XXI. 



THE SHELL-MONEY OF THE NATIVE AMERICANS. 



r |^HE use of a circulating medium to facilitate commerce by simplifying 

 -■- th-e awkward devices of barter is supposed' to indicate a considerable 

 advance towards civilization in the people employing it. On this score 

 the North American Indians ought to stand high in the list of barbarians, 

 since they possessed an aboriginal money of recognized value, although 

 it had no sanction other than common custom. This money was made 

 from sea-shells, and was known by various names, of which one — wam- 

 pum — has survived popularly, though in a somewhat changed shape; for 

 while it originally meant a particular kind, it is now used as an American 

 word to designate all varieties of shell beads and money. 



Sea-shells, indeed, seem to have commended themselves for this pur- 

 pose to widely different peoples. The great circulation which the cowry- 

 shell (Cypro&a rnoneta) attained in tropical Africa, India, and the South 

 Sea islands, will occur to the reader. It was once the coin of those 

 regions to the exclusion of everything else in trading with the savages, 

 and ships going after cargoes of ivory, palm-oil, sandal-wood and similar 

 products, were obliged first to provide themselves with cargoes of cowries 

 at Zanzibar or some other port where they could be bought. This small 

 shell, smooth, shining, easily perforated, not too common, was the most 

 suitable thing for the purpose that could have been found. It could not 

 be produced artificially, or counterfeited, or acquired without considerable 

 exertion. It therefore represented an expenditure of labor on the part 

 of its possessor, and became at once a purchasing power. No alterations 

 were made to the Cyprwa, except to punch a small hole in it when it 

 was desired to put a thread through ; and in this respect the Dentalium, 

 which, as we shall see, served as money among the Indians of the Oregon 

 coast, resembled it — that shell being easily strung, and therefore used 

 whole. 



The importance of the cowry (Cyprma rnoneta) is shown by the statis- 

 tics of commerce during the present century. In 1843 it was recorded 



