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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
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(MAY, 1928
me that the Shan Shells came from Bawdwin (the Bortwang of Crawfurd's Ava, p. 444) near Nyaungywê in the Southern Shan States.
They are on the borderland between real tokens and lamps of metal marked for fineness, as their shape proves. They are not deliberately manufactured, but are the result of the natural efflorescence of silver under certain methods of extraction. They are necessarily as pure as bò silver and their weight was tested by handling, so they passed as tokens. In fig. 1, Plate I, and usually in specimens of Shan bò, efflorescence in this form is to be seen adhering to the silver from which it springs. Yule (Ava, p. 260) alludes to this: "The variety next to bô is K'ayûbat,6so called from k'ayů, a shell and pat,. circle or winding, in consequence of the spiral lines of efflorescence on the surface." Prinsep, Useful Tables, p. 31, expresses the same opinion and says that k'ayibat is " a silver cake with marks upon its surface, produced by the crystallization of the lead scoriæ in the process of refinement."
Owing to a mistake in Ridgeway's Origin of Currency, pp. 22, 29, in which he states that the Shan silver shells are about the size of a cowry and argues that they are survivals of the cowrie currency of Siam, etc., I may as well state clearly that true chéilón are of all sizes, and I had one in my possession which was many times the size of a cowry shell. In 1888 about 500 specimens of chilên passed through my hands at Mandalay and I tried to "size" them and found that the size of any particular shell was purely accidental and an incident of construction, human intention having no concern in it.
E.-IV. Majizt Knuckle-Bones. Next to the Shân silver shells come the majízis or tamarind seeds in gold and silver. Burmese children, especially little girls, are very fond of a game of knuckle-bone, which consists in throwing a tamarind seed into the air with one hand and seeing how many more can be picked up by the same hand before it falls and is caught. The royal children used those made of gold and silver, and King Mindôn used significantly to impress upon the little princesses the importance of keeping those that he gave them against a rainy day. They were soon mostly melted down or sold after the British annexation and became exceedingly rare. They were tokens, owing to their weight and fineness being assumed, and when, as subsequently happened, the majizis assumed a uniform and conventional shape, size and finen668, we are brought to a point very near the true coin.
The figures 17, 18 and 19, Plate II, show the whole process. Fig. 17 is a dried tamarind seed : fig. 18 is its imitation in gold with little dotted circles in the centre of each face to represent the pit marks of a similar kind often seen in fresh tamarind seeds, and fig. 19 is the conventional silver majízí in which the dotted ring has taken a fixed form with that of the represented seed itself. It was in this form that silver majízís were usually met with.
E.-V. Shan Silver Majizi. Tandông, or Shin (silver) majízí, used as customary gifts, like the chúlón, are still nearer to true coin, as they are conventionally stamped to show finencss. See fig. 20, Plate II. This particular form of majizi had become rare in Burma by 1890.
Regarding such majízí Mr. H. S. Guinress in his letter from the Shân State of Wantho in 1894, already quoted, says "Sometime ago I weighed 18 silver magyizi (majízł], which I bought in Mandalay. The bazaar weight thereof varied between 59 and 66 grains per magyizí: the average for the 18 being 61.92 grains. This made me think that magyizis were meant to run three to a told or four to a tickal. If the former, the weight of a magyízí should be 60 grains : if the latter, 64 grains."
E.-VI. Siamese Tickals. Fig. 21, Plate II, shows a Siamese tickal, and the remarkable resemblance of this cointoken to the majízí in its several developments will become apparent to the reader. Crawfurd
49 But see ante, vol. XLVII, p. 41,
