Shell money
On the east coast of North America, Indigenous peoples of the Iroquois Confederacy and Algonquian tribes, such as the Shinnecock tribe, ground beads called wampum, which were cut from the purple part of the shell of the marine bivalve Mercenaria mercenaria, more commonly known as the hard clam or quahog.
The small numbers recovered in older archaeological site components suggest that they were initially used as ornamentation, rather than as money.
[6] Beginning shortly before 1,000 years ago, Chumash specialists on the islands of California's Santa Barbara Channel began chipping beads from olive shells in such quantities that they left meter-deep piles of manufacturing residue in their wake; the resulting circular beads were used as money throughout the area that is now southern California.
[7] Starting at about AD 1500, and continuing into the late nineteenth century, the Coast Miwok, Ohlone, Patwin, Pomo, and Wappo peoples of central California used the marine bivalve Saxidomus sp.
The shells of Olivella nana, the sparkling dwarf olive sea snail were harvested on Luanda Island for use as currency in the Kingdom of Kongo.
[9] The shell of the large land snail, Achatina monetaria, cut into circles with an open center was also used as coin in Benguella.
By the early 16th century European traders were importing thousands of pounds of cowries to trade for cloth, food, wax, hides, and other goods as well as slaves.
[10]: 316 Around 1850 the German explorer Heinrich Barth found it fairly widespread in Kano, Kuka, Gando, and even Timbuktu.
As the value of the cowrie and the nzimbu was much greater in Africa than in the regions from which European traders obtained their supply, the trade was extremely lucrative.
Holes were bored through these flakes, which were then valued by the length of a threaded set on a string, as measured using the finger joints.
In the South Pacific Islands the species Oliva carneola was commonly used to create shell money.
The shells are worked into strips of decorated cloth whose value reflects the time spent creating them.
