COWRIES IN ANCIENT AFRICA…

Cowries were first introduced to Africa by Arab traders as early as the 8th century. It was not until the 15th century that cowries circulated as currency, particularly in the Mali Empire.

Highly precious objects prized in trans-Saharan trade, cowries were one of the most widespread currencies in the world. In West Africa, the white shells were woven into the cultural fabric. They even took on a deeper symbolic and ritual dimension that has never completely lost its value. The colonizers had great difficulty convincing Africans to accept their new centralized currency.

On the one hand, West Africans were used to seeing multiple forms of money in their markets. Adding one more was not a problem. But when the French banned the use of cowries around 1907, the elders resisted, refusing to include the new currency in their savings or to use it in their ceremonies instead of the shell. “Attachment to cowries and the refusal to adopt the white man’s money was a way of defending the independence and sovereignty they had possessed before the [colonial] conquest. They felt that the demonetization of cowries was a way of cutting them off from a meaningful symbol of their past and their culture, in favor of the franc, an anonymous currency.” — Félix A. Iroko, 1987

Source: Cultures of West Africa