30 JACKSON, Use of ' Coivry- shells for Currency, Amulets, etc. 



Muniyo, and Kuka in Bornu. In the Haussa States, 

 Clapperton, in 1826, found the shells in general use as 

 money, and his companion, Richard Lander, mentions 

 cowry-currency in Kano, Womba, Catup, Kazigee and 

 Ragada in S.W. Haussa district. Rohlfs, on his 1867 

 journey from Kuka through Gujeba and the southern 

 Sokoto beyond Yakoba to the Benue, and down this river 

 to its junction with the Niger, and then up to the Rabba, 

 finally passing through Ilorin and Yoruba to the coast at 

 Lagos, moved throughout in the region of the cowry- 

 currency. In the district of the Marghi, cowries did not 

 circulate as money in Barth's time, yet he managed to 

 obtain two fowls with them, owing to the fact that the 

 shells were desired as ornament by the " young ladies." 



In the 17th and 18th centuries cowries were used 

 very largely by the slave-traders of the Guinea coast from 

 Senegal southwards ; but in later times, English gold 

 and the American dollar, together with other articles of 

 exchange, displaced the shells to a very great extent. 

 Where not actually in use as money, they still continue 

 to be employed for ornamental and other purposes. 



The territory of cowry-ornament in Western Africa is 

 of much wider extent than that of the cowry-currency. 

 In Morocco, for example, Lenz saw cowries as ornament 

 on the daughter of a chieftain. Such ornament is also 

 said to be used by the Tuarag of the southern Sahara, 

 and, according to Nachtigal, by the women in Tibesti. 

 The Joloff women string them on their hip-girdle. 

 Clapperton saw cowries frequently on the fringes of the 

 goat- and sheep-skins wound round the hips of the 

 women of " Kufu," and at Wazo he saw them on the 

 collars of greyhounds. According to Staudinger the 

 Fulbes had their numerous hair-plaits frequently decorated 

 with cowries. In Loko, Gurich, in 1885, found children 



