Aggrey beads
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2138399 |
|---|---|
| Authors | M D W Jeffreys (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1961 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 97-113 |
| Publication date | 1961-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-0184 • E-ISSN: 1469-2872 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00020186108707131 |
| OpenAlex | W4254090767, W4249839155 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 5 |
SYNOPSIS What is an Aggrey bead has been a cause of dispute and dissention for many years. This article sets out to settle this dispute by showing that an early currency of Africa fostered, but not necessarily introduced, by the Arabs consisted of the Indian ocean cowry shell, the Cypraea moneta, which in India was also used as a currency under the name of kauri or of kaudi. As the idea and use of any currency was unknown to the Negroes of Africa, these shell tokens in many areas circulated under their Indian names. Thus among the Hausa of Nigeria ku!di is the name for cowry or currency, in other places akori. It would appear that the Arabs also early traded in blue beads which in many places ousted the cowry shell as currency but circulated under the name by which the cowry shell had been known, namely aggrey. Later, other types of beads usurped the place of the blue bead but retained the local name by which first the cowry and then the blue bead had been known, namely, aggrey or some variant of it. Though in olden days blue beads were called aggrey beads, later times extended the name to any bead that circulated as currency. Aggrey bead is therefore the term used for any bead that circulated as currency and hence to‐day no specific bead can be called an aggrey bead. I then show that the word aggrey and its variants are derivatives from the Hindustani words for cowry, namely, from the Hindustani kauri or kaudi for the Cypraea moneta as currency
Ancient history · Archaeology · Bead · Currency · Economics · Geography · Monetary economics · Civil and Structural Engineering Research · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Structural Analysis and Optimization
| Citations per year | 0.21 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2012 - 2020 (9) |
| Highly cited | No |