the money talks

by Joep Van Der Werff

Money Talks: The History of Money

You go to the corner store and buy  a carton of milk and some eggs. You pay and you leave. That`s normal, right? Your parents buy some new clothes for you: a pir of blue jeans and nice T-shirt.

They  pull a piece of plastic from their wallet, give it to the cashier and that`s it. That`s what credit cards are for,  right?It`s hard for us to believe that there once was a time  when credit cards didn`t exist. There was even a time when money didn`t exist!

Barter

There was a time when you had to go the farmer for your milk  an d eggs. The farmer took something he or she needed, maybe some corn that you grew in your fields. This exchange of products is called barter. The barter system is based on reciprocal gifts: "if i give some corn, will you give me some eggs?" Barter worked before money existed.Before that system, people didn`t have anything like money. They helpedeach other and gave each other thing. If they killed a bison together, they would cook the meat and share it with everybody in the community. If a man needed to build a house or hut, other men helped him.Barter also included physical labor. Men and women worked in exchange for food.

Commodities

Little by little, primitive money started to appear. People used something of value to pay for a product or service. In mesoamerica, chocolate was a valued drink. Aztecs used cocoa beans as money. they were small, easy to carry and easy to count. For example, 20 cocoa beans paid for a tameme, a porter to carry your things home. Large amounts were paid in quachtli, a long withe cape. A simple quachtli was sorth 65 cocoa beans, but a well made and decorated quatchli could cost up to 300 cocoa beans!

Primitive Money

Some commodities or primitive money are: amber, beads, cocoa beans, cowris(large shells), drums, eggs, feather, gongs, hoes (a tool to work the land), ivory, jade, kettles (to cook water), leather, mats (to cover the floor), nails, oxen, (strong bulls), pigs, quartz (a crystal), rice, salt, timbles, (a tool for maiking clothes), vodka and yarns (wool for making clothes )

Commodities had to be easy to store, easy to carry around and everybody had to agree about their value. They also needed to be durable. Old and winkled cocoa beans had less value than new ones!An important barted ro commodity was cattle. cows, sheep and goats were important in early civilizations. They provided meat for food, wool and skins for clothes and bones for tools.Equially important was the ceremonial or religious value of cattle. they were used for offerings. atlle were a primitive form of money because they could be counted. The more cows a family had, the richer they were.

American indians from the Northwest had parties or festivals. The purpose of a potlach was to distribute the wealth. the potlatch party was hosted by a famil or a cloan. It was considered a great hornor to host a ploatch party. It was a kind of competition: who can give the most things to others?A houndred years ago, the Kirghiz people of russian steppe fields used horses as their commodity money and they  gave the skins of lambs (young sheep) as small change.

The only large civilization that was completely without  commodity money was the inca culture in South America.the incas traded products and labor: they used the barter system also to exchange labor: For example, they said: "if you help me build my house, i`ll help you harvest corn".imagine a community where no money change hands.

Banks have always existed, right? No, wrong! Banks were invented in Mesopotamia in the Middle East. Royal temples and palaces were considered secure places to keep the commodities. Temple officials gave out official receipts, just like a bank does today. Metal money About four thousand years ago, people started using metal as money, but coins did not exist yet. The weight of the pieces of metal determined their value. One of the first forms of coins was China. The Chinese used cowry shells as money and their first coins were cowry shells made of metal (bronze or copper).

The first real coins probably made in Greece about 630 metal. Drachmas were made of silver and other coins were made of cheaper metal.Paper moneyThe invention of paper money happened in china, too. Around the year 1,00, there wasn`t enough copper to make coins. Emperor Hien Tsung ordered the production of paper money. Later the Chinese went back to the similar metals coins.

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