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1742 drawing of shells of the money cowrie, Monetaria moneta Cowrie shells The shells of cowries are usually smooth and shiny and more or less egg-shaped. The round side of the shell is called the Dorsal Face, whereas the flat under side is called the Ventral Face, which shows a long, narrow, slit-like opening (), which is often toothed at the edges.
ifá: geomancy patterns generated with palm nuts, opele, cowrie shells, etc. that refer to Ifa divination texts; a collection of Odu Ifa verses; iridology: by eye color (Greek īris [īrid-], 'iris' + -logiā, ' study ') isopsephy: by numbers and letters (Greek īsos, ' equal ' + psephos, ' pebble ')
Cowrie-shell divination refers to several distinct forms of divination using cowrie shells that are part of the rituals and religious beliefs of certain religions. Though best-documented in West Africa as well as in Afro-American religions, such as Regla de Ocha, Candomblé, and Umbanda, [1] [2] [3] cowrie-shell divination has also been recorded in India, East Africa, and other regions.
To do so, they fix a cowrie shell to one end of an abacá stem pole and link the other end to the roof as a hinge, pushing on the pole to apply pressure on the fibre with the shell. [6] The fibers, which are very thin, are carefully stripped from the stalk with the use of a mounted blade, and then sun-dried. [1] [2]
Monetaria moneta, common name the money cowrie, is a species of small sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries. [1]This species is called "money cowrie" because the shells were historically widely used in many Pacific and Indian Ocean countries as shell money before coinage was in common usage.
The shell most widely used worldwide as currency was the shell of Cypraea moneta, the money cowry. This species is most abundant in the Indian Ocean , and was collected in the Maldive Islands , in Sri Lanka , along the Malabar coast, in Borneo and on other East Indian islands, and in various parts of the African coast from Ras Hafun to Mozambique .
Large amount of trivia shell ornaments consisting of Trivia arctica and Trivia monacha have been excavated in Stone Age burials at Téviec in northwestern France, dating back to c. 5000–7000 BC. [3] They are some of the earliest European examples of false cowrie shells used in necklaces and ornaments, for the most part associated with male ...
Seashells have been used for personal adornment, such as the strings of cowries in the traditional dress of the Kikuyu people of Kenya, [2] and the formal dress of the Pearly Kings and Queens of London. [3] Most molluscs with shells can produce pearls, but only the pearls of bivalves and some gastropods, whose shells are lined with nacre, are ...