Use of Cowry-shells for Currency, Amulets, etc. 159 



In Togo-land cowries are also paid by the relations of 

 a girl seeking admission among the Ewe-priestesses, and 

 when the betrothed Ewe-youth brings his wife home 

 he pays to her parents 4 marks in cowries.™ At death 

 ceremonies, relations, friends and acquaintances, place 

 quantities of cowries in the grave with the dead, in order 

 that the deceased may purchase food and palm-wine, 

 and reward the old ferry-man Akotia who carries him in 

 his canoe over the wide river Assisa to the region of the 

 dead. According to Monrad,™ the negroes fully believe 

 that everything expended in the funeral obsequies, such as 

 the goods, coral, cowry-money, etc., placed in the grave, 

 the tobacco used and the wine drunk on such occasions, 

 will be of use to the defunct when he rises up in the future 

 world. 



Among the Bassari-people Klose found the previously- 

 mentioned game of chance (cowry-throwing), at which he 

 saw soldiers wager cowries to the value of from i to 3 

 marks at a cast. Cowry-casting for divination was also 

 employed by the priests in the fetish-village Dadease. 



According to R. Fr. Miiller, at the circumcision of 

 boys the circumciser receives a cowry, conveys it to the 

 forehead of the person about to be circumcised, and finally 

 buries it with the prepuce in a small pit ; as a reward he 

 receives 81 cowries. According to the same informer, 

 cowries were offered to the small-pox fetish.^^" 



That cowry-money has circulated in Togo for ages is 

 proved by an old saying, handed down from generation to 

 generation among the Ewe-negroes, according to which 

 cowries were found in a basket despatched from heaven 



11" Herold, "Mitteil. aus den deutsch. Schutzgebeiten," Bd. V. (1892), 

 p. 151 (fide Schneider). 



111 Monrad, "Gemalde der Kiistevon Guinea," p. 11 (fids Schneider). 



112 Miiller, " Fetischistisches aus Atakpama (Deutsch-Togo)," Gkbas, 

 1902, No. 18, pp. 280-1 (fide Schneider). 



