IMPLICATIONS OF BARTER AND CURRENCIES

IN DJIMINI THE ABSENCE OF CURRENCY
LETS TOFANGA CONTROL EXCHANGES   

Is the fight due to merchants' introducing it?
Take the celebrated empires of the medieval savannah

• The "silent trade" of the Mali Empire 

makes private transactions impossible,

which leaves exchanges to the king

(on the 14th century Niger Bend) 

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Arabs place salt on the bank of the Niger and retire.

Blacks examine the offer, place the gold they propose in exchange next to it, and retire as well. Negotiations continue in that way, with drumming but no words.

Arabs who break the silence are beaten, blacks impaled (they menace the king's monopoly more directly).

 -- G. Mouëtte, Histoire des conquêtes de Moulay Archy, 1683, 316-17

• An iron money replaces barter.

The empire of Songhay supplants that of Mali
at the same time 

 -- For the iron money, 
The history and description of Africa by Leo Africanus,
early 16th century

Grégoire Lyon

A royal Songhay tomb.
In Gao (Mali)

Probable context: growth makes the silent trade unenforceable and brings a control that is less rudimentary.

The heavy, cumbersome iron currency is adapted to important exchanges, not tiny sales. It lets an elite monopolize commerce, to which ordinary people have no access. 

Society stays stable. 

• Social change appears with divisible currencies,

which let independent producers emerge

Narrators do not know when cowries came to Djimini, saying only that it was before the arrival of Samory (in 1894). Their appearance must coincide with the founding of the market at Bokhala, which could not sell ordinary items otherwise. 

Gnapon, a warrior, is more powerful than Tofanga.
The arrival of the almost infinitely divisible currency
explains acceptance of a stronger chieftaincy:
By the merchants, to protect them.
By the population, to contain the impact of the change.

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Next,

Cowries, a currency that meets violent resistance