Well, just a few posts above yours I mentioned coca beans being used as currency by the pre-European Central Americans.PainRack wrote:Were cash crops such as bananas ever used as currency? I remember someone garbling about how bananas and other fruit were held as standards of wealth in Dutch controlled Indonesia, as well as the Carribeans.
Alternatives to local currency?
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Re: Alternatives to local currency?
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Re: Alternatives to local currency?
I suppose any staple crop is valid currency in an agrarian society.
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Re: Alternatives to local currency?
Coca wasn't a staple crop - in fact, consumption of chocolate was largely restricted to the aristocracy - and is in no way as vital to life as things like corn and potatoes. Coca beans were a luxury item, even more so than today.
In a barter economy - some of which are quite large, such as Ancient Egypt and the Ancient American civilizations like the Aztec, Maya, Inca, etc. - staple crops are arguably a basic unit of exchange, but that doesn't mean it's currency in the same sense as coin or gems or other valuables are.
In a barter economy - some of which are quite large, such as Ancient Egypt and the Ancient American civilizations like the Aztec, Maya, Inca, etc. - staple crops are arguably a basic unit of exchange, but that doesn't mean it's currency in the same sense as coin or gems or other valuables are.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
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Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice
Re: Alternatives to local currency?
Grain worked as good currency, since it wasn't as perishable as fruit.
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Re: Alternatives to local currency?
In the food as money category I'll nominate the tea bricks made from dried, ground tea leaves. They are used as long lasting food and beverage source, also doubled as currency in and around China.
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Re: Alternatives to local currency?
Certainly. Cocoa beans had been used as currency in Mesoamerica (Kirschoff's term) for quite a while when the Spaniards came. More on that can be found in Jacques Soustelle's Daily Life Of The Aztecs.Broomstick wrote:That, or at certain times and places, spices.
Cocoa beans have also been used as currency in the Western Hemisphere, but that was about 500 years ago.
Along with spices, it had the advantage of being quite durable in bean form (unlike fruits like, say, bananas), which made it apt and convenient to be used as currency.
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