emphatically the woman's shell, 

 helping towards marriage and towards birth. It 

 brought good luck, it averted the evil eye, but 

 primarily it was a symbol expressive of fertility 

 and vitality, and had life-giving, life-saving powers. 

 In connection with the custom of placing a cowrie 

 in the mouth of the dead, Professor Elliot Smith 

 makes a very interesting note : " The twofold 

 significance of the cowrie the belief in its vitalizing 

 powers and its use in currency led to a confusion 

 between these two properties, and was responsible 

 for the origin of a remarkable custom. The cowrie 

 was placed in the mouth because it was supposed 

 to be able to animate the dead; but when it came 

 to have a new value as currency this practice lost 

 its original significance, and the use of the shell 

 or the actual metallic coin that superseded it 

 for this purpose was rationalized into the belief 

 that it represented Charon's fare for ferrying the 

 deceased to the other world." According to Pro- 

 fessor Elliot Smith the whole of the complex shell 

 cult sprang from a fanciful suggestiveness which led 

 a group of primitive men to connect the cowrie 

 with sex. 



