6 JACKSON, Money Cowry as a Sacred Object. 



a small white shell, of almost any species, but the one 

 believed to resemble the mythical ml'gis is similar to the 

 cowry, C. moneta. He states that nearly all the shells 

 employed for initiation purposes are foreign species, and 

 have no doubt been obtained from traders, I doubt very 

 much if this is the case with the money cowry, as there is 

 little evidence of trade in this Indo-Pacific shell amongst 

 the Indians. The fact of other shells being used by the 

 Ojibwa seems to imply that the money cowry is scarce 

 among them, and those they possess, doubtless handed 

 down from generation to generation, are regarded with 

 special veneration as being like that mentioned in the 

 tradition of Mi'nabo'zho and the origin of the Mide'- 

 wiwin, or Grand Medicine Society. 



A particularly suggestive event is figured by Mallery 

 in his paper on the " Picture- Writing of the American 

 Indians," 9 which appears to me to have some connection 

 with the cowry shell-cult of the Ojibwa and Menomini. 

 In Fig. 825 (p. 577) he reproduces what he calls "a 

 dangerous trading trip," an episode taken from a birch- 

 bark record, known to have been more than 70 years old, 

 obtained in 1882 from the Ojibwa Indians at Red Lake, 

 Minnesota. This was interpreted by an Indian from that 

 reservation, although he did not know the author nor the 

 history of the record. It represents an Indian who visited 

 a country supposed to have been near one of the great 

 lakes. In his hand is a scalp taken from the head of an 

 enemy, after having killed him. His enemy is repre- 

 sented by a man wearing horns on his head, a common 

 symbol of superior power among medicine men. Of the 

 other figures on the record one represents a shell, and 

 denotes the primary object of the journey. It is stated 

 in the Indian's interpretation that shells were needed for 



Bureau of EthnoL, 10th Ami. Rept.^ 1S93. 



