APPENDIX II. 



The following interesting information has reached 

 us as we are going to press. 



What appears to be an additional instance of the cultural 

 use of the money-cowry in the New World is to be seen in 

 a picture reproduced by S. H. C. Hawtrey, in " The Lengua 

 Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco."^ In Figure 2 (p. 282) 

 this writer shows the head of a Lengua Indian with a re- 

 markable headdress on which inoney-cotvries are distinctly 

 visible arranged in rows. No reference to these is made in 

 the text. 'Such a type of cowry-ornamented headdress 

 recalls those "of the East African people described in 

 Chapter \W (p. 142) of this book. 



That shells were cult-objects in early times in Egypt 

 seems certain, from their occurrence in numbers in ancient 

 Egyptian sites. But too little attention has been paid to 

 these discoveries and their true significance has not been 

 appreciated, investigators having too little knowledge of 

 shells and their habitats to realise the importance of their 

 presence in ancient tombs. Nearly all the shells recorded 

 as found in Egyptian tombs are species which inhabit the 

 Red Sea and the adjacent African coast. ,Hence it is 

 probable that all these shell-cults had their origin in this 

 region, that is they were developed by a maritime people, 

 or people having ready access to the sea. Suggestive 

 evidence of this is furnished by the fact that Red Sea 

 Pteroceras-shells {Pterocerns bryonia, Gmelin) figure as 

 designs on statues of the phallic god Min found on the site 

 of the temple of Koptos. Some authorities think these_ 

 statues belong to the Predynastic period, but others regard 

 them as the earliest work of the dynastic people. Their 

 presence at Koptos has been claimed as providing " a 

 powerful argument to those who wish to bring the dynastic 

 Egyptians from the land of Punt, situated on the east coast 

 of Africa, on the borders of the Red Sea."- But diffusion 

 of culture can explain the facts without dragging into the 

 discussion these purely hypothetical and utterly misleading 



^ Jourti. Anthrop. Inst., 31, 1901, pp. 2%0 et seq. 



Petrie, "Koptos," 1896, pp. 7 — 9. pi. iii., iv. ; also Capart, " Priiiii. 

 tive Art in Egypt," 1905, pp. 222—224, figs. 166—167. 



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