IMITATION

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 109, 30 December 1931, Page 6

IMITATION

NEW GUINEA NATIVES HAVE | TROUBLE WITH CURRENCY \ INFLATION | Even the Stone Age Man in New | Guinea is having trouble with cur- ; rency inflationists. j At one time in their history the I bush natives would bring taro and ; bananas down to the coast to exchange for fish and salt — the age old . exchange by barter. j But in time a token was evolved | which was a handier medium of ex- I change than the primitive barter, and I it also had the advantage of being ! able to store up some of the value j of their bounteous crop against a | rainy day. 'So a system of measuring values by a "token currency" was ] introduced. They understood that the token should be difficult to procure, capable of stamping to uniformity, and stable in production. So they invented Tambu — the name they gave their native shell money. It is made from a very small shell, tedious to gather, and when procured, each shell had to be drilled by hand, and then strung on to native twine. Lately, howevei", rumous floated round that debbils-debbils were tampering with the Tambu, that large quantities of native money were mysteriously appearing overnight, which clearly could not be the work of known Tambu makers, who are a sort of guild. It has been conjectured that some smart native boy discovered a nuicker method of drilling the shells with a white man's drilling tool, and got to work on a little private mint of his own, thus inflating the currency to such an extent as to cause alarm of the chiefs of the villages, who agreed that inflation was an evil practice that could not be tolerated. What native steps were taken to deal with the trouhle, are not clear, that they were drastic is certain. The evil was stopped, possibly with the end of a spear, and the people have been relieved of their fears as to the stability of their currency system.