Use of Coii'ry-sJtclls for Currency, Amulets, etc. 141 



whose lieadinan practised sootlisajint; witli cowries. He 

 threw several cowry-shells, and made his prediction from 

 the manner in which they fell. 



At Sennaar, in the Soudan, cowry-ornament still 

 obtains to-day amont; tiie llassanieh Arabs. Caillarud, 

 in the 20th )-ear of last ccntnr)', s;iw cowries ornamenting 

 the fringed girdle of the young girls in Sennaar. Accord- 

 ing to Carl Ritter, the)' are still found as trimmings for 

 women's girdles in Abyssinia ;"' and llaldeman'" describes 

 a curious Ab}'ssinian necklace composed of Kuropean 

 beads, cowry-shells, bits of brass, copper coins, etc. 



According to Schneider {op. cit., p. 173 ), a large leather 

 object from Somaliland, richl\- ornamented with cowries, 

 is in the Dresden Museum;" and a similar object, orna- 

 mented in the same way, was brought from Somaliland 

 by Riebeck in 1883. That the cowr)^ was in use here in 

 early times is proved by the discovery of Cypnca auuuliis, 

 along with glass, enamel, stone and other objects, in the 

 ruins of Bender Abbas, near Berbera. The age of these 

 ruins is still problematic ; they ma)- belong to " Persian 

 times."*" Presumably this refers to the period of the 

 Persian conquest of Egj'pt in the sixth centur\' H.C. 



In the Upper Nile region cowries, rubbed down on 

 their backs, are used by many negro peoples. The Lango, 

 Latuka, Lur, Shuli and Nuer hiive very man}' cowry- 

 ornaments, more especially' on their liead-co\-erings. Ac- 

 cording to Ratzel {op. cit., iii., p. 30), the head-coverings of 

 the Shuli and Lango " consist of strong bass-matting, close 

 set with concentric rows of cowries, with a woven blunt 

 appendage, shaped either like a flat conical cup or like a 



'" Scl'.ncider, op. cit., p. IJJ. 



• S. S. Haldeinan, " United States Geographical Surveys West of tlie 

 looili Meridian," vol. vii., Arcluvology, 1879, P- 263. 



'•"'' See al.so Ratzel, op. cit., ii., fig. 14 of [)Iale facing p. 533. 

 «" Schneider, op. cit., p. 118. 



