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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1897.
salt are worth one saggio of fine gold, which is a weight so called.586 So this salt serves them for small change." Such statements as these naturally set Yule talking in his own invaluable way, and accordingly we find, in Vol. II. p. 36 f., that Ramusio enlarged on the text to the extent of stating that "on the money so made the Prince's mark is printed and no one is allowed to make it except the royal officers": - a statement which gives us coin of the realm in salt! And he adds, what is more to the point just now, that in Lieut, Bower's Account of Sladen's Mission (p. 120), it is stated that at Momien the salt, which is a government monopoly is "made up in rolls of one or two viss and stamped." Yule also quotes a private note from Garnier tending to shew a wide-spread currency of salt in Yunan and the Burmese Shân States in modern times. Going back beyond Marco Polo's time, Mr. Parker tells me that in the Trang History it is chronicled that a treaty was made with the Ai-laos, under which each poll of the population had to pay two garments (with a hole in for the head to go through) and a measure of salt as tribute to the Chinese); while Scott (Shway Yoe) tells us in his Report of the Northern Shan States of 1893 that the Was sell walnuts to the Chinese in exchange for salt, thus carrying the salt currency of the Shân tribes down to our own times. The evidence above collected is strengthened by Colquhoun (Across Chryse, p. 263), who tells us that in the last war in Yunnan the scarcity of salt was so great that it rose to nearly worth its weight in silver. This statement is comparable with one of Valentyn's quoted in Yale's Ava, p. 377:**Salt was so valuable in Laos in 1641) that they gave for a maas of salt a maas of gold, which they could well do, as there was much gold both in the river and in the mountains above Namnoy."
Of the custom of the Kachins, Mr. G. W. Shaw gives similar evidence in 1890. Speaking of the Burman Shâns of the Upper Irrawaddy and the manner in which the Kachins treat them he says : - "The Kachins' exactions are little more than nominal. At Naungtalaw they came to about two viss of salt (value eight andas per annum); at Ywadaw five viss occasionally," He then tells us the story of one San Maing. "San Maing in his complaint says :- 'I went to Talawgyi and told the Kayaingyök to endeavour to get me back my wife and child, or I should report the matter to the Deputy Commissioner. The Talawgyi Kayaingok said :• Very well, I will do so: do not report yet.' So he sent to do it. But the thugyi of our village, Sangi, had already redeemed them for a gong and 100 viss of salt. The thugyi redeemed them because it would not do for the affair to be known to. Government." 60 Wilcox in his Survey of Assam, in Asiatic Researches, Vol. XVII., notes that the Khâmtis and Sing-Pho (Kachins) dealt in salt. This was in 1825-8. Similarly Brown, Account of Manipur, notes (p. 43) that the Tonkhuls and Luhapas bring "daos, spears, cloths, etc., to Manipur, taking salt in exchange, and at p. 53, he tells us that the trade of the Khougjais is limited to the occasional barter of cloth for iron and salt, while some of the enterprising among them get so far as to take iron from the Manipar Valley or barter it for pebbles, guns and cloth with tho Lushai or Kamhow Tribe." Similarly in Soppitt's Account of the Kachari Tribes, p. 20, we find slaves valued in conch shells, salt and dogs. And lastly in Woodthorpe's Lushai Expedition, p. 319, we have a capital illustration of salt currency and the use made of it by civilised man to the apparent detriment of the savage. “A large number of Lushais had accompanied us as far as Tipai Mukh and were busily employed in driving a few last bargains. They brought down large quantities of India-rubber, which they eagerly exchanged for salt, equal weights, and as the value of the rubber was more than four times that of the salt, any individuals who could com. mand a large sapply of the latter had an excellent opportunity of a little profitable business." The profit, however, was not altogether that of the civilised man on this occasion, i the matter be looked at from the savage's point of view. For Mr. Burland has & note on the Lushais at this very period, which puts the matter in quite a different light. He writes (Parl Papers, Cachar, 1872, p. 132):-"In former times these tribes made all the salt they ... One-sixth oz. Venetian and meant probably for the old liquor Chineee (liang) of the present day. See also Marco Pole, Vol. II. p. 29.
60 Burma Govt. Reporta, No. 1222, 1890: Notes on a Visit to the Upper Irrawaddy from the 1st to the 12th June, 1890, P. 2.
