Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/316

304 this tortoise-shell money had an important place in the social usages of the people.

This ancient currency of the Ladrones was evidently the same with the supposed bead-ornaments of the Kingsmill-Islanders, except that the latter use other shells instead of that of the tortoise. But, when the nature of the commodity became apparent, some noteworthy inferences were drawn from it. As has been already observed, some of the customs and much of the mythology of the Micronesian Islanders seem to have sprung from communication with Northeastern Asia. This peculiar currency takes us in the same direction. The most common Chinese coins, their copper cash, have a hole through the center, are strung upon strings, and disposed of by lengths. This money is in use in the Loo-Choo Islands, midway between Micronesia and China. In Beechey's voyage to the Pacific, speaking of the assertion hastily made by Captain Basil Hall, that the people of Loo-Choo have no money, he says, "Our meeting with this peasant, however, disclosed the truth, as he had a string of cash (small Chinese money) suspended to his girdle, in the manner adopted by the Chinese." In a foot-note he adds, "These coins, being of small value, are strung together in hundreds, and have a knot at each end, so that it is not necessary to count them."

But evidence still more remarkable is afforded by the very valuable "Monograph on the History of Money in China," which we owe to Mr. Alexander Del Mar, late of the United States Monetary Commission, and author of "A History of the Precious Metals," and other works. He mentions a curious fact recorded in the great Chinese encyclopædia of the Emperor Kang-he, who reigned in the early part of the last century. In this work it is stated that "in ancient times the money of China was of tortoise-shell." How far back we must go for these "ancient times" is sufficiently shown, as Mr. Del Mar remarks, by the fact that Kang-he himself possessed a cabinet of metallic coins dating from the reign of Yaou, 2347; and the Chinese annalists assert that metal coins were known in the time of Fuh-he, six hundred years before the date just recorded. From this it might seem that nearly five thousand years have elapsed since this tortoise-shell money was in common use in China. But, from what we know of the conservative temperament of the Chinese, it seems highly probable that many centuries must have passed before the clumsy and burdensome copper coins completely superseded the lighter and more convenient tortoiseshell disks and slips. Cowries are used to this day, along with metallic coins, in some parts of the East Indies. It is not unlikely that the total disappearance of the shell-money from the currency of China dates from the period when paper-money first came into use in that empire, which is said to have been in the reign of Woo-te, about one hundred and forty years before the Christian era.

Some very ancient Chinese coins are still preserved in the cabinets