Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 126, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1909 — The Money of Savages. [ARTICLE]

The Money of Savages.

Many savages know no commerce •xcept the direct exchange of one useful object for another, but numerous other tribes hare experienced the necessity of facilitating business by the creation of a standard currency which enables exchanges to be made indirectly and at any time. This money varies greatly in character in different places. The money moat commonly employed by primitive peoples consists of useful objects. Examples are: Slaves in Africa and New Guinea; cattle, reindeer among the Lapps; salt, in Laos, Indo China; furs, in Siberia; cloth, in Africa; shells, beads, feather and other ornaments, and even various articles of food. If the money is not useful In itself it must naturally be composed of rare materials. “Thus the Pelew islanders, near- Australia,” says 1 M. Deniker, “carefully preserve as current money a certain number of obsidian or porcelain beads and prisms of terracotta, imported no one knows jjust when or how, which have very high values. One tribe possesses a single prism of clay which is regarded as a public Treasure. In the neighboring island of Yap the place of money is taken by blocks of aragonite, a minehal which is not found in the island but is brought from the Pelews. The value of a block is proportional to its size, a thousand-franc note (s2oo\ being represented by a huge diSk which two men can hardly carry.” _ But this is an exceptional case. Usually, preference •is shown for more convenient objects, which combine a maximum of value with a minimum of weight. For example, the Chorchon and Bannock Indians of Idaho and Montana use teeth of the wapiti deer as money. For the same reasons the Michmis make use of the skulls of animate, while the money of the Loyalty islands, in the Pacific, consists of ropes made of fox hair, which may be cut to any desired length. The Mexicans formerly made extensive use of cacao beans and this sort of money Is not yet entirely obsolete, despite modern facilities of communication. Shells are often used a§ money. According to M. Deniker, the tooth shell, or “elephant’s tusk,” is thus employed by the Indians of northwestern America, wampum beads of the tribes of the eastern United States are made of the shells of Venus mercanaria, a species akin to the cockles. But of all shells the cowry is most used as money. The species most frequently employed are Cyprea monels and Cyprea annulus, of which the former appears tb be commonest in Asia, the latter in Africa. Both' species occur throughout fre Indian ocean, but they are gathered in ..large quantities in only two districts, the Maidive Islands, west of Ceylon, and the Sulu archipelago, between Borneo and the Philippines. On t v e Asiatic continent they are used as x . money most extensively in Siam and Laos, where, twenty years ago, from twenty to thirty cowries were equivalent to 1 centime (100 to 150 to a cent).