

Use of Cowry -shells for Currency, Amulets, etc. 127 



The use of cowries as currency and as amulets or 

 charms has been frequently discussed in ethnological 

 memoirs. From this literature it is clear, though the fact 

 has not always been realised or sufficiently emphasised by 

 the authors, that cowries have been for ages regarded and 

 even reverenced as charms in hunting and fishing, and as 

 amulets against the evil eye. In fishing, especially in the 

 Pacific Islands, they are attached to the nets to ensure 

 luck, being misnamed " net-sinkers " by many writers on 

 ethnology. They have been, and in many places are 

 still, associated with marriage, with the object of securing 

 communion with the spirit of fertility, supposed to be 

 indwelling in the cowry. In like manner they are used 

 in some places as offerings to rivers and springs in order 

 to ensure that the rivers will run and springs flow. 



In the following pages an attempt is made to show some 

 of the many uses of cowries in different parts of the world. 

 The remarkable manner in which some of the customs, in 

 which cowries play an important part, crop up in widely- 

 scattered localities is very significant, and goes far to 

 prove a common centre of origin for these practices. It 

 is altogether unreasonable to assume that exactly similar 

 customs of so peculiar and wholly arbitrary a nature and 

 identical beliefs concerning the cowry could have arisen 

 independently among isolated groups of people. 



The best and most comprehensive work on the subject of 

 shell-money is that by Dr. O. Schneider, on "Muschelgeld- 

 Studien." 6 This work contains some 1 80 pages dealing 

 with the subject, of which about 72 pages are devoted to 

 an excellent summary of the extensive literature relating 

 to cowry-currency. Some use has been made of this 

 work in the compilation of the present chapter, as will 



6 Dr. Oskar Schneider, " Muschelgeld-Studien ;; (Nach dem hinter- 

 lassenen Manuskript bearbeilet von Carl Ribbe). Herausgegeben vom 

 Verein fur Erdkunde zu Dresden. Dresden, 1905. 



