Monetary use Cowrie shells, especially
Monetaria moneta, were used for centuries as currency by native Africans. (The money cowrie was almost impossible to counterfeit until the late 19th century.) Starting more than 3000 years ago, cowrie shells or their copies were used as
Chinese currency. They were also used as means of exchange in India. The
Classical Chinese character for "money" (
貝) originated as a stylized drawing of a Maldivian cowrie shell. Words and characters concerning money, property, or wealth usually have this as a
radical. Before the
Spring and Autumn period, the cowrie was used as a type of trade token awarding access to a feudal lord's resources to a worthy vassal. After the 1500s, the shell's use as currency became even more common. Western nations, chiefly through the
slave trade, introduced huge numbers of Maldivian cowries in Africa. In parts of
British West Africa, cowries remained accepted for tax payments until the early 20th century, and their use as currency in unregulated environments persisted until the 1960s. The national currency of Ghana introduced in 1965, the
cedi, was named after cowrie shells.
Ritual use Cowrie shells are used in
divination amongst the
Yoruba people of West Africa (cf.
Ifá and the
annual customs of Dahomey of Benin). The indigenous
Ojibwe people of North America use cowrie shells called miigis shells or whiteshells in
Midewiwin ceremonies, and the
Whiteshell Provincial Park in Manitoba, Canada, is named after this type of shell. Some debate has arisen about how the Ojibwe traded for or found these shells, so far inland and so far north, very distant from the natural habitat. Oral stories and
birch bark scrolls seem to indicate that the shells were found in the ground, or washed up on the shores of lakes or rivers. Finding the cowrie shells so far inland could indicate the previous use of them by an earlier group in the area, who may have obtained them through an extensive trade network in the past. In eastern India, particularly in West Bengal, it is given as a token price for the ferry ride of the departed soul to cross the river "
Vaitarani". Cowries are used during cremation. They are also used in the worship of the goddess
Laxmi. In Brazil, as a result of the
Atlantic slave trade from Africa, cowrie shells (called
búzios) are also used to consult the
Orixás divinities and hear their replies. Cowrie shells were among the devices used for divination by the
Kaniyar Panicker astrologers of
Kerala, India. In certain parts of Africa, cowries were prized charms, and they were said to be associated with fecundity, sexual pleasure, and good luck. In
predynastic Egypt and Neolithic
Southern Levant, cowrie shells were placed in the graves of young girls. The modified Levantine cowries were discovered ritually arranged around the skull in female burials. During the
Bronze Age, cowries became more common as funerary goods, also associated with burials of women and children. The
cowroid was an Egyptian seal amulet imitating the cowrie shell. Their imitations in stone or faience appear in the early second millennium BC.
Jewelry necklace made from silver coins, cowrie shells, and beads Cowrie shells are also worn as
jewelry or otherwise used as
ornaments or
charms. In
Mende,
Kikuyu culture, cowrie shells are viewed as
symbols of
womanhood,
fertility, birth, and
wealth. Its underside is supposed, by one modern ethnographic author, to represent a vulva or an eye. On the Fiji Islands, a shell of the golden cowrie or bulikula,
Cypraea aurantium, was drilled at the ends and worn on a string around the neck by
chieftains as a badge of rank. The women of Tuvalu use cowrie and other shells in traditional handicrafts.
Games and gambling Cowrie shells are sometimes used in a way similar to
dice, e.g., in
board games such as
Pachisi and
Ashta Chamma. A number of shells (six or seven in Pachisi) are thrown, with those landing aperture upwards indicating the actual number rolled. In Nepal, cowries are used for a gambling game, where 16 cowries are tossed by four different bettors (and subbettors under them). This game is usually played at homes and in public during the
Hindu festival of
Tihar or
Deepawali. In the same festival, these shells are also worshiped as a symbol of the goddess
Lakshmi and wealth.
Other Large cowrie shells such as those of
Cypraea tigris have been used in Europe in the recent past as a
darning egg over which sock heels were stretched. The cowrie's smooth surface allows the needle to be positioned under the cloth more easily. In the 1940s and 1950s, small cowry shells were used as a teaching aid in children's schools, e.g counting, adding, and subtracting. File:A print from 1845 shows cowry shells being used as money by an Arab trader.jpg|A print from 1845 shows cowrie shells being used as money by an Arab trader. File:Antiquities of the southern Indians, particularly of the Georgia tribes (1873) (14777393065).jpg|Antiquities of Native Americans, particularly of the Georgia tribes (1873) File:Cowrie shells - sozhi roll of 3.jpg|Cowrie shells used as dice, showing a roll of a three == See also ==