ABSTRACT
The cowrie shells of West African commerce have been almost exclusively the shells of Cypraea moneta and Cypraea annulus, both Indian Ocean species, the former from the Maldive Islands, the latter from the East African coast and islands, especially Zanzibar and the neighbouring islands. Shells of the species Cypraea moneta have been in use as money in various parts of the world for at least 1,000 years; they continued in use, on a limited scale, in parts of West Africa and Bengal up to the present century, and arc still in use, as a regular market currency for small purchases, in at least one West African area to this day. The quantity of cowries imported depended on the export of palm oil; the quantity which the economy could absorb depended on the expansion of the local internal exchange economy. The economy of the cowrie-using area of the Gold Coast was expanding in a very literal way.
