Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/313

Rh pieces rate at one dollar apiece—ten dollars a string; the smaller in proportion, or loss, if they are not pretty. Being susceptible of a high polish, this money forms a beautiful ornament, and is worn for necklaces on gala-days. But as money it is rather too large and cumbersome, and the Indians generally seek to exchange it for the less brilliant and more useful hâwok. The ullo may be considered rather as jewelry. The peculiar shape given to this ullo, or "gold-money," is deserving of notice, as will be seen hereafter.

Of the shell-money in general Mr. Powers remarks that "immense quantities of it were formerly in circulation among the Californian Indians, and the manufacture of it was large and constant, to replace the continual wastage which was caused by the sacrifice of so much upon the death of wealthy men, and by the propitiatory sacrifices performed by many tribes, especially those of the Coast Range." This use of shell-money in sacrifices and in funeral ceremonies is precisely the same that is made of the Eastern wampum. Like the shape of the oblong ullo money, this is a fact which will be found significant as we proceed. Mr. Powers continues: "From my own observations, which have not been limited, and from the statements of pioneers and the Indians themselves, I hesitate little to express the belief that every Indian in the State, in early days, possessed an average of at least one hundred dollars' worth of shell-money. This," adds the author, with a commercial precision which is both commendable and amusing, "would represent the value of about two women (though the Nishinams never actually bought their wives), or two grizzly-bear skins, or twenty-five cinnamon-bear skins, or about three average ponies. This may be considered a fair statement of the diffusion of wealth among them in their primitive condition."

Thus it will be seen that shell-money of this peculiar character was in use over a wide space of North America, stretching from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. The line along which it is found in the greatest abundance extends from New York and the Ohio Valley to Southern California in a direction somewhat south of west. If we continue this line in the same direction a little more than half-way across the Pacific, we arrive at the widely extended range of small islands, or congeries of island-groups, known in modern geography by the name of Micronesia. It fills a great part of the western half of the ocean north of the equator, and comprises the Radack and Ralick chains, the Kingsmill and Marshall groups, the Marian (or Ladrono) and Caroline Islands, the Pelews, Panape, Eap, and many smaller clusters and single islets. The well-known Loo-Choo islands form the stepping-stones, as it were, which lead from this vast archipelago to China and Japan. The natives of Micronesia are in about the same social stage as that which had been attained by the North American Indians when they were first known to the whites. In character, usages, and language they resemble to a certain extent the natives of the southern and