Use of Cowry-shells for Currency, Amulets, etc. 149 



articles as they obtain in this way, and do not themselves 

 need, they trade away to the south and east. On another 

 page (p. 553) of the same volume, he gives an illustration 

 (after Serpa Pinto) of Kimbande-Ganguellas with cowry- 

 ornament. It is of interest to note that the shells {C.moneta 

 or annulus), are employed by the women and girls as a 

 decoration in connection with their curious method of 

 hair-dressing ; the man shown in the illustration has no 

 such ornament. According to the observation of Waitz, 

 cowries were usual as ornament among Hottentots and 

 Kaffirs.*' Unfortunately no indication is given as to 

 whether these were the small white money cowries, or 

 some other. From Ratzel's figure (ii., p. 268) of a 

 Bushman amulet, consisting of large cowries attached to 

 a sort of belt, it would appear that cowries other than 

 those so universally employed for currency are used also 

 in the south. It is impossible to define the species from 

 the illustration, but it appears to be a large spotted one, 

 probably C tigris, whose nearest habitat is off the East 

 African coast, in the neighbourhood of Zanzibar. 



Returning north, to the French Congo, we find that, 

 according to Foret™ the races on the Tem and on the 

 Ivindo use cowries as ornaments. Lenz, in 1876, found 

 them so employed in the hinterland of Gaboon. Kund 

 also reports cowry-ornaments for the neck among the 

 Bateke, not far from Leopoldville. Dennett'^ figures a 

 Bavili " guardian fetish," called Mpembe, consisting of a 

 wooden image in the shape of a man, the eyes of which 

 are cowry-shells with the apertures outwards. Ratzel 



*" Schneider, op. cit., p. 172 : According to Peringuey (Ann. S. Afr. 

 Mies., viii, 1911, p. 104), Sparrman mentions and figures Hottentot orna- 

 ments of marine shells (Nerita albicilla ?) and a leather head-dress adorned 

 with three spaced rows of " cowries." 



"° Le Mouvement Geographique, 1902, No. 9 [fide Schneider). 



" R. E. Dennett, "At the Back of the Black Man's Mind," London, 

 1906, p. 91, pi. 5. 



