Indian Antiquary Vol 26

SR No.: 032518
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 360
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1897.
Khivan oasis we find that the inhabitants export to Russia and Bokhara, cotton, silks, fruits, hides, fish, wool and woollen mapafactures, carpets and rugs. With the nomads they barter wheat, rice, barley and articles of dress for cattle, and wool; with Bokhara they exchange their horses for green tea and tobacco; from Russia they receive manufactured articles, irou ware and sugar." 67
Instances and quotations might be gathered to an indefinite extent from the observations of travellers and residents in the East, and I have merely endeavoured to shew in the above cases that the inhabitants of Burma have acted, or still act, in the matter of general barier after the manner of their neighbours, and that where barter of general produce obtains without the mediam of a recognised currency the scale of civilization is very low."
Perhaps one of the most important observations yet made on the effect of a general system of exchange by barter on the administration of a country is to be found in Soppitt's Account of the Kuchari Tribes, p. 19, which I will here quote in fall, owing to the very valuable light it throws on the subject under discussion. Mr. Soppitt says: “Among a people with no coinage of their own and situated for a nuinber of years in a part of the country (North Cachar) far removed from centres of trade and means of communication with civilized people, money was naturally scarce, and it was necessary to accept fines and revenues, paid in kind, as equivalent to the payment in actual coin. A small store of money was kept at the Court, but little was current among the ordinary villagers. A regular scale for fines and revenue was, therefore, drawn up, shewing the value of the various domesticated animals kept by the people, with price of liquor, etc. The following was the scale :A big pig... ... ...
Rs. 100 A cock and two small hens.. 4 big hens and 4 small...
100 Pigeons (each) ... ...
,, 010 Ducks (each) ... ..
... .. 0 8 0 Liquor (per lao)...
*** ...> 0 4 0 A big conch shell
... » 10 0 0 A ball mithen (bos frontalis)
0 0 to Rs. 15 A cow mithen ...
10 0 0 to 15 A big buffalo ...
10 0 0 to , 16 A be-goat
* ... 1 0 0 A she-goat
... 1 0 0 A dog ... In the following pages Mr. Soppitt gives some extremely interesting instances of prices in terms of the above artioles, and further shews the extent to which similar valuations were, and are still, carried on, by quoting instances to prove that a " year's labour has risen in scale value from Rs, 15 to Rs. 60."
Also in Mry. Wylie's Gospel in Burma, at p. 382 f., there is a very interesting quotation from a letter of Dr. Mason, dated 1958, showing how public affairs are managed by a people but partially introduoed to a fixed ourrency. The letter gives an aocoant of the commencement of the now flourishing Karen sohools in Toungoo, and it describes how the necessary buildings came to be erected by public subsoription. The form that the subscriptions took is thus described. "For These the Karens contributed :
070 Rapees in cash,
1 Elephant, 3 Goats,
4 Pigs, 07 Geography of Turkestan, translated from the Russian by Staff. Lieut, Peach in J. U. 8. I. of India, Vol. XXII. P. 262.