Articles of Utility.
+——————————————-+——————————————-+ | India | Cakes of tea. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | China | Pieces of silk. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Abyssinia | Salt. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Iceland and Newfoundland | Codfish. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Illinois (in early days) | Coon-skins. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Bornoo (Africa) | Cotton shirts. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Ancient Russia | Skins of wild animals. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | West India Islands (1500) | Cocoa-nuts. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Massachusetts Indians | Wampum and musket-balls. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Virginia (1700) | Tobacco. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | British West India Islands | Pins, snuff, and whiskey. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Central South America | Soap, chocolate, and eggs. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Ancient Romans | Cattle. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Ancient Greece | Nails of copper and iron. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | The Lacedemonians | Iron. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | The Burman Empire | Lead. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Russia (1828 to 1845) | Platinum. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Rome (under Numa Pompilius) | Wood and leather. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Rome (under the Cæsars) | Land. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Carthaginians | Leather. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | Ancient Britons Cattle, | slaves, brass, and iron. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | England (under James II.) | Tin, gun-metal, and pewter. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+ | South Sea Islands | Axes and hammers. | +——————————————-+——————————————-+
Articles of Ornament.
+———————————————-+————————+ | Ancient Jews | Jewels. | +———————————————-+————————+ | The Indian Islands and Africa | Cowrie shells, | +———————————————-+————————+
Conventional Signs.
+————————+——————————————+ | Holland (1574) | Pieces of pasteboard. | +————————+——————————————+ | China (1200) | Bark of the mulberry-tree. | +————————+——————————————+
It is evident that every primitive people uses as money those articles upon which they set the highest value—as cattle, jewels, slaves, salt, musket-balls, pins, snuff, whiskey, cotton shirts, leather, axes, and hammers; or those articles for which there was a foreign demand, and which they could trade off to the merchants for articles of necessity—as tea, silk, codfish, coonskins, cocoa-nuts, and tobacco. Then there is a later stage, when the stamp of the government is impressed upon paper, wood, pasteboard, or the bark of trees, and these articles are given a legal-tender character.
When a civilized nation comes in contact with a barbarous people they seek to trade with them for those things which they need; a metal-working people, manufacturing weapons of iron or copper, will seek for the useful metals, and hence we find iron, copper, tin, and lead coming into use as a standard of values—as money; for they can always be converted into articles of use and weapons of war. But when we ask how it chanced that gold and silver came to be used as money, and why it is that gold is regarded as so much more valuable than silver, no answer presents itself. It was impossible to make either of them into pots or pans, swords or spears; they were not necessarily more beautiful than glass or the combinations of tin and copper. Nothing astonished the American races more than the extraordinary value set upon gold and silver by the Spaniards; they could not understand it. A West Indian savage traded a handful of gold-dust with one of the sailors accompanying Columbus for some tool, and then ran for his life to the woods lest the sailor should repent his bargain and call him back. The Mexicans had coins of tin shaped like a letter T. We can understand this, for tin was necessary to them in hardening their bronze implements, and it may have been the highest type of metallic value among them. A round copper coin with a serpent stamped on it was found at Palenque, and T-shaped copper coins are very abundant in the ruins of Central America. This too we can understand, for copper was necessary in every work of art or utility.
All these nations were familiar with gold and silver, but they used them as sacred metals for the adornment of the temples of the sun and moon. The color of gold was something of the color of the sun's rays, while the color of silver resembled the pale light of the moon, and hence they were respectively sacred to the gods of the sun and moon. And this is probably the origin of the comparative value of these metals: they became the precious metals because they were the sacred metals, and gold was more valuable than silver—just as the sun-god was the great god of the nations, while the mild moon was simply an attendant upon the sun.
The Peruvians called gold "the tears wept by the sun." It was not used among the people for ornament or money. The great temple of the sun at Cuzco was called the "Place of Gold." It was, as I have shown, literally a mine of gold. Walls, cornices, statuary, plate, ornaments, all were of gold; the very ewers, pipes, and aqueducts—even the agricultural implements used in the garden of the temple—were of gold and silver. The value of the jewels which adorned the temple was equal to one hundred and eighty millions of dollars! The riches of the kingdom can be conceived when we remember that from a pyramid in Chimu a Spanish explorer named Toledo took, in 1577, $4,450,284 in gold and silver. ("New American Cyclopædia," art. American Antiquities.) The gold and silver of Peru largely contributed to form the metallic currency upon which Europe has carried on her commerce during the last three hundred years.