scant luxuries, or which form their own sustenance and protection against the pitiless frosts and snows.
In these regions therefore we find the skins of certain animals serving as units of account, in spite of the difference in value between those of different quality and rarity. In the Territory of the Hudson’s Bay Company, even after the use of coined money had been introduced among the Indians, the skin was still in common use as the money of account. A gun nominally worth forty shillings brought twenty ‘skins.’ This term is the old one used by the Company. One skin (beaver) is supposed to be worth two shillings, and it represents two martens and so on. “You heard a great deal about skins at Fort Yukon, as the workmen were also charged for clothing, etc., in this way2.” Similarly in the extreme north of Asia we find some Ostiak tribes using the skin of the Siberian squirrel as their unit of account.
The name of a small coin equal to a quarter kopeck indicates that originally the Slavs had a like form of currency. It is called polooshka. Ooshka (properly little ears) means a hare-skin, and polooshka means half a hare-skin3.