Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Lx. (191 6), No. 4. 3 



historic sites in Europe and Asia at considerable distances 

 from its habitat, and other cowries of larger dimensions 

 have been discovered in pre-historic pit-dwellings and 

 Saxon graves, in our own country, and in Franco-Mero- 

 vingian graves in France. 



The cowry is often referred to in the classics as Concha 

 Venerea, and the presence of cowry-shells in graves, etc., 

 is looked upon as due to the part they played in ancient 

 times in connection with the cult of Venus, as symbolic 

 of the generative forces of nature. 



The Ojibwa and Menomini Indians are both tribes of 

 the Algonquian family, which was more extensive than 

 that of any other linguistic stock in North America, their 

 territory reaching from Labrador to the Rocky Mountains, 

 and from the Churchill River of Hudson at least as far 

 south as Pamlico Sound of North Carolina. 6 



The Ojibwa, according to Hoffman (pp. cit., 1891, 

 p. 147), is one of the largest tribes of the United States, 

 and it is scattered over a considerable area, from the 

 Province of Ontario, on the east, to the Red River of the 

 North, on the west, and from Manitoba southward through 

 the States of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. 



The Menomini Indians, more nearly related to the 

 Ojibwa than to any other tribe, are located on a reserva- 

 tion in the north-eastern part of Wisconsin (Hoffman, 

 op. cit., 1896, p. 12). 



Constant intercourse between the Menomini and 

 Ojibwa has influenced the ritual of the former's medicine 

 ceremonials. It is moulded very perceptibly after the 

 Ojibwa's, but during the process of adaptation much of 

 the ancient ritual has been lost and the ceremonies are 

 much curtailed and apparently worn down by careless 

 transmission from generation to generation. Living side 



6 J. W. Powell, Bureau of EthnoL, 7th Ann. Kept., 1891. 



