XX Introduction. 



hundred cowries were given as a bridal dowr}'. To meet 

 such exorbitant demands, especially in places where these 

 shells could not be obtained locally, but had to be im- 

 ported, the most valuable possessions of the people, cows, 

 sheep and goats, were given in exchange for cowries in 

 order to secure the social and magical advantages they 

 were believed to bring. This was, I believe, the origin of 

 the use of cowries as currency, and also incidentally how 

 sheep and cattle came to occupy so definite a significance 



ijn early currencies. It may perhaps be suggestive of the 

 original magical value of cowries that, according to tradi- 

 tion, when these shells were first introduced among the 

 Baganda, two of them were given in exchange for a 

 woman. At a later period two thousand five hundred of 

 them were obtained in exchange for a cow to make the 

 dowry, offered to the bride. 



As a further illustration from Haganda of the signifi- 

 cance attached to this shell as an animating force, cowries 

 were placed along with the deceased king's jaw and 

 umbilical cord.'" Cowries were also offered to twins ; and 

 if one of them died, a "double" was made for it, and 

 supplied with these vitalising shells. Not onl\- in East 

 Africa, but also in many other places the cowr\- was thus 

 brought into intimate relationship with the peculiar beliefs 

 connected with '' heavenly twins " and " doubles," with 

 the placenta and the soul. 



It also played a part in a variet\' of blood-letting 

 ceremonies, such as circumcision and ear-piercing. 



In my essay on " Ships as Evidence of the Migratioiis 

 of Early Culture '" " I called attention to the fact that the 



■ early Egyptians believed in the possibility of animating 



'" In ancient tinie.*; the (ipercuhun nf the shell Turbo was called 

 I'mbilicus X'eneris. 



'' :\lanchester Univcr.sit)- Press, 1917. p. 29. 



