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



in front. Being wishful to journey through the pagan-land 

 of Runga, Nachtigal provided himself with cowries. In 

 Darfur he saw no more cowry-ornament. 89 In Haussaland 

 Robinson informs us : " The most common form of 

 gambling is a game called by the natives cliacha. It 

 consists in throwing up five cowry-shells, the player 

 winning or losing according as the shells fall, the right 

 or the wrong way up." 10 ° 



Regarding the use of cowries in the region of the 

 northern Guinea coast we have ample material to draw 

 upon in the accounts of numerous observers. In Sierra 

 Leone, at the time of Thomas Winterbottom, three or four 

 necklaces of cowries were worn at the mourning for a wife, 

 and the husband of the deceased woman was also required 

 to wear a necklet of shells. According to Major R. G. 

 Berry 101 the shells are used to play a game called jagay, 

 or knuckle-bones. They also form part of the sacred 

 contents of the medicine bag, or Borfimor, used at the 

 initiation ceremonies in connection with the Human 

 Leopard Society of the Sierra Leone cannibals. A 

 Borfimor bag obtained by Major Berry was found to 

 contain four smaller bags, one of which held two tau- 

 shaped iron crosses, the stems of which were lapped with 

 cotton, and to the top of each was tied a cowry-shell, or 

 sign of life. "The tau cross, or crux ansata" Berry remarks 

 — and in quoting this passage I do not accept all of the 

 statements — " was the emblem of Osiris, and is called the 

 Sign of Life, the symbol of resuscitation and new birth, 

 expressive of the idea entertained by the Egyptians and 



09 Schneider, op. cil„ various pages (quoting Nachtigal, Barth, and 

 others). 



160 C. H. Robinson, "Haussaland," London, 1896, p. 206. 



101 R. G. Berry, "The Sierra Leone Cannibals, with Notes on their 

 History, Religion, and Customs." Proc. Roy. Irish Academy, vol. xxx.,. 

 Sect. C, No. 2, May, 1912, pp.45, 53, and 67. 



