Cowrie

“ From very ancient times the smaller Cowries have been used for adornment or barter. The Cypraea annulus, or ringed cowrie, which was found by Dr. Layard in the ruins of Nimroud, is said to be the same species which is now used by the islanders of the Indian and Pacific Oceans to weight their fish nets and to adorn their persons. In western Africa the money cowry (Cypraea moneta) has been and is now used as a medium of exchange in place of gold. ”

“ This cowrie—are we even certain that it was Indian?—that it differed so unmistakably from the cowries discoverable by twos and threes at times on a little beach off which I cast anchor half a dozen times every summer? I speak as a man anxious to get at a little plain knowledge concerning the land of his birth, and the researchers seem honestly unable to give me any that does not tumble to pieces even in their own hands. For—and this seems the one advance made—the researchers themselves are honest nowadays. ”

“ A little alum, or a few cowrie shells worn about the dress, avert this evil; and this is the reason why so many trappings for horses and camels are all trimmed with cowrie shells.
Perhaps the most curious thing of all is to hear of men declaring that they would sooner eat poison than taste the fat meat hung up in the butchers' shops, lest any hungry beggar should have beheld and coveted it. They prefer going to distant shops, where the meat is concealed from the passers-by. Only think of the row of carriages outside some fashionable confectioner's shop ”

“ A polished bodkin of white petrified shell, with sharp-pointed ends, thrust through a hole in the partition of his nostrils, extended five inches across his face. About his neck, from a cord of twisted coconut sennit, hung an ivory-white necklace of wild-boar’s tusks. A garter of white cowrie shells encircled one leg just below the knee. A flaming scarlet flower was coquettishly stuck over one ear, and through a hole in the other ear was threaded a pig’s tail so recently severed that it still bled. ”

“ In habits the Cowries are shy and they are slow in movement, sliding over the coral reefs and marine vegetation with a sluggish, steady motion. They present a beautiful sight when viewed through the water, their brilliant colors vying with those of corals, sea anemones and sea weeds. ”

“ Its largest size is about two feet diameter. From its great beauty, it would well deserve to be grown in England; and as I have found it growing as high up the mountains as any other tree, I have no doubt it would be perfectly hardy. The largest tree I have seen in the country is very common in these woods, but is not peculiar to them, although in other than rich soil it never arrives at even the size of the cowrie. It has a soft white wood, and is always decayed in the middle ”

“ I observed some tamarind-trees and many cés. About nine in the morning, after travelling six miles and a half, we reached Niourot, a little village, where we could purchase nothing but with cowries, which are the current money among all the inhabitants of upper Bambara. They receive them from the European merchants who trade on the western coasts, and from the Moors on the shores of the Mediterranean. The cowries are just beginning to be current in this part of the country. The price of a fowl is eighty cowries. ”

“ The most rare and valuable, if not the most beautiful of these Cowries, is the C. aurora, or aurantium, Morning-dawn, or Orange Cowry, a perfect specimen of which has been sold for fifty guineas. There is a very curious shell called the Common Weaver’s Shuttle, (Oculum volva,) generally included in the Cyprea family ”

“ The Cowries are without exception the most beautiful of all shells, whether the richness and harmony of their colours, or the exquisite polish of their exterior, is considered; but (like many other things of more consequence) their beauty is depreciated by their frequency. The indefatigable Lamarck has described sixty-six species, only one of which inhabits the European seas. Adanson has furnished a minute account of the structure of the animal, and Bruguiere has given long and interesting details of its economy. ”

“ As in many other genera of shells the Cowries living in the tropics are more brilliantly colored than those from more temperate climes, a condition due to the large amount of sunshine and high temperature, both of these factors being essential to the secretion of color in the pigment cells of the animal. ”

“ He, as was natural, refused to take these as his remuneration, whereupon the four friends said, "Well, you say your house is on the road which we shall have to pass. Come with us, and when we are near your house, you may call out to your father that we have given you four bad cowries. If he protests against it, you may compel us to pay you to your satisfaction." ”

“ The great Orange Cowry (Cypraea aurantiaca) is used as a badge of high rank among the chieftains. One of the most remarkable Fijian industries is the working of whales’ teeth to represent this cowry, as well as the commoner C. talpa, which is more easily imitated.
Among the Solomon islanders, cowries are used to ornament their shields on great field days, and split cowries are worn as a necklace, to represent human teeth. Small bunches of Terebellum subulatum are worn as earrings, and a large valve of Avicula is employed as a head ornament in the centre of a fillet. ”

“ Distribution.—The well-known Cowries are found all over the world, but they are much more abundant in warm regions. One small species extends to Greenland. There are nearly 100 fossil species, from the Chalk to the Miocene and recent formations. ”

“ On Plate VII, will be found a group of other Foreign Cowries, most of which will be recognized as familiar ornaments of the mantel and side-board. Fig. 1 is the Spotted or Leopard Cowry, sometimes also called the Tiger Cowry, (C. tigris,) which, in the earlier stages of its growth, is simply marked with broad bands of lighter colour across the shell. Fig. 2, the Map Cowry, (C. mappa,) curiously marked and shaded, so as to resemble a coloured map; there are several varieties of this beautiful shell, such as the rosy and dark variety from the Pearl Islands, in the Indian Ocean ”

“ They founded their belief on the fact that some individuals of the same species were larger than others. This, however, is due simply to individual variation.
The beautiful colors so much admired are deposited by the reflected mantle and their variety is almost endless. Some are perfectly plain, white, brownish, yellowish or orange, others are spotted with red, white, brown, drab or black, and still others are variously banded. The eyed-cowry (Cypraea argus) has large, dark brown spots on a lighter background.
In form and sculpture the Cowries present a rather wide range of variation. ”

“ The one are called Dewa-Kauḍha, 'the Isles of the Cowries,' because of the Cowries that they collect on the branches of coco-trees planted in the sea."—Albirūnī, in J. As., Ser. IV. tom. iv. 266.
c. 1240.—"It has been narrated on this wise that as in that country (Bengal) , the kauṛi [shell] is current in place of silver, the least gift he used to bestow was a lak of kauṛis. The Almighty mitigate his punishment [in hell] !"—Ṭabaḳāt-i-Nāṣiri, by Raverty, 555 seq.
c. 1350.—"The money of the Islanders (of the Maldives) consists of cowries (al-wada') . ”

“ The shebbel, a species of salmon, a very delicate fish, but so rich that it is best roasted, which the Arabs do in a superior manner. PRICES OF DIFFERENT ARTICLES.
Sheep from ten to sixteen cowries. Cowries 55 are much valued, and form an ornament of head-dress even for the richest women; they are highly valued as ornaments. Goats are cheaper than sheep; the best from eight to twelve cowries. Fowls from four to six cowries each. Antelopes are very scarce and dear. Camels from thirty to sixty cowries, according to their size and condition. ”

“ Fig. 3, the Mole Cowry, (C. talpa,) the last word being the Latin for a mole, is of a more slender form than most other species of the Cypræidæ family, so called on account of their beauty, Cyprea being a name of Venus, the goddess of beauty. Any one who has seen a mole, must be struck with the resemblance of its general [40] outline to this shell, of which there is a darker-coloured variety of somewhat stouter form, called exustus—burned or scorched. Of the Poached-egg Cowries there are several species, the most common is called by naturalists Ovulum ovum, Fig. 4, from ovum—an egg ”

“ On the march the cowherd travels on foot with his beasts, driving the huge droves in front of him with many weird cries and much thwacking with a stout stick, stopping every now and then to chase a truant out of the bush whither he has wandered to enjoy a succulent mouthful of grass, at the same time heaping imprecations on the luckless animal’s head. They travel slowly, and will probably cover only ten miles in one day. It is by no means unusual for a caravan of cattle to take three months over its journey. The master does not accompany his animals. He is far too superior a person. ”

“ Upwards of 100 species are recognized, and they are widely distributed over the world—their habitat being the shallow water along the sea-shore. The best known is the money cowry or Cypraea moneta, a small shell about half an inch in length, white and straw-coloured without and blue within, which derives its distinctive name from the fact that in various countries it has been employed as a kind of currency. ”

“ The cowry shell, which is worn round the neck by children as an antidote to the Evil Eye and diabolical influence, is supposed to have such sympathy with the wearer that it cracks when the evil glance falls upon it, as in England coral was thought to change colour and grow pale when its owner was sick. The cowry shell is, with the same object, tied round the neck or pasterns of a valued horse, or on a cow or buffalo. ”

“ The first American cow pony was not without his cowboy. Though the drivers were not all of the same type and though the proprietors, so to speak, of the trans-Alleghany pack-horse trade came generally from the older settlements, the bulk of the hard work was done by a lusty army of men not reproduced again in America until the picturesque figure of the cow-puncher appeared above 22 the western horizon. This breed of men was nurtured on the outer confines of civilization, along the headwaters of the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and the Broad—the country of the "Cowpens." ”

“ Close to the stream, within sixty to eighty yards of where the hunters were concealed, were the hartebeests, most of them lying down; some few standing with heads down in sleepy fashion; others, again, plucking lazily at some green young grass, which here and there masked the good red soil. Only one of them, a knowing-looking old cow, was really on the alert. The long, black faces, corrugated horns, and bright bay coats of the big antelopes united, with the fair surrounding scenery, to form a striking picture of feral life. ”

“ The cows are forced to carry them, the squirrel to hide them, the streams to whirl them on their foaming drift into places where no bird or squirrel or wayward breeze would go. Not a corner within the horizon but will get its needed seed, not a nook anywhere, from the wind-swept fodder-field to the deepest, darkest swamp, but will come to life and flower again with the coming spring. ”

“ Sometimes you may catch her carrying weeds, strips of bark, broad grasses, tendrils, reeds, and leaves for the outside of her deep cradle, and finer grasses for its lining, to a spot on the ground where plants and low bushes help conceal it. She does not build so beautiful a nest as the yellow warbler, but like her she, too, poor thing, sometimes suffers from the sneaking visits of the cowbird. Unhappily, she is not so clever as her cousin, for she meekly consents to hatch out the cowbird's egg and let the big, greedy interloper crowd and worry and starve her own brood. ”

“ Late in the following summer, when the fireweed was beginning to crimson the open spaces on the hillside, fate came to the water-meadows in a form which the bell was powerless to avert. An Indian, paddling down the Quah-Davic to the sea, caught sight of the red cow drinking by the waterside. He knew there was no settlement within leagues. He knew the cow was a stray, and therefore no man's property. He knew he wanted fresh meat, to say nothing of cowhide for moccasins and thongs. Up went his big smooth-bore muzzle-loader. ”

“ It came nearer and became plainer—tonk-tonk-tonk; then the tonks all running together briskly.
A cowbell—that was it; but why did it seem to come from overhead, from up in the sky, like? And why did it shift so abruptly from one quarter to another—from left to right and back again to left? And how was it that the clapper seemed to strike so fast? Not even the breachiest of breachy young heifers could be expected to tinkle a cowbell with such briskness. The squire's eye searched the earth and the sky, his troubled mind giving to his eye a quick and flashing scrutiny. ”

“ The weaklings were those that hung about the water, foot-sore from their long journeyings to the distant hills and too weary to return. At the spring-hole at Carrizo they found them gathered, the runts and roughs of the range; old cows with importunate calves bunting at their flaccid udders; young heifers, unused to rustling for two; orehannas with no mothers to guide them to the feed; rough steers that had been “busted” and half-crippled by some reckless cowboy––all the unfortunate and incapable ones, standing dead-eyed and hopeless or limping stiffly about. ”