Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/60

 fashioned according to the owner's requirements. Any tools may be obtained ready made from a smith, and can be used in barter when new.

"Compensation for killing a woman or any serious crime must be paid for in cattle. No cowries are used as coins in this district, no measure of weight, quantity or length is used. The payment for a wife must be made in cows of a year old, or in bulls of two or three years ."

But it is in Darfour and Wadai that we find the primitive system in its fullest form. Wives are bought with cows, 20 of which with a male and female slave are the usual price of a wife, hence the Darfouris prefer daughters to sons. Hence the proverb that girls fill the stable, but boys empty it, which recalls the cow-winning maidens of Homer ([Greek: parthenoi alphesiboiai]). There is absolutely no metal of any kind in Darfour, except that which is imported. Having no money, they accept certain articles as having a certain monetary value. Facher was the first place in Darfour which had anything like a currency; it consisted of rings made of tin, which were employed in the purchase of every-day necessaries of life. These rings are called tarneih in Darfouris. There are two kinds, the heavy ring and the light ring; the light serves for buying the most trivial articles. For purchasing articles of value they have the toukkiyeh, a piece of cotton cloth six cubits long by one broad. There are two kinds of this stuff, chykeh and katkât. Four pieces of the former and 4-1/2 pieces of the latter are worth a Spanish dollar. Buying and selling is also carried on by means of slaves: thus one says, "this horse is worth 2 or 3 sedâcy (a name given to a negro slave, who measures six spans from his ankle to the lower part of his ear) ." A sedaciyeh is a female negro slave of the same height. A sedâcy is worth 30 toukkiyeh, or six blue chauter, or 8 white chauter or six oxen, or 10 Spanish pillar dollars, the only coined money known in Darfour, where it is called abou