valuable than a squaw. We cannot doubt that if the Indian had succeeded in domesticating the buffalo before the advent of the white man, it would have formed the most general unit in use, as we shall find its congeners being employed in all parts of the old world. But before the coming of the Spaniards at least one race of North America had advanced a stage beyond shell money. The Aztecs[1] of Mexico were employing a currency of gold and cacao seeds. The former in the shape of dust was placed in goose quills, which formed a natural unit of capacity, for weights were as yet unknown to the Aztecs; whilst the cacao seeds were placed in bags, each containing a specified number.
In Queen Charlotte Islands the dentalium shell was recognized as a medium of exchange by most of the coast tribes, but not so much as a medium of exchange for themselves as for barter with the Indians of the interior. With the Haidas it is still sometimes worn as an ornament though it has disappeared as a medium of exchange. The blanket of the trader has now however supplanted the skin as the principal unit. Not only among the Haidas but all along the coast it takes the place of the beaver-skin currency of the interior of British Columbia and of the North West Territory. The blankets used in trade are distinguished by the points or marks on the edge, woven into their texture, the best being four-point, the smallest and poorest one-point. The acknowledged unit of trade is a single two and a half-point blanket, now worth a little over $1.50 Everything is referred to this unit, even a large four-point blanket is said to be worth so many blankets. There is also the "Copper," "an article of purely conventional value and serving as money. This is a piece of native metal beaten out into a flat sheet and made to take a peculiar shape. These are not made by the Haidas—nor indeed is the native metal known to exist in the islands, but are imported as articles of great worth from the Chilcat country north of Sitka. Much
- ↑ Clavigero, Hist. of Mexico, Vol. I. 386. They counted the Cacao nuts by 8000 and to save the trouble of counting them they reckoned them by sacks, every sack being reckoned to contain 24,000. Cf. Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, Vol. I. p. 44.
