xxiv Introduction. 



pearls. It is a remarkable fact that, according to Mrs. 

 /Zelia Nuttall, the people who make use of purple in 

 Mexico are also famed for their gold-work, an association 

 which has probably survived for twenty centuries. In 

 Ireland also the king who is reputed to have first smelted 

 gold in that island is also said to have introduced the art 

 of making purple. Both in the Old and New Worlds 

 purple was not only made and used in the same way for 

 staining threads for weaving, but it was also employee} 

 for colouring precious manuscripts and as a cosmetic. If 

 it be argued that purple was invented independently in 

 the New World it must be remembered that the method 

 of its production is a complex and difficult process, which 

 in itself is sufficient to raise a doubt as to the likelihood 

 of such a discovery being made more than once. 



There are reasons for believing that all these special 

 uses of shells were spread abroad along with the complex 

 mixture of arts, customs and beliefs associated with the 

 building of megalithic monuments. 



The earliest use of the conch-shell trumpet was in the 

 Minoan worship in Crete. Thence it spread far and wide, 

 until it came to play a part in religious services, Christian 

 and Jewish, Brahman and Buddhist, Shinto and Shaman- 

 istic, in widely different parts of the world — in the Medi- 

 terranean, in India, in Central Asia, in Indonesia and 

 Japan, in Oceania and America. In many of these places 

 it was supposed to have the definite ritual object of 

 summoning the deity. In the New Testament the sound 

 of the trumpet is the signal for the resurrection. Like 

 the cowry it was used in marriage and funeral ceremonies, 

 in connexion with harvest rites and circumcision, in the 

 ritual of initiation into secret societies, in the ceremonials 

 before sacred images, in the rites of drinking (such as 

 soma-worship and kava) and of head-hunting. 



