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



Thurston 138 also cites a curious custom among the Chettis 

 (traders) of Southern India of unmarried girls wearing a 

 necklace of the money-cowry and beads, it being " unusual 

 for unmarried girls to wear any badge of their condition." 

 This association of cowries with the unmarried is of great 

 interest in view of a somewhat similar custom in East 

 Africa, to which reference is made on another page. 

 Thurston further states that " when a Hasalara or Hasala 

 (forest tribe) of Mysore dies, somebody's evil spirit is 

 credited with the mishap, and an astrologer is consulted 

 to ascertain its identity. He throws cowry {Cyprcea 

 monet(i) shells or rice for divination, and mentions the 

 name of some neighbour as the owner of the devil. There- 

 upon the spirit of the dead is redeemed by the heir or 

 relative by means of a pig, fowl, or other guerdon." 

 (Thurston, op. cit., pp. 164-5.) 



Turning to Ceylon we find that Hildburgh, in his 

 "Notes on Sinhalese Magic," 139 states that cowries are 

 worn as amulets by infants. This same writer also gives 

 illustrations (pi. XI.) of masks worn by devil-dancers in 

 which sometimes the upper, or both upper and lower, 

 teeth are formed of cowry-shells. Culin, in his " Chess 

 and Playing-Cards," 140 describes a cowry game, Kawadi 

 Kelia, in which cowries of different kinds are used as men, 

 each player also having three cowries as dice. This game 

 is clearly related to the Hindu game of Pachisi, also 

 played with cowries. The shells are thrown as dice and 

 the counts are according as the apertures fall uppermost 

 or not. " The game of Pachisi," says Culin, " may be 



138 E. Thurston, "Ethnographic Notes in Southern India," .Madras, 

 1906, p. 68 ; In his article on " Some Marriage Customs in Southern India" 

 {Madras Govt. Mus. Bulletin, vol. iv., No. 3, 1903, p. 155) Thurston gives 

 the species as Cypnca arabica. 



100 Journ. A'. Anthiop. Inst., \o\ 38 (1908), p. 193. 



140 Report U. S. Nat. Mus., for 1896 (1898), pp. 851-4. 



