تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.83.14

13.83.14

The currency of the people of these islands is the cowrie, an animal which they gather in the sea and put in pits there, so that its flesh goes and its shell remains white. A hundred of them they call siyāh, with s and y; seven hundred they call fāl, with f; twelve thousand they call kuttī, with u on the k and doubled t; and a hundred thousand they call bustū, with u on the b and the t and s between them. Transactions are made with them at the rate of four bustū to a gold dinar, and sometimes they become cheap, so that ten bustū are sold for a dinar. They sell them to the people of Banjāla for rice, and they are also the currency of the people of the land of Banjāla. They sell them to the people of Yemen, who use them in place of sand as ballast in their ships. These cowries are also the currency of the Blacks in their own country; I saw them being exchanged at Mālī and Jūjū at the rate of one thousand one hundred and fifty to the gold dinar.