Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/182

 large bamboo hat costs 2 hoes, a Bahnar knife 2 hoes, ordinary arrows are sold at 30 for 1 hoe and so on. A large elephant is worth from 10 to 15 "heads" or slaves, whilst a horse costs 3 or 4 kettles or buffalos. When we read of such a state of human society we seem to be transported back into that far away Homeric time, and as we hear of slaves, and kine, chaldrons and kettles we think of the old Epics with their tale of slaves valued in beeves, and "crumple-horned shambling kine, and tripods" and "shining chaldrons." In the light of such analogies we at last can understand the significance of the 10 axes and 10 "half-axes" which formed the first and second prizes in the Iliad when Achilles "set out for the archers the dark-hued iron, and put down 10 axes and 10 half-axes." Who can doubt that these axes and half-axes played much the same part in the Homeric system of currency as the hoes do at this present moment in that of the Bahnars of Annam? Probably such too were the 12 axes which Penelope brought out from the treasure chamber to serve as a target for the suitors in their contests with the bow of Ulysses. The hoe is thus the lowest unit of currency among the Bahnars. From the known interrelations of all the articles of daily life it is easy to estimate how many hoes any even of their more costly possessions is worth. Thus the full-grown buffalo = 7 jars = 28 muks = 280 hoes, or about £1. 3s. 4d. of our money. All these transactions require no use of weights, being reckoned by bulk or tale. But now comes the most interesting feature for us, a people in the complete stage of barter, but who actually possess, work and traffic in gold.

In all the streams on the side next Laos the wild people wash gold, men, women and children all alike joining in this laborious industry, and employ as 'cradles' little baskets made of bamboo. The gold is sold in dust at the rate of the weight in gold of one grain of maize for one hoe. Here then we have finally run to ground one of the principal objects of our quest. We have a primitive people, who carry on all their trade by means of barter, who have no currency in the precious metals, but who employ as their most general unit of small value the