320 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



market value is regulated on a sliding scale, on which the prices range 

 all the way from two up to fifteen strings." Among the Hupas or 

 Hoop as, Powers* says: "Murder is generally compounded for by the 

 payment of shell money." 



Besides the allico-cheek or Tusk-shell money; Dentalia, which so far 

 as general use as money is considered, had the widest circulation, we 

 will now briefly glance at certain other forms that were used to a greater 

 or less extent for the same purpose. 



The Tusk-shell money, al-lilco- chile, it seems, was principally used by 

 the coast tribes from Mendocino, California, northward to Alaska, and 

 by such other tribes to the eastward of the coast tribes whose territory 

 joined on or was proximate to that of the coast tribes; and that it was 

 known and highly prized still farther to the eastward, we have the 

 following testimony : 



" The Hidatsa,t Minnataree, or Gros Ventre Indians, are one of the 

 three tribes which at present [1854-'62]) inhabit the permanent village 

 at Fort Berthold, Dakota Territory, and hunt on the waters of the Up- 

 per Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, in northwestern Dakota and 

 eastern Montana." i 



u It appears probable that they once carried on a trade indirectly 

 with the tribes of the Pacific coast, for they had Dentalium shells simi- 

 lar to those obtained on the Pacific, and they prized them so highly 

 that the white traders found it advisable to obtain them for the trade. 

 As late as 1866, ten of these shells, of inferior size, costing the traders 

 only a cent apiece, would buy a superior buffalo robe, and formerly 

 only two or three of the same quality were paid for a robe. Modern 

 traders, with whom the writer has conversed, obtain their shells from 

 the Eastern importers, and know nothing of the original source of sup- 

 ply. They suppose them to come from the Atlantic coast or the Great 

 Lakes, and call them ' Iroquois shells,' which is probably their corrup- 

 tion of the Chinook Hyakwa, but it is possible the reverse is the case." 



They also used, and still use as ornaments, fragments of the Abalone 

 shells (one or more species of Haliotis) of the Pacific. These are now 

 supplied to the trade under the name of California shells. Ten years 

 ago one of these shells, unpolished, sold for a good robe. There is lit- 

 tle doubt that they used Abalone, Dentalium, and other sea-shells before 

 the traders brought them. Old traders and Indians say so. Even as 

 late as 1833 it would seem that they had not yet become a regular part 

 of a trader's outfit; for Maximiliau§ says of the Mandans : "They do 

 not disfigure the bodies; only they make some apertures in the outer 

 rim of the ear, in which they have strings of beads, brass or iron rings 

 of different sizes, or shells, the last of which they obtain from other 



* Overland Monthly, vol. ix. 



t Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians, etc., p. 3. 

 t Id., p. 28. 



$ Travels in the Interior of North America by Maximilian * * * in 1832, 1833, 

 1834. London ed. Ackerman & Co. 1843. 



