Chapter 8
An Enduring Measure of Twelve Thousand Cowries:
The Materialities and Life Histories of a Well-traveled Marine Product
EVA-MARIA KNOLL
ABSTRACT
A small and rather inconspicuous looking oceanic mollusk made an unequaled cargo career in the Indian Ocean. Compared to other items the shiny whitish-yellow cowry shells remained much sought-after cargo throughout far longer time periods and got transported over far longer distances. The salt water resistant and almost unbreakable shells served as ballast and cargo at once. Shipped into all directions and to a formidable variety of usages, cowry cargo also was exceptionally persisting in demand. The porcelain shells were cherished as general medium of exchange and as small change currency, accumulated as treasure and status marker and arranged as ornaments. Shipped to West Africa, cowries became infamous as the sea-shell money of the slave trade. The lion’s share of the desired gastropods originated from the Maldives and distance crucially added to their value.
Sustained academic interest allows for envisioning tremendous quantities of Cypraea moneta circulating for at least 1,500 years within and beyond the Indian Ocean. We still know, however, little about the respective logistics. How had a cargo be organized and handled that consisted of an unimaginable number of individual pieces, each not much larger than the nail of a finger? An ethnographic object in the Maldivian collection of the Weltmuseum in Vienna might allow some insights and careful conclusions. The bag, on which this contribution is centered, was collected by German traveler Carl Wilhelm Rosset, presumably in 1885. It was plaited from a single palm frond into a robust structure and filled to the brim with cowries.