24 JACKSON, Use of Cowry-shells for Currency, Amulets, etc. 



placed to receive these offerings. 78 On the death of a twin 

 the body is embalmed and the ghost is caught by the 

 medicine man and made up into a "twin" (mulongo). To 

 do this, the man goes by night into a space in front of the 

 the house, spreads a barkcloth on the ground, kills a white 

 fowl, cuts out its tongue, and places it on the barkcloth ; 

 he then watches for the first insect that alights on the 

 barkcloth, catches it, and wraps it up with the fowl's 

 tongue, saying that the ghost has come back again. The 

 insect and fowl's tongue are then made up into a " twin " 

 decorated with cowry-shells and beads, put into a wooden 

 pot and preserved.™ 



In addition to the above uses, cowries are employed 

 by the Baganda to decorate the royal drum. Drum-sticks 

 made from human arm-bones are also ornamented with 

 them, as well as the stool of the war-god Kibuka. 80 



According to Stuhlmann, cowries were used in 

 Karagwe, on the west side of Victoria Nyanza, to orna- 

 ment the leather-cuff which serves as a protection of the 

 left wrist at archery, and in Unyora, north-west of the 

 above lake, the most important personage wears, as token 

 of his rank, a strip of cow-hide adorned with cowries and 

 coloured glass beads. The Wassongona and Wahuma 

 have cowries as neck-ornaments, and the young girls of 

 the latter wear a hip-cord of cowry-shells and beads, which 

 are sewn on leather strips.* 1 



According to Schweinfurth the Madi and Xiam Xiam 

 wear cowry-ornaments, but the)- do not appear to be of 

 great importance among the latter people. Cowries were 

 much sought after in former times by the Bongo, but they 

 have long since fallen out of the category of objects 



78 J bid., p. 71. 



79 J bid., p. 124. 



80 /bid., pp. 26, 214 and 306, fig. 49. 



81 Schneider, op. a'/., p. 172. 



