Use of Cowry-shells for Currency, Amulets, etc. 155 



other philosophers, that nothing created was annihilated, 

 and that to cease to be was only to assume another form, 

 dissolution being merely the passage to reproduction. 

 In its association with the Borfimor \and in tJiis connection 

 the presence of the cowry must not be overlooked} 1 we 

 seem to have the reflection of some such ideas, the fetish 

 being animated by the indwelling life of the victim and 

 the spirit attracted to it." 



The Borfimor bag also contained a pebble made of 

 some earthy matter and lime, in one side of which was 

 incorporated a cowry-shell. 



The remarkable resemblance in the use of the money- 

 cowry here to that of the Ojibwa and Menomini tribes 

 of North America, who also employ the same shell, has 

 been pointed out already in a previous paper. 10 ' 



In Liberia, according to Stewart Culin, 104 pierced 

 cowry-shells (i.e., rubbed down on the back) are used in 

 fortune-telling. (See Fig. E., p. 156). Ratzel (op. cit., iii., 

 p. 105) also gives a figure (f. 6) of a sword-sheath from 

 Liberia which is ornamented with cowries arranged in 

 stars. 



Bowdich, who in 1817 was sent on a mission of peace 

 from Cape Coast Castle to Kumassi, mentions that in 

 Accra, as in Gaman, Kong and other neighbouring places, 

 cowries had currency. 



North of Ashanti proper, in Koranza and Atabuobo, 

 Perregaux found them in full use and of higher value than 

 on the coast. According to this observer, in Koranza, 

 they were counted per thousand, and 100 cowries were 



111 - The italicized sentence is my own. 



103 J. W. Jackson, "The Money Cowry (Cypnca inoneta, L.) as a 

 Sacred Object among North American Indians,'' Munch. Memoirs (Lif. and 

 Phil. Soc.), vol. Ix. (1916), No. 4. See also p. 184 of this chapter. 



104 Culin, "Chess and Playing Cards,'' op. cit., p. 815, footnote, and 

 fig. 134 on p. 817. 



