Book contents
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword Beyond the Printed Word
- Introduction Finding the African Voice
- Part One Remembering Slavery and the Slave Trade
- 1 Introduction:
- 2 Oral Traditions about Individuals Enslaved in Asante
- 3 “The Little Things that Would Please Your Heart...”
- 4 Tales of Cowries, Money, and Slaves
- 5 Oral Accounts of Slave-Master Relations from Cameroon Noncentralized and Centralized Polities (1750–1950)
- 6 “He Who Is without Family Will Be the Subject of Many Exactions”
- 7 Common Themes, Individual Voices
- 8 Slavery in Kano Emirate of Sokoto Caliphate as Recounted
- Part Two The Verbal Arts and Everyday Objects
- Part Three Documenting Our Own Histories and Cultural Practices
- Part Four Slavery Observed: European Travelers’ Accounts
- Part Five Administrative Records
- Part Six Legal Records
- Part Seven Recorded Encounters with the Enslaved: Christian Workers in Africa
- Part Eight Documents from Muslim Africa
- Part Nine Living with the Past
- Index
4 - Tales of Cowries, Money, and Slaves
from Part One - Remembering Slavery and the Slave Trade
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2013
Book contents
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword Beyond the Printed Word
- Introduction Finding the African Voice
- Part One Remembering Slavery and the Slave Trade
- 1 Introduction:
- 2 Oral Traditions about Individuals Enslaved in Asante
- 3 “The Little Things that Would Please Your Heart...”
- 4 Tales of Cowries, Money, and Slaves
- 5 Oral Accounts of Slave-Master Relations from Cameroon Noncentralized and Centralized Polities (1750–1950)
- 6 “He Who Is without Family Will Be the Subject of Many Exactions”
- 7 Common Themes, Individual Voices
- 8 Slavery in Kano Emirate of Sokoto Caliphate as Recounted
- Part Two The Verbal Arts and Everyday Objects
- Part Three Documenting Our Own Histories and Cultural Practices
- Part Four Slavery Observed: European Travelers’ Accounts
- Part Five Administrative Records
- Part Six Legal Records
- Part Seven Recorded Encounters with the Enslaved: Christian Workers in Africa
- Part Eight Documents from Muslim Africa
- Part Nine Living with the Past
- Index
Summary
The trade in shell money cowries started in the fourteenth century and ended by the 1880s. The shells arrived from the Indian and Pacific oceans and were traded all over the world. This chapter presents three versions of the widely distributed myths about cowries. The first was collected by Gregor Elwert in Ayizo region in Benin. It represents the voices of the Ayizo, a people who fought to escape enslavement. The second tale was collected by Louis Adotevi in southern Togo. It expresses the traders' point of view. The Guin-Mina people were able to enrich themselves from slave trade by both selling humans beings and profiting of the natural growing of cowries on the bodies of drowned slaves. The Tchamba Tale is the third version of cowrie's tale in Lomè from Kokou Atchinou. The tale expresses the voices of the masters' descendants who remember their grandfathers' past.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade , pp. 47 - 54Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013