Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/40

 head, that is to say, a male slave is worth six or seven buffaloes, or the same number of pots (marmites; so in Homer, Il. 885, an ox is estimated at a kettle); the buffalo and the pot have the same value, which naturally varies with the size and age of the animal and the size and quality of the pot.

"A full-grown buffalo or a large pot is worth seven earthenware jars of a grey glaze, after the Chinese shape, and with a capacity of fifteen litres. One jar = 4 muk. (The muk is an unit of account, but originally meant some special article.) 1 muk = 10 mats, that is to say ten of these hoes, which are manufactured by the Cedans, and which are employed by all the savages of this region as their agricultural implement. The hoe is the smallest amount used by the Bahnars. It is worth 10 centimes in European goods, and is made of iron ." Thus the buffalo is worth 280 hoes, or a little more than an English sovereign, since each hoe is worth a penny (10 centimes). The Bahnars have sheet tin 1/2 millim. thick cut into pieces 11 centim. square, to be used to ornament sword-belts or to make earrings (iv. p. 390). A stick of virgin wax the size of an ordinary candle = 1 hoe, a pretty little cane hat = 2 hoes; a large bamboo hat = 2 hoes; a Bahnar knife = 2 hoes; a fine sword and sheath = 1 jar, 1 muk, 3 hoes; a crossbow and string = 3 hoes; ordinary arrows are sold at 30 for 1 hoe; arrows with movable heads, 20 for 1 hoe, and poisoned arrows 5 for 1 hoe; a lance-head = 3 hoes; a lance with palm handle = 4 hoes; a horse = 3 or 4 pots or buffaloes; a large elephant = 10 to 15 heads (slaves).

The same method of using the buffalo as the chief unit is employed by the Moïs, among whom a slave is reckoned at 10 buffaloes. Again, among tribes such as the Tjams, with whom the string of copper cash (or sapecs) borrowed from the Chinese, is employed as their lowest unit, a full-grown buffalo = 100 strings; the Mexican piastre or dollar