The Tooth Shells 



to act as a gill. There is no eye, nor any need of one, for the head 

 is buried; but certain vibrating organs are believed to be ears. 

 The captacula, or tentacles, feel around in the sand and capture 

 the minute bivalves and Foraminifera on which the mollusk 

 feeds. 



Tooth shells have been used as money and as ornaments by 

 tribes of Indians. The polished shells, perforated by nature as 

 if for stringing, would suggest the possibility of a necklace to 

 any child. They made the same appeal to Indians. 



The Money Tooth Shell (D. pretiosum, Nutt.), is abun- 

 dant along the Pacific coast north of California. It is pure 

 white and polished and somewhat over an inch in length. It 

 looks like an elephant's tusk in miniature. The Indians used to 

 collect these shells by combing the sandy bottom with a long 

 fine-toothed rake. The squaw slowly paddled the canoe over 

 the shallows while the man operated the rake. If luck was good, 

 a few shells came up with each haul. 



Strings of tooth shells formed the currency of the Indians 

 in the days before the Hudson Bay Company came. A string 

 of twenty-five large ones might be worth the price of a canoe, or 

 a comely squaw. This was about equal to two hundred and 

 fifty dollars. The industrious beach-comber soon became a 

 man of means. 



Haik-wa, hai-qua or tusk shell money of the aborigines of 

 of the Pacific coast, was the equivalent of the wampum in use 

 among the Indian tribes of the Atlantic coast. The California 

 Indians had immense quantities of the "money shells" in cir- 

 culation before they came into contact with civilisation. Powers 

 says : 



From my own observations and from the statements of 

 pioneers and the Indians themselves I hesitate little to express 

 the belief that every Indian in the state, in early days, possessed 

 an average of at least |ioo worth of shell money. This would 

 represent the value of about two women, or two grizzly bear- 

 ^kms, or twenty-five cinnamon bearskins, or about three average 

 ponies. 



The squaws strung the shells on a fine thread of deer sinew. 

 The string was usually ornamented with bits of the pearly Hali- 

 otis shell and tufts of wool from the mountain goat. 



The highest standard of currency was the hai-qua,or sovereign, 

 valued at about ^£50 sterling. It was a string of twenty-five 



300 



