In analogy things which are alike are embraced in a single term; in metaphor two or more things which seem alike, but may not be so, are grouped together and are embraced in a single term. All these modes of change in language attest the work of individuals on language. Sometimes there is extension of influence to a group. Sometimes the influence is only temporary and is rejected again. Sometimes it falls in with a drift of taste or habit, when it is taken up and colors the pronunciation or usage of the population of a great district, and becomes fixed in the language. All this is true also on the negative side, since usage of words, accent, timbre of the voice, and pronunciation (drawling, nasal tones) expel older usages. Language therefore illustrates well all the great changes of folkways under the heads of coöperation and antagonism. We have an excellent chance to study the operation in the case of slang. A people who are prosperous and happy, optimistic and progressive, will produce much slang. It is a case of play. They amuse themselves with the language. We may think the new words and phrases vulgar and in bad taste, or senseless and ridiculous. We may reject them, but the masses will decide whether they shall be permanently rejected or not. The vote is informal. The most confirmed purist will by and by utter a new slang word when he needs it. One's objections are broken down. One's taste is spoiled by what he hears. We are right in the midst of the operation of making folkways and can perceive it close at hand.
142. Money. Money is another primitive device which is produced in the folkways. Money was not called into existence by any need universally experienced and which all tried to satisfy as well as they could. It was produced by developing other devices, due to other motives, until money was reached as a result. Property can be traced to portable objects which were amulets, trophies, and ornaments all at once. These could be accumulated, and if they were thought to be the abodes of powerful spirits, they were gifts which were eagerly sought, or valuable objects for exchange. They led to hoarding (since the owner did not like to part with them), and they served as marks of personal distinction.275 The interplay of vanity and religion with the love of property demands attention. Religion also caused the aborigines of the northwest provinces of South America to go to the rivers for gold only in sufficient amount to buy what they needed. Any surplus they returned to the stream. "They say that if they borrow more than they really need the river-god will not lend them any more."276 In later times and higher civilization coins have been used as amulets to ward off or to cure disease.277 The Greenland Eskimo laughed when they were offered gold and silver coins. They wanted objects of steel, for which they would give anything which they had and which was desired.278 The Tarahumari of Sonora do not care for silver money. Their Crœsus raises three hundred or four hundred bushels of corn per annum. The largest herd of cattle contains thirty or forty head. They generally prefer cotton cloth to dollars.279 "A Dyak has no conception of the use of a circulating medium. He may be seen wandering in the Bazaar with a ball of bee's wax in his hand for days together, because he cannot find anybody willing to take it for the exact article which he requires."280 We meet with a case in which people have gold but live on a system of barter. It is a people in Laos, north of Siam. They weigh gold alone in scales against seeds of grain.281 In the British Museum (Case F, Ireland) may be seen bronze rings, to be sewn on garments as armor or to be used as money, or both. The people along the west coast of Hindostan, from the Persian Gulf to Ceylon, used as money the fishhook which was their most important tool. It became degraded into a piece of doubled wire of silver or bronze. If the degradation had gone on, doubtless it would have resulted in a lump of metal, just as the Siamese silver coins are the result of doubling up silver rings.282 The play of custom and convention is well shown by the use of the Macedonian coins in England. The coins of Philip bore on the obverse a head with a wreath, and on the reverse a chariot driver drawn by two horses. In Britain this coin became a sign of value and lost its reference to the sovereign. It is possible to show the order of the reigns of the kings by the successive omissions of parts of the figures, until only the wreath was left and four perpendicular strokes and two circles for the legs of one horse and two chariot wheels. Each change was a mark of value and then it was further changed to save trouble.283 On the Palau Islands there were seven grades of money, determined by the size. Only three or four pieces exist of the first grade. The second grade is of jasper. The third consists of agate cylinders. These three grades are used only by nobles. They have the same rank as gems amongst us. The people think of the money as coming from an island where it lives a divine life, the lower ranks serving the upper. They have myths of the coming of the money to Palau.284 These examples show to what a great extent other ideas than those of value come into play in money.
143. Intergroup and intragroup money. When money is used to overcome the difficulties of barter two cases are to be distinguished—the intergroup and the intragroup uses, which are primarily distinguished by a space relation. The intragroup use is here, in the we-group, close at hand. The intergroup use is between our group and some out-group. It will be found that all money problems include these two cases. "At least we shall find that the current commonplace of the economists about the succession of natural economy, money economy, and credit economy, is not even remotely apt to the real problems."285 What is true is that, on a money economy, it is found that there is, or may be, a constant exchange of money for goods and goods for money, from which gain or loss may result; and furthermore that the risk (aleatory element) in this exchange is intensified, if time is allowed to intervene. Inside the we-group the first need for money is for fees, fines, amercements, and bride price. In Melanesia pigs are not called money and there is shell, feather, and mat money, but pigs are paid for fines, penalties, contributions to feasts, fees in the secret society, pay for wives, and in other societal relations. What is needed is a mobile form of wealth, with which social dues can be paid. This is the function of money which the paper-money projectors have in mind when they propose to issue paper which the state shall take for taxes. It is evident that it is to be distinguished from the economic function of money as a circulating medium. The intragroup money needs to be especially a measure and store of value, while the intergroup money needs to be a medium of exchange. In the former case barter is easy; in the latter case it is regular. In the former case a multiple standard is available; in the latter case what is needed to discharge balances is a commodity of universal demand. When credit is introduced its sphere is intragroup. The debtors would like the money to be what every one can get. The creditors would like it to be what every one wants.
144. Various predominant wares. In the northeastern horn of Africa the units of value which are used as money are salt, metal, skins, cotton, glass, tobacco, wax, coffee beans, and korarima. Cattle and slaves are also used as units of value from time to time amongst the Oromo. Salt is used as money in prismatic pieces, twenty-two centimeters long and three centimeters to five millimeters broad at the bottom, which weigh from seven hundred and fifty grams to one and one half kilograms each. It is carried in bundles of twenty to thirty pieces, wound in leaves.286 The Galla use rods of iron six to twelve centimeters long, somewhat thicker in the middle, well available for lance ends, one hundred and thirty of which are worth one thaler in Schoa; also pieces of copper, tin, and zinc; calf-skins; black, printed, and unprinted cotton cloth; pieces of cloth; coarse red cotton yarn (for knitting); and strings of beads. The universal and intergroup money is the Maria Theresa thaler weighing 571.5 to 576 English grains.287 Cameron mentions the exchange of intergroup money for intragroup money at a fair at Kawile, on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika.
