Use of Cowry-shells for Currency, Amulets, etc. 141 



whose headman practised soothsaying with cowries. He 

 threw several cowry-shells, and made his prediction from 

 the manner in which they fell. 



At Sennaar, in the Soudan, cowry-ornament still 

 obtains to-day among the Hassanieh Arabs. Caillarud, 

 in the 20th year of last century, saw cowries ornamenting 

 the fringed girdle of the young girls in Sennaar. Accord- 

 ing to Carl Ritter, they are still found as trimmings for 

 women's girdles in Abyssinia ;'' and Haldeman''*' describes 

 a curious Abyssinian necklace composed of European 

 beads, cowry-shells, bits of brass, copper coins, etc. 



According to Schneider {op. cit., p. 173), a large leather 

 object from Somaliland, richly ornamented with cowries, 

 is in the Dresden Museum,'"' and a similar object, orna- 

 mented in the same way, was brought from Somaliland 

 by Riebeck in 1883. That the cowry was in use here in 

 early times is proved by the discovery of CyprcBa mmulus, 

 along with glass, enamel, stone and other objects, in the 

 ruins of Bender Abbas, near Berbera. The age of these 

 ruins is still problematic ; they may belong to " Persian 

 times."™ Presumably this refers to the period of the 

 Persian conquest of Egypt in the sixth century B.C. 



In the Upper Nile region cowries, rubbed down on 

 their backs, are used by many negro peoples. The Lango, 

 Latuka, Lur, Shuli and Nuer have very many cowry- 

 ornaments, more especially on their head-coverings. Ac- 

 cording to Ratzel {pp. cit., iii., p. 30), the head-coverings of 

 the Shuli and Lango " consist of strong bass-matting, close 

 set with concentric rows of cowries, with a woven blunt 

 appendage, shaped either like a flat conical cup or like a 



" Schneider, op. cit., p. 173. 



■'" S. S. Haldeman, " United States Geographical Surveys West uf the 

 looth Meridian," vol. vii., Arcliteology, 1879, p. 263. 



''^ See also Ratzel, op. cit., ii., fig. 14 of plate facing p. 533. 

 •" Schneider, op. cii,,^. 118. 



