What do red squirrels, salt, cocoa beans, and parmesan cheese have in common? No, they’re not ingredients in some extremely unappetizing dish; in fact, they’ve all been used as a form of currency at some point in the course of human history. It might sound surprising to us today, since none of those things seem particularly valuable, but the history of money is a movement from trading stuff you can use, such as animal pelts to keep you warm, to trading stuff that’s symbolic, like the dollar bills you probably have in your wallet right now.
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The many odd and surprising forms of currency
Squirrels? Salt? Parmesan cheese? How currency and forms of payment have evolved across space and time.
How has currency evolved? Medieval Europeans in modern-day Finland and Russia used red squirrel pelts as currency. A tikkuri was 10 squirrel pelts; a kiihtelys four times that. And while values changed, at one point 100 pelts could get you a whole cow. A squirrel pelt economy may sound strange, but humans everywhere have a history of paying with strange things — things that are really just symbols believed to be worth something. Cowry shells spread across much of the ancient trading lanes, from China to India to Eastern Africa. Salt, or salarium argentum, was paid out to soldiers in Rome — it’s the etymological reason we now get paid a “salary.” In Central America, the cocoa bean, understandably, became a prized currency. The Rai stones of the Solomon Islands had to be gathered from islands hundreds of miles away, and were so huge that they occasionally capsized canoes. Even in modern Italy — this is true — 17,000 tons of parmesan cheese are kept in bank vaults as collateral.
In the United States, our modern-day currency continues to evolve. In an era where you can send money in just minutes from your bank account to a friend’s bank account on your phone with Zelle®, cash might be going the way of the red squirrel sooner than you think.
Must have a bank account in the U.S. to use Zelle. To receive money in minutes, the recipient’s email address or U.S. mobile number must already be enrolled with Zelle. ©2018 Early Warning Services, LLC. All rights reserved. Zelle and the Zelle marks used herein are trademarks of Early Warning Services, LLC.