Cowries, Gold and 'Bitter Money': Gold-Mining and Notions of Ill-Gotten Wealth in Burkina Faso

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Periodical article

Title:	Cowries, Gold and 'Bitter Money': Gold-Mining and Notions of Ill-Gotten Wealth in Burkina Faso
Author:	Werthmann, Katja
Year:	2003
Periodical:	Paideuma
Volume:	49
Pages:	105-124
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Burkina Faso
Subjects:	money cowrie currency gold History and Exploration Economics and Trade
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/40315513
Abstract:	A number of authors, including Parker Shipton (1989), have contrasted 'good' money (precolonial currencies) with 'bad' money (modern money). Yet in certain contexts local currencies may also be adjudged to be morally problematic. In southwestern Burkina Faso 'general purpose money' in the form of cowry shells circulated before the introduction of modern money. Even before the penetration of the modern market economy, cowries derived from specific transactions were regarded as 'bitter' or dangerous. Gold in the Dagara context is associated with the earth and the ancestors. The proceeds from its sale, whether in cowries or in money, generate 'bitter money' and may only be used for specific purposes. Concepts like 'bitter money' and 'dangerous gold' provide an idiom in which the (il)legitimate appropriation of resources and the ensuing consequences can be negotiated both within and beyond a local context. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]