1877.] Aboriginal Shell Money. 347 
I picked up in an old Indian camp (Plate II., Figures 6 and T) 
are worth twenty-five cents each. The Indians are very ingeni- 
ous and economical in working up the aulones: wherever there 
is a broad, flat space they take out a dollar piece; where the 
curve is sharper, smaller ones. They especially value the outer 
edge ! of the whorl or lip, where the color is brilliant, and these 
they are obliged to cut into twenty-five cent pieces. You will 
see that the uhllo is cut into pieces of different sizes, and even 
pieces of the same size vary in value according to their brilliancy. 
... All the money that I have seen was strung on grocery 
twine, but they often use sinew of various kinds, also the outer 
bark of a weed called milkweed 2 about here.” 
The uhllo necklace has three or four strings of very small 
glass beads above the shells, forming a band about one quarter of 
an inch wide, which encircles the neck. . . . A common deep 
conical basket, of about a bushel and a half capacity, such as the 
Squaws use for carrying their household effects, is worth one and 
one half or two strings of uhllo, that is, fifteen or twenty dollars. 
Another form of money is made from the heavy shells of a 
bivalve, a ponderous clam (Pachydesma crassatelloides) peculiar 
to the southern coast of California. This is cut into circular 
pieces of the diameter as shown in the annexed figure (65), the 
thickness of the pieces varying with 
the thickness of the shells from 
which they are made. The larger 
pieces (Figure 65, 1 and 1 a), of the 
value of twenty-five cents, are cut 
from the thicker parts of the valves, 
and the smaller (Figure 65, 2, 2 a), 
of the value of four cents each, from 
the thinner portions. This money, 
of which the smaller pieces closely E 
resemble the disk-shaped beads of Fie 
the natives of the Paumotu Islands Us 
in the South Pacific,t except in be- 
ing of twice the diameter and thick- 
1 Columella. 2 Asclepias. 3 Placer County, Cal. 
* The Paumotus are in about longitude 130° W. and latitude 23° S. The pieces 
made by these islanders are of about one half the diameter and one half the thickness 
of Figure 5; they are made of Oliva carneola, and it must require great labor, as these 
transverse sections are formed by grinding off the small upper whorls of the apex, 
and also nearly the entire body whorl, until a disk is obtained of an average thick- 
ness of only one twelfth of an inch; these are strung alternately with thinner disks 
ed the same diameter, made of the inner hard shell of the cocoanut, forming a neat 
necklace, with a pleasing contrast of black and white. : 
1-a. 2 
(Fic. 65.) HAWOCK. 
