quiripas y mostacillas

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Quirípas and Mostacillas: The Evolution of

Shell Beads as a Medium of Exchange

in Northern South America

Rafael A. Gassón, Instituto Venezolano de

Investigaciones Científicas

Abstract. This article examines the evolution of quirípa, a primitive valuable fromthe Orinoco Basin, from a world-systems perspective. This process must be under-stood as a result of the economic and symbolic uses given to beads by different so-cial actors based on their ethnic and sociopolitical backgrounds through time. Thehistory of this primitive valuable illustrates how some aboriginal economic institu-tions evolved as a result of exchange among Amerindian and European economiesand societies, not merely as the product of the imposition of Western economicrationality.

This article takes a ‘‘biographical approach’’ (Kopytoff: –) to de-velop a brief sketch of the rise and fall of shell beads as a medium of ex-change in relation to the processes of economic and sociopolitical evolutionin the Amerindian and colonial societies of the Orinoco Basin in northernSouth America (Figure ). The study spans the late pre-Hispanic period tothe colonial contact and expansion of the European world-system. Thereare two main reasons for doing this study. First, although in the literatureof aboriginal exchange in northern South America there are several ref-erences to and hypotheses about the Orinocan shell beads, there is not a

specific interpretative study of that topic. South American examples havebeen recognized as potentially important to the study of primitive economyand social organization (Sahlins : –). Second, earlier attempts toclassify these objects as primitive money or even true money have failed,since none of these categories can give a complete account of their shiftingand evasive characteristics.

The failure of these attempts to provide a full account of the character-istics and importance of the shell beads within the political economy of the

Ethnohistory :– (summer–fall )Copyright © by the American Society for Ethnohistory.



F i g u r e .

N o r t h e r n S o u t h A m

e r i c a .



The Evolution of Shell Beads

Orinoco Basin may be traced to two related problems. The first problem isthat most of the studies on trade and exchange in northern South Americado not emphasize cross-cultural and evolutionary perspectives. Instead, the

exchange and trade of goods have been seen as relatively static economicinstitutions managed by egalitarian political structures later disrupted bycolonial states. Because of this, these studies are unable to observe the pro-cesses of economic and sociopolitical change as a continuum within thatregion, therefore limiting their interpretative capabilities. The second prob-lem is the excessive attention on the objects rather than on the web of so-cial relations in which they circulated. We should change our focus fromthe positivist perspective, centered on classifying and describing the beadsthemselves, to the study of their meaning and importance to the social and

economic interactions among the peoples that inhabited the Orinoco Basinthrough time. In doing so, I propose a cross-cultural perspective to thestudy of these commodities within the framework of the growing economyof the early modern world. I argue that the creation of the global economyincluded not only the passive assimilation of aboriginal institutions but alsobargaining, negotiation, and continuity or fit of economic institutions be-tween colonizers and colonized. I use archaeological, ethnohistorical, andethnographic data to document the social history of the Orinoco shell andglass beads within the world-systems perspective (Sanderson ; Waller-

stein ). The cross-cultural and historical approach of world-systemstheory is useful in studying a problem that is not limited to a single people,region, or time.

The study of beads in anthropology has evolved from the initial viewof these objects as curiosities or culture traits to broader considerations of their importance as sensitive markers for social, political, and economicprocesses. Beads tend to be closely tied to economic institutions, they arecommon exchange items, and they sometimes have served as primitive cur-rencies. In general, beads are characterized by a hole used in stringing and

by their simplicity of form. They are also much more abundant than otherstrung ornaments, usually being exchanged by units of length. Since theyrepresent a large labor investment, their exchange value tends to be greaterthan their use value (Ceci : ; Grierson : ; Hammet and Size-more : ). A primitive currency or medium of exchange can be de-fined as ‘‘a certain barter item that becomes more popular than others andacquires a greater acceptability in exchange’’ (Yerkes : ). In otherwords its essential quality is that it gives its possesor purchasing power(Douglas : ). Although the process that transforms an item of barter

into a form of primitive money is clear enough, the critical question is whenthese favored items became a medium of exchange (Yerkes : ).



Rafael A. Gassón

Quirípa was a general denomination for a special class of small beadsconsisting of small shell disks. In earlier colonial times they were also calledquitero, particularly in Western Venezuela (e.g., Carvajal []: ;

Castellanos : ). Cuentas, piedras, abalorios, and cháquiras were alsocommon names used by the Europeans. Shell beads were manufactured andtraded by many groups with different degrees of social complexity, includ-ing the Achagua, Arawak, Barmiagoto, Caberre, Caribe, Guahibo, Maiba,Parmiagoto, Tivitive, Otomaco, and Yaruro, (Alvarado []: ;Rivero : ; Mercado []: ; Rosenblat : ).

According to historical sources, quirípa was originally made only fromthe apex of an unidentified species of freshwater shell called nemu or memu;the rest of the shell was ground and used with yopo, a common halluci-

nogenic drug (Gilij []: ; Mercado []: ; Rosenblat: ).1 Later on, with the increasing demand, the Amerindians cutthe entire shell into pieces to maximize the use of raw materials. After theseventeenth century marine shells and silver were also used in the lowlands(Bueno : ; Matos Arvelo : ). Because shell beads were pro-duced in great quantities, it is not surprising that they were sold in stringsof definite length (e.g., Bueno : ; Gilij []: ; Neukomm []: ).

The shell beads had an ample distribution throughout the Orinoco

Basin, and people from all over the area used and traded them through ex-tensive exchange networks that connected regions as far apart as the east-ern Llanos of Colombia, Trinidad, and the Guianas. Many classic schol-ars tried to elucidate the nature and functions of shell beads and otherobjects through different approaches. For instance, in Adolfo Ernst(c []: ) recognized quirípa as a shell money similar to theNorth American wampum. In Julio César Salas (: ) proposedthat the shell disks were some sort of pre-Hispanic monetary system; butother scholars, like Amílcar Fonseca () and Americo Briceño Valero

(), said that aboriginal monetary systems of the Venezuelan Andes andthe llanos were introduced subsequent to (and in emulation of) the Span-ish currency (Briceño Iragorry : ). In a rare and interesting paperMario Briceño Iragorry () supported the pre-Hispanic origin of theshell money based on linguistic, archaeological, and historical data. Lateron, Antonio Arellano Moreno (: –) proposed that different pre-Hispanic items—like salt, pearls, gold, and shell beads—were used as com-modity money; he claimed that shell beads were not a universal medium of exchange, however, because their demand was limited by their use value.

As a result of new research, the study of primitive valuables has shiftedfrom the study of their material and economic characteristics to the study




of their role in the Amerindian and colonial economies. For northern SouthAmerica the initial impulse for this shift was provided by the ethnohistori-cal study of Nancy and Robert Morey (Morey ; Morey and Morey

), centered on the Llanos of Colombia and Venezuela. This area wasconsidered as an integrated whole of different tribal groups with wholly orpartially specialized economic activities based on the ecological diversityof the Orinoco Basin. The connection of different environments by meansof exchange networks played a critical role in the development of tribalspecialization. According to this proposition, the Amerindian societies de-veloped a complex system of mutual dependence as a result of the unevendistribution of resources (Morey and Morey : ). This mutual de-pendence precluded social inequality, and reciprocity was the norm. Dif-

ferent forms of political structures existed, but since they were not highlydeveloped, tribal formations were predominant (ibid.). These authors rec-ognized the importance of shell beads as an ‘‘all purpose money.’’ More-over, they considered the shell beads a cultural resource that allowed theinhabitants of the Orinoco to overcome the ‘‘marginal’’ position of the re-gion (ibid.: ).

Nelly Arvelo-Jiménez and Horacio Biord Castillo () and Fila-delfo Morales () expanded this approach, proposing the existence of a System of Orinoco Regional Interdependence based on tribal peer-polity

exchange, a system that characterized the Amazonian civilization until itsdisruption by the arrival of the colonizers (Morales ; Morales andArvelo-Jiménez ). Within that perspective, María de la Guia González(: ) proposed that the market economy introduced by the Europeansprobably motivated the generalization of shell beads as money, particularlyin the transactions between the Amerindians and the Europeans.

The Shell Beads in the Archaeological Record

What does the material evidence tell us about these primitive valuables?Despite some isolated claims, quirípa beads or strings have never beenfirmly identified in either museums or archaeological contexts; we haveonly objects that resemble the shell currency (Ernst c []: ;Morey : ; Salas : ). Given the difficulties involved in such anidentification, it is better to answer the question in terms of the valuablegoods that have been recovered in archaeological excavations. Despite therelatively intense archaeological work that has been done in the OrinocoBasin, the amount of valuable goods like shell and stone artifacts seems ex-

tremely low and sparse over time. In particular, shell beads have been ratherrare in the lowlands, being reported mainly in Andean and sub-Andean



Rafael A. Gassón

Figure . Shell beads necklace from the Andean region. Source: Wagner :fig. .

ceremonial and high-status contexts. Those associations point to the poten-tial importance of social complexity and inequality to explain the originsand distribution of such valuables. For instance, shell objects such as ‘‘bat-wing’’ pendants and beads mainly from caves and funerary contexts of theVenezuelan Andes have been known since the nineteenth century (Figure )(Briceño Iragorry []: ; Ernst b []: ; Salas : ;

Wagner : , : , : ). In the Escuque region the Cuica hada sanctuary devoted to a female deity called Icaque. Among the offeringskept in this temple were many strings of cay, that is, shell disks, that ‘‘theyhad for money’’ (Castellanos : ; Salas : ).

In the Lake Valencia region, shell beads have been reported fromthe well-known mounded and burial sites related to the Valencioid series,which have been related to a chiefdom level of social development (Cru-xent and Rouse –: ; Vargas et al. : ). At La Mata smalland medium shell disks were the most abundant classes of shell artifacts.

They were associated with direct, extended burials and with urn burials(Bennett : , table). At La Cabrera Península discoidal beads were




the most common type of shell artifacts, found in many burials in varyingnumbers (Kidder : ). In Tocorón more than a thousand small diskbeads, which apparently were part of two necklaces, were found at the clay

core of mound six (Osgood : –).In the Quíbor Valley considerable amounts of shell artifacts wereplaced as offerings in large cemeteries. According to Iraida Vargas et al.() the high degree of specialization in the manufacture of such arti-facts, as well as their great quantities, implies the existence of permanentexchange networks, specialists attached to high-ranking people, and theritual consumption of labor. Those features are indicative of a ‘‘chieflyway of life’’ (ibid.: –). However, the degree of social complexity of this region’s ancient inhabitants is now a matter of controversy (Arvelo

: ). The recognition of prehistoric social complexity and politicalinequality in the lowlands is one of the most important insights providedby new research. The early ethnohistory and the archaeology of the Ama-zon and Orinoco floodplains provide ample evidence for the existence of prehistoric chiefdoms (Roosevelt : ). In the western llanos of Vene-zuela, Charles Spencer and Elsa Redmond (: ) have traced the de-velopment of chiefdoms nearly one thousand years before the arrival of theEuropeans. Those chiefdoms developed complex social relations with theirneighbors, including long-distance exchange of primitive valuables, inter-

polity war, and competitive feasting (Gassón ; Redmond et al. in press;Spencer ).For South America and the Caribbean areas, bead necklaces and

adornments may have been the most common items of elite status (Helms: ). In a fine study of the primitive valuables of northeastern SouthAmerica, Arie Boomert (: ) considered the shell beads as primitivevaluables used in the sphere of ceremonial exchange, which later evolvedinto a commodity money as a result of the introduction of European stan-dards of value. Boomert (ibid.) points to the possible existence of two in-

dependent spheres of exchange, one located in the East, based in green-polished stones, and the other in the Northwest, based on shell beads.Perhaps this dichotomy was not so rigid, however. The already mentionedCuica of the Andean region used ‘‘strings of quitero, that are beads of many colors; and colored bones, particularly green stones’’ (Simón :). Briceño Iragorry (: ) reported a string of quitero that in-cluded green stone beads. At the regional center of Cedral, located next tothe Gaván region, I collected what seems to be a small amphibian or rep-tile made of green stone. In addition, I collected eleven fragments of shell

beads made of Pomacea sp., a very common mollusk in the western Vene-zuelan savannas (Figure ) (Gassón ; Gil ). Absolute dates for the



Rafael A. Gassón

Figure . Greenstone pendant and shell beads from the regional center in Cedral,Barinas.

Cedral site range between ± and ± .. (Gassón : ;

Redmond et al. : ).The nature of these archaeological remains, their small quantity, and

their pervasive relationship with high-status contexts point to the possibleexistence of prestige-good systems controlled by complex societies, as de-scribed by Susan Frankenstein and Michael Rowlands (: ):

The specific economic characteristics of a prestige-good system aredominated by the political advantage gained through exercising con-trol over access to resources that can only be obtained through exter-

nal trade. However, these are not the resources required for generalmaterial well-being or for the manufacture of tools and other utilitar-ian items. Instead emphasis is placed on controlling the acquisition of wealth objects needed in social transactions, and the payment of so-cial debts. Groups are linked to each other through the competitiveexchange of wealth objects as gifts and feasting in continuous cyclesof status rivalry.

The Shell Beads in the Historical Reports

The first account about beads and other prestige goods used by the Amer-indians in the continental New World was reported by Columbus in his




third voyage. According to the admiral, the men and women of what isnow known as Venezuela’s east coast met the explorers dressed in full re-galia, which included important amounts of beads, pearls, and guanín gold

adornments (Colón : ). Coincidentally, the earliest references to theuse of shell beads as a medium of exchange in the American continent weregiven in .2 That year, the French mariner and explorer Jacques Cartierreported the use of esnoguy (possibly wampum) as money among the Huronof North America’s East Coast. Cartier’s observations have been tradition-ally regarded as the first reference to the shell currencies in America (Saul: ; Smith : ). Nonetheless, Titus Neukomm ( []:), who traveled with Nicolás Federmann to South America during thesame year, unequivocally described the monetary use of shell beads among

the Caquetío of Venezuela’s west coast: ‘‘This is their money after gold.’’Furthermore, shell beads were appreciated by the Caquetío as tokens of wealth and status, for social differences were expressed by wearing diverseamounts of quirípa (Morey: –; Morey and Morey : ). Inaddition, during Federmann’s ( []: –) expedition glass beadswere probably introduced for the first time in the llanos of Venezuela, whenhe gave to the Cuyba ‘‘some gifts of knives and rosary glass beads, that theyappreciate very much.’’

Quirípa was also important in ceremonial and social transactions

among many groups from the highlands and the lowlands. The earlier re-ports indicate that shell beads were used as bride-price among the tribesof the Orinoco Basin, as reported by Gaspar Poeck ( []: ):‘‘The husband pays for his wife to the parents by giving them some snailsor pieces of bone.’’ Nevertheless, as indicated by George R. Hamell (:), this wealth should not be understood only in terms of the potential ex-change value of the beads but also in terms of their symbolic value. Becauseof their color, shell beads would have had masculine associations. In manySouth American mythologies the color white is associated with the jaguar,

hardness, the sun, and the daylight—all related to the male principle. Infact, the manufacture of quirípa was a male task (Boomert : ; Roe: , , ; Rosenblat : ).

The historical accounts also indicate an important nexus among long-distance exchange, trade, social complexity, and the development andtransformation of primitive valuables. Neil L. Whitehead applied the con-cept of chiefdom to the analysis of written documents about ancient inter-polity relationships in northeastern South America. He concluded thatchiefly authority was apparently based on control of long-distance trade in

valuables as well as in local goods. Later, after contact with the Europeans,new political structures emerged from less stratified societies (Whitehead: –).



Rafael A. Gassón

By the sixteenth century the colonial powers were engaged in differentconflicts for controlling the mainland. In such disputes the Amerindianswere not merely passive participants who ended up being destroyed; rather,

they played important roles as soldiers, laborers, and traders. The intro-duction of Western products drastically altered the traditional patterns of Amerindian trade and war, because the new commodities—like iron tools,weapons, clothes, alcoholic beverages, and glass beads—changed the equi-librium of power among the different polities. The control of such com-modities was very desirable for the local elites and for everyone seekingprestige, because these new commodities were, in a certain way, the ulti-mate in prestige goods. This striking feature of the ‘‘consumerism’’ of theAmerindians is a well-known phenomenon (Hugh-Jones : –). The

special nature of the Western commodities came from their superior tech-nological quality, their implicit prestige, and their potential supernaturalpower. Gaining such control was not an easy task, however, because itsimultaneously demanded an increased rate of conflict among neighboringgroups and a good relationship with the foreigners. Whitehead (: )has summarized the general nature of this process: ‘‘There are many indi-cations that the Orinoco once formed the backbone of a vast and highlydeveloped trading system. . . . With the arrival of the Europeans, however,the coastal region assumed a greater significance as the entrepôt for metal

tools and other European manufactures, while the coastal trading groups,principally Carib and Arawak, carefully controlled or denied access to theupland trade.’’

At the beginnings of the colonial era, the Arawak of the Orinocoand the east coast became trade partners of the Spaniards because of theirknowledge of the mainland and their exchange items such as gold, pearls,cotton items, women, and food (Navarrete : ). Around , Ara-wak trade was mostly focused on Margarita Island, a Spanish possession(Boomert : ). Actually, as a result of the Spanish presence in Mar-

garita, the Arawak changed the direction and content of their trade routes(ibid.: ). By the s the Arawak-Spanish trade ‘‘became a pact of mutual assistance: the Arawak supplied the citizens of Margarita with pro-visions and Indian slaves, whereas the Spaniards, in turn, provided themwith iron tools and weapons and assisted the Arawak in raiding the villagesof hostile Indian tribes’’ (ibid.: ). These activities allowed the develop-ment of political complexity among some Arawak groups. For example,one Carapana, an ordinary Indian before becoming a trade entrepreneur,became a ‘‘big man,’’ although according to very early accounts, the Ara-

wak already had cultural traits related to political centralization and socialcomplexity. The Aruacay village in the lower Orinoco had nearly two hun-




dred big houses ruled by nine ‘‘chiefs’’ under one ‘‘principal chief’’ withpolitical and religious duties (ibid.: –, ). At the end the capture of Arawak slaves and the colonization of Amerindian lands eroded the peace-

ful Spanish-Arawak relationship because of the increasing Spanish desirefor profit and the pressure of other colonial powers (ibid.: ).The Carib offer a different example. Most scholars agree that the

Carib played a key role in trade during postcontact times. Carib politicalstructures ranged from local village ‘‘chiefs’’ with no coercive authorityto loosely defined ‘‘federations’’ of villages under a ‘‘War Chief,’’ whoseauthority was only valid in wartime (Morales and Arvelo-Jiménez :–). With that level of social complexity it seems very unlikely thatthe Carib could dominate and control trade networks of several hundred

kilometers. They accomplished that thanks to a series of political and geo-graphical circumstances. First, they were located in an ethnic and politi-cal frontier between the Amerindian world and the emerging colonies. Themainland Carib lived in an optimal geographical position, at the mouthsof the fluvial systems along the Atlantic coast of the Guianas, where theFrench, English, and Dutch settled, building fortified trading posts (Gos-linga : ). In contrast, the Spanish settled first mainly in the east-ern coast of Venezuela, to exploit the pearls’ fisheries, gold, and other re-sources. Second, from the early sixteenth century on the Carib and the

Dutch became partners in the slave trade and allies against the Spaniards(Civrieux : ). The alliance with the Dutch is one of the most im-portant elements for understanding the processes of change in Carib poli-ties. This relation afforded the Carib a privileged access to Western goodsobtained as payment for hunting Amerindian slaves, as payment for thecontrol and repression of black slaves in the Dutch colonies, and as regu-lar payment of ‘‘gifts’’ as tokens of friendship by the colonizers (Meneses). According to Whitehead (: ), the control of the circulationand the consumption of Western commodities are the most important cri-

teria by which to study the transformation of their political structures. Yetan analysis of the accumulation of wealth and its consequences to the Caribpolitical structures must consider the entire cycle of production, distribu-tion, and consumption of goods. Indeed, the Carib controlled the circula-tion of goods within the Amerindian world, but they could not create suchgoods by themselves.

Through the establishment of a debt-peonage system (Hugh-Jones), the Carib developed a growing relation of economic and politicaldependence with the Europeans, who constantly increased the amount of

goods and loans, thus forcing the Caribs to trade and raid continuouslyto pay the debts (Gumilla : –). Since the Dutch were famil-



Rafael A. Gassón

iar with such primitive shell currencies as the cowries (Cypraea) from theIndian Ocean (Moreno Feliu : ); they knew very well the impor-tance and rationale behind a commodity like quirípa. Thus, by maintain-

ing a constant flow of valuable goods in circulation by trade and credit,inequality and political complexity developed; but a dynamic of depen-dence was also established. In this way the Carib became workers and inter-mediaries of a peripheral world-system. As Stephen Hugh-Jones (: )stated, ‘‘in practice and at a local level, there is continuity or ‘fit’ betweencapitalist institutions and Indian exchange practices. How this fit worksout in practice depends on factors such as the power differential betweenthe individuals and groups involved, and the nature and intensity of contactbetween them.’’

During colonial times the Carib developed several strategies to carryon long-distance trade activities, including war and trade expeditions, bar-ter and credit granted to inland chiefly elites, and warfare and coercion withweaker groups (Gumilla ). The Dutch played a key role in helping theCarib to organize and manage the complex information and administrativeprocesses related to long-distance trade networks and provided new mili-tary skills and weaponry. Even more, the Dutch did not indulge in com-pulsory indoctrination nor dispute the land of the Amerindians (Goslinga: ). So it is not surprising that they gained great support from the

Carib, who saw their relationship with the Dutch as based on mutual bene-fit, not on exploitation, for they were their ‘‘friends, relatives and inlaws’’(Garriga : ).

It is clear that the economic structure so developed was not purelyAmerindian or European; it was not an aboriginal system of long-distanceexchange nor an ‘‘international’’ market. Rather, it was an original eco-nomic institution that resulted from the colonial encounter; however, itsrationale was the result of the expansion of the European world-system. Inthis way a vast trade network was established under Carib and Dutch con-

trol. In fact, much scholarship about northeastern South American tradeand exchange networks may refer to this specific network, which was per-haps one of the biggest economic structures ever created in this part of America during that time (Gassón : ; Zucchi and Gassón n.d.).This network was characterized by () an increasing trend toward socialcomplexity and political centralization, () more aggressive and competi-tive relationships among groups to control the sources of valuable goods,and () a growing dependency on political and military alliances with theforeigners.

The Achagua-Carib trade partnership is a good example of the tenden-cies previously discussed. There are many indications that the Achagua




from the eastern llanos of Colombia and the Apure region of Venezuela hadan important degree of social complexity, including a hierarchical settle-ment pattern, differential burial practices, ‘‘chiefs’’ who inherited their

office, and specialists in production and trade of primitive valuables. TheAchagua served as middlemen in long-distance exchange among theMuisca and the peoples of the lowland llanos (Cassani []: ;Mercado []: ; Morey : –; Langebaek : –;Rivero : –). From all reports it seems that the old Achagua townof San Salvador del Puerto de Casanare was a very ancient and importanttrade center (Rivero : –). The trade of shell beads was so impor-tant to the Achagua that they even had artisans (officials) and traders spe-cialized in producing and trading quirípa. The Achagua Indians called it

chucuchucu (Mercado []: ). In addition, the Achagua obtainedbeads from other groups in exchange for agricultural products. The beadswere used on ceremonial occasions; later, they were used to obtain Westerncommodities, particularly iron tools and firearms from the Carib (Cassani []: ; Mercado []: ; Rivero : ).

After the slave-hunting raids were intensified throughout the Ori-noco River region, so the Carib-Dutch trade network increased. The in-corporation of the Amerindian networks into the incipient internationalmarket expanded and redefined in many important ways the Orinocan ex-

change. During the following years, the Dutch-Carib trade was so impor-tant that in they were considered the ‘‘owners’’ of the Orinoco Riverby the Spanish colonial authorities (Civrieux : , ; Goslinga :). After the seventeenth century the Arawak trade reached San Salva-dor de Casanare, where they brought iron tools and hammocks used onlyby ‘‘chiefs and principal people’’ in exchange for quirípa (Bueno : ;Mercado []: ; Rivero : ; Simón : ).

The quirípa strings were regarded as one of the most importantcommodities for both Indians and Europeans. One of the many problems

suffered by the local population during the process of colonization of theOrinoco Basin (including Indians and Europeans) was the shortage of cur-rency, particularly of coins of low exchange value, which was a perennialeconomic problem in colonial South America (Arellano Moreno: ;Osorio : ). In Venezuela, in comparison with other colonial posses-sions, this problem was particularly critical because of its condition as apoor colony. The huge quantities of gold and silver that characterized theviceroyalties of Mexico and Peru were absent in Venezuela, making it nec-essary to import coins from abroad. To make things worse, the few coins

that reached the Spanish colonies were systematically redirected to the for-eign colonies and smelted again, because their gold content was higher than



Rafael A. Gassón

their official value (Sosa Llanos ). Moreover, the missionaries and colo-nizers used to save the coins as a strategy to cope with the uncertainties of the colonial life, thus further aggravating the situation. Eugenio de Alva-

rado ( []: ) stated that everyday exchange was carried out byusing quirípa, not money; if by chance a coin arrived at the missions, it wasimmediately taken out of circulation and saved at the mission’s office.

Finally, in everyday transactions the scarce supply of coins in circula-tion possessed an enormous value, making it almost obligatory to buy morethan was necessary to use their exchange value, thus causing many prob-lems and annoyances. The colonial administration never had a systematicpolicy in this regard, so currency shortages and the routine witholding of coins was an important limitation to the colonial economy (Arellano Mo-

reno : , ). The colonizers used several strategies to overcomethis problem: bartering other objects such as gold, cocoa beans, and pearls;producing their own coins; or using the native mediums of exchange. Formany of the inhabitants of the mainland (particularly the poorest ones: sol-diers, peasants, slaves, Indians) the option was simple: they found in theaboriginal shell beads an alternative to the shortage of currency. The conse-quence was an increase in the production and use of shell beads in everydaytransactions.

Quirípa strings were also used to pay debts and taxes under a fixed

rate, which amounted to another use unknown during the pre-Hispanicperiod. In Father Mateo Mimbela ( []: ) described howthe Achagua had to pay four pesos a year in quirípa as tax to the colonialauthorities of San Salvador de Casanare and twenty-five pesos in quirípa toDon Alonso de Abila, the local encomendero, or colonizer. For these reasonsthe shell beads became synonymous with money and certainly acquiredthe characteristic of contemporary currencies (e.g., they had value stan-dards, were kept as savings, and were used to pay taxes and debts). So basicwas quirípa for commercial transactions that in Joseph Cassani (

[]: ) wrote: ‘‘and whomever had quirípas in quantity was consid-ered rich, because certainly at any time it was possibly to buy whatever wasnecessary; and from this came the name, or the meaning of money, to thequirípa because with it, like with money, it was possible to find anythingdesired; and until those days this shell money circulates on the Casanare,Meta, and Orinoco Rivers, as esteemed by Spaniards as by Indians.’’

In the Spanish administration took military actions aimed atlimiting Dutch and Carib activities in the Orinoco region. Despite that, by the Carib trade networks had extended as far as the Guaviare and

Meta Rivers in the Achagua territory. By , however, Felipe SalvadorGilij ( []) found San Salvador de Casanare to be decimated by




illnesses, which caused the decline of the Achagua as manufacturers andtraders of shell disks. Finally, the Spaniards began to expell their competi-tors from the area, helped by people like the Otomac (independent) and

the Caberre (Arawak), traditional enemies of the Carib (Civrieux :; Rosenblat : ). In Spain announced the elimination of theDutch colonies of the East. With the retreat of the Dutch trading posts, theCarib long-distance trade networks were dismantled and reduced to local,limited networks.

After the demise of the Achagua-Carib partnership, the productionand trade of shell disks was taken over by the Otomac of the middle Ori-noco. Contrary to other groups of the region, the Otomac never were con-trolled by the Carib (Gilij []: ), perhaps because of their im-

pressive social and political organization (Gumilla : , ). Likethe Achagua the Otomac showed many traits related to an important de-gree of social complexity, including chiefs, collective organization and divi-sion of work, and important public ceremonies, including ballgames andbloodletting (Morey : ; Zucchi : –; Rosenblat : –). Similar to many other groups of the llanos, the Otomac esteemed thequirípa as a symbol of wealth and power. Tavacare, the powerful Otomacchief, wore many strings of quirípa on his neck and forearms; his sister wasalso dressed in a similar fashion (Carvajal []: –).

According to Alberta Zucchi (: ), the Otomac are the mostlikely descendants of the forebearers of one of the late Arauquinoid sub-series of the middle Orinoco (Arauquinan, Matraqueran, and Camoru-can). In that area prehistoric demography and settlement-pattern analysisindicate that complex societies of the chiefdom level appeared during theCamoruco III phase, some four hundred years before the European con-tact (Roosevelt : ; Spencer : ). The Otomac had an impor-tant trade and production center located in Uruana, where people from allover the llanos met to barter because they were the ‘‘only people who make

quirípas’’ (Alvarado []: ). At the beginning of the nineteenthcentury, the Arawak still came to Uruana to buy quirípa, to sell it later tothe neighboring colonies and to the forest Indians (Bueno : ).

The Shell Beads in the Ethnographic Record

With the consolidation of the Spanish Crown in what is now Colombia andVenezuela, the importance of shell beads declined slowly because of the di-minishing demand, the low prices, and the introduction of abundant and

cheap glass beads, or mostacillas. Glass beads came from different sources,including Spain, Italy, France, and Holland, although they were relatively



Rafael A. Gassón

scarce until about (Deagan : ). The glass beads were obtainedfrom the Spaniards settled in the llanos of Caracas, the western and centralsavannas of Venezuela (Bueno:). It is very likely that they were also

obtained from Dutch and French traders who had settled in the Guianas.It is important to note that the Dutch bead industry was particularly suc-cessful in the New World and that Dutch glass beads in the Spanish colo-nies are more abundant than currently recognized (Deagan : –).Czech glass beads from Bohemia were introduced after in the Carib-bean area by the Jesuit missionary Miguel Sabel. After the middle of thenineteenth century Czech mold-pressed beads became much more impor-tant in the world market (Polysenky, quoted in Vráz []:;Sprague : ).

To increase the production and trade of beads, the Otomac peopleintroduced new raw materials, like marine shells and silver, improved thetechniques of production by using iron tools, and popularized the use of glass beads. The early data indicate that in the aboriginal economy, thebead strings did not have fixed prices because barter was the usual mecha-nism of exchange (Cassani [] –). In the transactions be-tween Indians and colonizers, however, quirípa strings had prices. For in-stance, by Father Pedro de Mercado ( []: ) indicated thatin the llanos, the quirípa string was valued in two reales de plata, four in

the city of Guayana, and up to eight in Trinidad. As a consequence of theabundance of shell beads and the introduction of glass beads, prices startedto drop. By the cost of a quirípa string was two silver reales, but acentury later the same string was valued at half that (Bueno : ). Bythe end of the colonial period the shell beads, the glass beads, and Westerncoins were circulating simultaneously. In the aboriginal economies bartercontinued to be the usual way to carry out transactions. Gilij ( []:) narrates how on one occasion he intended to pay with money for somepeppers. He was rejected and asked to pay with glass beads, even when the

beads were of less value than the money itself.It seems that during the nineteenth century, glass beads completelyovershadowed the shell beads as a medium of change in the Amerindianeconomies. For instance, among the contemporary Piaroa (Uwotjuja) andother groups of southeastern Venezuela, glass beads were until quite re-cently basic elements of the intertribal trade. For the Piaroa mostacillaswere ‘‘good to think’’ items, being symbols of wisdom and ritual sing-ing (Overing and Kaplan : ). Alexander Mansutti () believesthat glass beads acted in a similar fashion as shell beads did in the past,

for aboriginal groups generalized their use in commercial exchange. TheYe’kuana people of the Caura-Paragua region acted as middlemen in the




exchange of glass beads between the Pemón and the Piaroa. So abundantwas the Ye’kuana provision of beads that, according to the Piaroa, theywere the owners of a big mine of mostacillas (Coppens : ; Mansutti

: ).Despite the growing importance and influence of the foreign glassbeads, other people continued to use objects strikingly similar to the oldshell beads. During the second decade of the twentieth century TheodoreKoch-Grünberg () reported that the Guinaú, the Taulipang, and theMakushi of the highlands of Guiana used to wear entire loads of beads,including small white shirt buttons from Europe. Those buttons were ob-tained through exchange from other tribes and were highly popular (ibid.:–). Before the introduction of synthetic materials, shirt buttons were

made mostly of bone, shell, and porcelain. The production of shell buttonsreached its height during the mid-nineteenth century (Hume : ; Saul: )

At the same time the monetary economy slowly continued to find itsway into the aboriginal economies and practices. In , during a visit toGuagnungomo (possibly Ye’kuana) of the Caura River region, Jean Chaf-fanjon (: ) observed a bracelet made with small coins, including a French coin. In Enrique Stanko Vráz ( []: ) paidfor some Ye’kuana ethnographic objects with one kilogram of glass beads

and two silver dollars. In Martín Matos Arvelo (: ) reportedthat the Ye’kuana, Piaroa, Mako, and other groups of the Upper Orinocohad necklaces and bracelets made of pierced silver coins. More recently,Audrey Butt-Colson () reported that in the northern Pakaraima andthe Gran Sabana region there was no money or substitute for money beforethe s, for barter was still the common way to make commercial trans-actions. None of the traditional items she reported (including glass beads)was used as a medium of exchange (ibid.: ).

These regional variations were almost surely the result of the disrup-

tion of the exchange networks and the different roles played by differentgroups. The disappearance of traditional ways and mediums of exchangewas aggravated by the growing influence of the modern state in the aborigi-nal economies. In the market economy typical of national states, the mainway to acquire Western goods and money is wage labor; within that sys-tem barter occupies a secondary position. For that reason the glass beadswere reduced to certain spheres of exchange, which show the changing bal-ance between the barter and monetary systems that coexisted in the past.For example, David Thomas () indicates that among the Pemón of the

Guiana Shield, mostacillas can only be changed by certain goods, beingtherefore limited to specific spheres of exchange. It means that glass beads



Rafael A. Gassón

do not act as an standard of value, and therefore they are not a universalmedium of exchange (ibid.: ). After the s even the most isolatedsettlements of the northern Pakaraima and the Gran Sabana region were

using cash (Butt-Colson : ). Among the Piaroa, where glass beadsare not limited to spheres of exchange as in the Pemón case, the increasinguse of wage labor and cash in daily transactions is starting to disrupt tra-ditional exchange patterns (Mansutti : ). Thus in the end the beadsbecame completely obsolete and were replaced by modern currency. Nowa-days some references to the use of beads as money (koma) still persist inthe oral tradition of the Wakuénay of the upper Orinoco (López Pequeiraet al. : ).

Discussion

What follows is an evolution or ‘‘biography’’ of shell beads as a mediumof exchange in the Orinoco Basin. The archaeological record and early his-torical references seem to indicate that quirípa strings were used as ob-jects during the pre-Hispanic period in both ceremonial transactions and,to a lesser degree, in barter among the Indians. Many groups with differ-ent levels of social organization were involved in the manufacture and ex-change of beads, but it seems likely that those primitive valuables were

manipulated and exchanged principally (albeit not exclusively) by chieflyelites. Marshall Sahlins (: ) stated that primitive money tends toappear in the peripheral social sector of societies at the tribal level in con-junction with an unusual level of balanced reciprocity. The characteristicsof the societies of the Orinoco Basin, however—strongly integrated butwith different sociopolitical structures—suggest that the emphasis shouldbe not on the type of social organization, but on the level of social andeconomic integration between communities with different degrees of socialcomplexity. In such a system of social and economic relations the meaning

and importance of beads was a shifting one, depending on the situation inwhich they were used and the political status of the individuals and groupswho manipulated them. Within communities quirípa, like North Ameri-can wampum, initially was not a commercial currency but a primitive valu-able that was used primarily in important transactions that established andmaintained political and kinship relations (Douglas : ; Smith :; Yerkes : ).

The relationship between social complexity and the manipulation andcontrol of primitive valuables tends to be more clearly defined during his-

torical times. After the contact period the paramount producers of shelldisks were the Achagua of Casanare, and after them, the Otomac of the




middle Orinoco. Both societies could be considered as chiefly societies, if not true or maximal chiefdoms. It is likely that these peoples, already onthe path to social complexity at the end of the pre-Hispanic period, took

advantage of the new opportunities offered by the colonial encounter, in-cluding an attempt to increase and control the production of shell beads.By controlling the production and trade on shell beads, those groups at-tempted to gain a privileged access to Western commodities and politi-cal power. Obviously, this universal usage of the shell beads in a grow-ing ‘‘international’’ market offered new opportunities to the aboriginalentrepreneur with chiefly aspirations, but it also offered new dangers. TheCarib-Achagua case illustrates nicely the statement made by Rita Kipp andEdward Schortman (: ): when luxury goods are available through

the market rather than by direct, chiefly exchange, the elite’s power de-pends increasingly on economic exploitation and the control of arms. AsCarib chiefs and entrepreneurs became more and more successful, they alsobecame but more and more dependent on Dutch and Achagua commodi-ties; when the trade networks were dismantled as the result of political anddemographic factors, the Carib power basis was destroyed. The Otomacthen stepped up and took advantage of the opportunity to control the pro-duction of quirípa. With the growing influence of the colonial economy,however, the bead strings continued to change in their nature and charac-

teristics until they became obsolete. Both cases clearly illustrate the com-plex opportunities and risks involved in using luxury goods as one of thesources of chiefly power. Mary Douglas (: ) further examines thispoint: ‘‘In each case, leadership and the political structure of groups are notset apart from the sphere of commerce; the rewards of the successful entre-preneur are the highest rewards of power and prestige which the society hasto offer; he cannot dominate the political situation without first dominat-ing the market. Since the native ability to do this is unenvenly distributed,and since in competitive conditions the entrepreneur risks ups and downs

in his career and declines as he ages, in such systems leadership is open tochallenge and change and the political structure is unstable.’’The growing circulation and the broadening of the functions (and later

the eventual decline of the shell beads) were therefore the result of the prob-lems related to the creation of a global economy, the competition amongthe European colonizers, and the introduction of the aboriginal economiesinto the global market. This process was driven by the shortage of coinedmoney and the massive production of beads.The significant amount of shellbeads circulating in the colonial economy of the Orinoco River made it

necessary to establish value standards based on the European currencies.By the mid-seventeenth century the shell beads acquired all of the charac-



Rafael A. Gassón

teristics associated with Western currencies: they had standard prices, theywere used as a universal medium of exchange, they were used to pay taxesand obligations, and they were kept as savings. The shell beads circulated

not only within the Spanish colonial economy, they were also accepted byall of the colonial powers. In addition to their new characteristics and users,the shell beads continued to carry their tradicional symbolic value. Gilij( []: –) summarized this complex situation: ‘‘No other Ori-nocan merchandise is sold more expensively, none is more sought after, asmuch by the Indians as by strangers. The Dutch, who buy it, use the beads. . . to embellish their female Indian servants.’’ This moment can be definedas the ‘‘mercantile situation’’ in the social life of the Orinocan shell beads,because the exchangeability of quirípa became its socially relevant char-

acteristic (Appadurai : ). Finally, with the political and economicconsolidation of Spain on the mainland, the neutralization of its competi-tors, and the massive introduction of glass beads, the bead currency slowlylost its importance, being reduced again to the sphere of Amerindian ex-change. As a result of the influence of the capitalist economy of the modernstate, the use of beads as a medium of exchange disappeared in the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

During the past several decades the substantivist and formalist schoolsgenerated an important discussion regarding primitive money. The ma-

jority of these discussions were centered on the characteristics of ‘‘true’’money, that is, on the criteria used to differentiate among money, objectsthat acted as money, and primitive valuables. Such schemes were appliedto a multitude of cases to establish whether the objects in question weremoney. This produced a predictable dichotomy in which two basic cate-gories exist: true (or all-purpose) money and false (or special-purpose)money. This is because money and currency have been considered univer-sal categories, giving them attributes that are specific of our own mone-tary systems (Bloch and Parry : ; Moreno Feliu : ). However,

precapitalist societies did not establish clear distinctions among commodi-ties, money, and items of social exchange. Establishing those distinctions isnot an easy task, even in modern society. As Maurice Godelier (: )stated, ‘‘Very often the precious objects we encounter in primitive societieshave a dual nature: they are goods and no-goods, money and gifts, accord-ing to whether they are bartered between groups or circulate within thegroup.’’

Conclusions

Three conclusions are derived from the biography of the beads in the Ori-noco Basin. First, the archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic




evidence indicates that the attributes of the shell beads were more the re-sult of the perceptions of different social actors through time than inher-ent characteristics of these objects. Therefore, I suggest a possible alter-

native approach, a shift from the study of the characteristics of the beadsto the study of their social meaning as dynamic objects manipulated bypeople with different ethnic and sociopolitical backgrounds. Second, theaforementioned evidence indicates that the evolution of this medium of ex-change was the result of mutual needs and continuity between Europeanand Amerindian economic institutions, not merely the result of the auto-matic imposition of the Western economic rationality, for quirípa effec-tively acted as a bridge between different economic systems. Although it isimpossible to say that this process was based on mutual benefit, reducing

the role of the Amerindians to passive witnesses or victims will not broadenunderstanding of the colonial encounter in the Americas; it will only per-petuate the crisis of representation in the discipline.

Finally, the examination of the biography of quirípas and mostaci-llas suggests that a historical anthropology informed by a world-systemperspective is a theoretical ground where archaeologists, ethnohistorians,and ethnographers can meet around common problems and new prespec-tives (Orser : –). In this sense the assessment of the evolution,extent, differences, and coincidences between the possible prestige-good

systems indicated by the archaeological record, and the System of OrinocoRegional Interdependence indicated by the ethnohistorical record will beamong the most important and difficult tasks of future interdisciplinarystudies (Arvelo-Jiménez and Biord Castillo : ; Lathrap : ;Gassón : ; Zucchi and Gassón in press).

Notes

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Foro en Homenaje a DonaldLathrap during the fortieth annual convention of AsoVAC in Cumaná, Venezuela(), and at the twenty-second annual Midwest Conference on Andean and Ama-zonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory at the University of Michigan (). I wouldlike to thank Kay Tarble, Kathleen Allen, Andrew Strathern, Jonathan Hill, Stan-ford Zent, and Berta Pérez for their useful comments, information, corrections, andsuggestions. I would also like to thank zooarchaeologist Edgar Gil, who made themalacological identifications, and Carlos Quintero, who provided the illustrations.I am solely responsible for any errors the article may contain.

Ernst (a []: ) indicated that the Maiba could have used a large fresh-water shell that he identified as Unio syrmatophora Gronov. This freshwater mus-

sel is currently identified as Paxyodon syrmatophorus Meuschen, which has a widedistribution in the lowland savannas of Venezuela and was the first pelecypoddescribed in continental South America (Gil pers. com., ; Simpson ).



Rafael A. Gassón

In Ernst (d []: ) published some notes on the aboriginal popu-lation of Venezuela from a letter dated December , in which the use of beads as money is already indicated. Unfortunately, no further information isgiven.

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