Nor has this employment of strings of shells as money even yet disappeared from North America. Thus Powers writes5 of the Karoks and other tribes of California: “For money they make use of the red scalps of woodpeckers, which rate at $2.50 to $5.0 a piece, and of the dentalium shell, of which they grind off the tip, and string it on strings, the shortest pieces are worth 25 cents, and the longest about two dollars, the value rising rapidly with the length. The strings are usually about as long as a man’s arm. It is called al-li-ko-chik (in Yarok this signifies literally Indian money) not only on the Klamath but from Crescent city to Eel river, though the tribes using it speak several different languages. When the Americans first arrived in the country an Indian would give 40 or 50 dollars gold for a string, but now the abundance of the supply has depreciated its value and it is principally the old Indians who esteem it.” Again he writes, “Some of the young bloods array their Dulcineas for the dance with lavish adornments, hanging on their dress 30, 40 or 50 dollars worth of dimes, quarter dollars and half dollars arranged in strings.” This shows that the new currency of silver is treated by them in exactly the same way as the old shell strings, both of them deriving their value as media of exchange from the fact that they are the objects most universally prized as ornaments for the person.
Elsewhere the same writer observes: “Immense quantities of it (shell money) were formerly in circulation among the Californian Indians, and the manufacture of it was large and constant to replace the continual wastage caused by the sacrifice of so much on the death of wealthy men, and by the propitiatory sacrifices performed by many tribes, especially those of the coast range. From my own observations, which have not been limited, and from the statements of pioneers and of the Indians themselves, I hesitate little to express the belief that every Indian in the state in early days possessed an average of at least 100 dollars worth of shell money. This would represent the value of almost two women (though the Nishinam never actually bought their wives), or two grizzly bear skins, or 25 cinnamon bear skins or about three average ponies. The