A STUDY OF PRIMITIVE MONEY. 



323 



seen who count it by the single piece; the others rate it by the foot or 

 yard. * * * It is sometimes strung upon a string many yards long, 



Fig. 15. 

 Saxidomus aeatus. 



(Southern coast of California. From specimen in TJ. S. N. M. ) 



in hundreds of pieces, and doubled into lengths of about a yard. The 

 Wai'-lak-kis make the buttons thin, then every tenth one thicker, so 

 that it looks like a Catholic rosary, and their name for it is tocallV 



In a photograph of a young woman of the Bear River Indians, named 

 Yalputteh, sent to me by Mr. Powers, her person is adorned with a 

 necklace of hawock, which, it is stated, is ten yards long, requiring to be 

 wound several times about her neck. It consists of about 1,160 pieces, 

 valued at $232. ".Sometimes disks of hawock are made two inches in 

 diameter and half an inch thick, which are rated at one dollar apiece, 

 but such large pieces are seldom seen." These disk beads or Hawock 

 " are strung on strings made of the inner bark of wild cotton or milk- 

 weed (Asclepias) ; and either all the pieces on a string or all in one sec- 

 tion of it are of the same size." 



In connection with the use of money in traffic among the interior In- 

 dians, it appears that " all the dwellers on the plains, and as far up on 

 the mountain as the cedar line, bought all their bows and most of their 

 arrows from the upper mountaineers. An Indian is about ten days 

 making a bow, and it costs $3, $4, or $5, according to the workmanship ; 

 an arrow 12^ cents. Three kinds of money were employed in this traffic. 

 White shell beads, or rather buttons, pierced in the center and strung- 

 together were rated at $5 per yard (hawock)', periwinkles, at, $1 a 

 yard ; fancy marine shells, at various prices, from $3 to $10 or $15, ac- 

 cording to their beauty. 



