302 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887 



This well-knowD species, an inhabitant of the Indo-Pacitic waters, is 

 still " used as money in Hindostan and many parts of Africa. Many 

 tons are imported to Great Britain and exported for barter with the 

 native tribes of Africa." * 



These shells are used both strung and unstrung. 



Eeeve mentions in the second volume of the Conchologia Systematica 

 that "a gentleman residing at Cuttack is said to have paid for the 

 erection of his bungalow entirely in these cowries {C. moneta). The 

 building cost him about 4,000 rupees sicca (£400 sterling), and as sixty- 

 four of these shells are equivalent in value to one pice, and sixty-four 

 pice to a rupee sicca, he paid for it with over 10,000,000 of these 

 shells." 



Though the number above mentioned is very large, this is an exceed- 

 ingly abundant form. We have received in a single box from the East 

 Indies not less than ten thousand specimens at one time. " In the year 

 1848, sixty tons were imported into Liverpool, and in 1849 nearly three 

 hundred tons were brought to the same port." "Their relative currency 

 value varies in different localities. In British India about four thousand 

 pass for a shilling, and the erection of a church, which cost £4,000, is 

 said to have been paid for entirely with cowries. The ordinary grada- 

 tion or value on the west coast of Africa is as follows : 



40 cowries = 1 string. 10 heads = 1 bag. 



2-J strings=l d. 2,000 cowries = 1 head. 



100 cowries=l d. 3 heads = 1 dollar. 



50 strings = 1 head of cowries. 20,000 cowries -I bag. 



" In other places ihey are valued at Is. 3d. the 1,000. Sometimes 

 60,000 to 100,000 (or from £3 15s. to £7 10s.) are given for a young wife, 

 whilst a common or ordinary wife may be had for 20,000 cowries, or 

 25s. In Sudan, as much as the people trade, they have no other cur- 

 rency than the cowry, of which 2,000 shells, weighing seven pounds, 

 are worth only one dollar. Although completely depreciated in the ter- 

 ritory of the Upper Nile, cowries form among the Mittoo tribes, between 

 5° and 6° north latitude, a favorite ornament. 



"The Dyaks stick small white money-cowry shells in the eye sockets 

 of the skulls of their enemies, which they keep. In India these shells 

 are much used to ornament the trappings of horses and elephants. 

 * * * Cowry shells are also strung like beads or sewed like buttons 

 on their dress by Brinjari women as personal ornaments, and are in 

 circulation as money in the Hyderabad State, and in other parts of the 

 country." Besides the true money cowry {Cyprcea moneta), the ring 

 cowry {Cyprcea annulus) passes current in many parts of Africa as a 

 medium of exchange. A Hamburg house, probably the late firm of 

 Godeffroy & Co., sent annually fourteen vessels to Zanzibar for cargoes 



* Baird's Dictionary of Natural History. 



