Shell Money—Its Influence Still Evident
By “Awake!” correspondent in Papua New Guinea
ON April 19, 1975, Papua New Guinea introduced its own currency, replacing the Australian currency used previously. This new currency has an interesting relationship with the shell money long used in the islands of the Pacific.
Whereas the currency of some peoples is based on dollars and cents, ours is now based on kina and toea. Kina is what the gold-lip shell Pinctada maxima is called in the Melanesian-Pidgin language. This shell is actually a valve of the pearl oyster. Toea is a word in the Motu language for the arm shells long worn by natives in southern Papua New Guinea.
Our largest coin is the one-kina piece, which has the value of one Australian dollar. On it are pictures of two crocodiles, the one on the right side being the freshwater species, and the other, the saltwater variety. But why use a coin rather than a paper bank-note?
The government reasoned that an average coin has a much longer life than a bank note. Thus considerable savings would be achieved in using one-kina coins. However, we have two-, five- and ten-kina bank-notes.
Some persons have asked why the one-kina coin has a hole in the center. This makes it lighter in weight, cheaper to produce and is familiar to people in Papua New Guinea. From 1929 to 1945 certain coins were minted for New Guinea, each with a central hole. Local people often threaded them on pieces of fishing line and hung them around their necks. It was the easiest way for persons who had no pockets in their clothing to carry them.
The kina is made up of one hundred toea, each toea being equivalent in value to an Australian cent. There are one-, two-, five-, ten- and twenty-toea coins. Each bears a picture of a different and fascinating species of animal life found in Papua New Guinea.
The one-toea coin shows the bird-wing butterfly, one of the largest and most colorful butterflies in the world. The two-toea coin has on it a picture of the butterfly codfish, a fish that often changes color to camouflage itself when in danger. A turtle is represented on the five-toea, and the cuscus, a small tree-climbing animal, is on the ten-toea coin. On the twenty-toea coin is the cassowary, a large flightless bird.
Although modern currency is used by most persons, shell money is still in use by some island peoples. In Papua New Guinea, for instance, the gold-lip shell, or kina shell, is made into currency by polishing and carving it into a crescent shape. Then a hole is made in each tip of the crescent so that the shells can be strung and worn across the breast.
The kina shells have been used mainly in payment of bride prices, or to buy pigs. They were particularly prized in the highlands.
Toea, or arm shells, also are still used as currency. These shells are cut from the trochus shell, and form an armband about an inch wide. As only one toea can be cut from each trochus shell, this makes them quite expensive. A large one may cost twenty Australian dollars, or twenty kina.
The shell money long used by peoples in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate is produced on the island of Malaita. There are two main forms of it, known as “red money” and “white money.” The red money is made from a cone shell with a red interior, and the white money is made from a white cone shell. From these shells, small pieces are cut and a hole is drilled through them.
The pieces of shell are then strung, a number of red ones, then a white one. Six or ten strings together make up one piece of money, equivalent in value to twenty kina. Today both shell money and Australian money is used in the British Solomon Islands.
In recent years, however, island peoples have tended more and more to use Australian currency, although some of the older generation still prefer to store their wealth in the form of shell money. Now in Papua New Guinea we have a new currency, one that not only emphasizes our fascinating animal life, but also reflects our longtime use of shell money.