Fur money

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Russian envoy from Grand Duke Ivan to the German Emperor, with gifts of sable and mink fur (15th century)

As fur money or fur money, furs were an essential means of payment in various areas of their occurrence . These were mainly the hides of so-called noble fur animals , their ultimate purpose after raw products for the manufacture of fur goods . The Croatian currency unit kuna (from old Slavic kuna, kuny for "marten") still indicates this today.

history

Long before precious metals became the most popular means of payment of the peoples, herd animals were the oldest measure of value of the Indo-European peoples. The Latin word “pecunia” for money, from Latin “pecus” (cattle), indicates this. Up to the present day in Asia and Africa the reputation of a tribe member is still based on the size of his herd of cattle.

The earliest barter transactions of goods are not yet to be regarded as trade, as the barter object was usually consumed directly by the recipient, so initially skins did not have a universal value comparable to money. However, livestock values ​​could only be graded to a limited extent in exchange and payment, and trading over long distances was hardly possible. In the north and east of Europe, hides, skins and furs from hunted animals as well as supra-regional, relatively easy-to-transport means of exchange and payment were established early on.

In old Norwegian law, "feldr" refers to sheep's clothing that was used as a means of payment. In the Norwegian province of Telemark , calculations were based on animal skins ("hud") until the late Middle Ages; on the Faroe Islands paid and you billed by the year 1936 in sheepskins, until finally the value of a coin 1/ 24 were species taler. In Finland, the word “raha”, squirrel fur ( called feh in the fur industry ) has taken on the general meaning of money, and the same is said to be the case in the native Alaskan language. The Scandinavians atoned for insults by paying for them in fox, marten, ermine and sable skins. In the polar countries, in Siberia and in Canada, there was a fixed, recognized relationship between the different types of fur in the exchange of goods.

The Bishop of Breslau , for example, rose in the early 13th century from the forest villages of castellany Lähn squirrel and marten furs as tithing . In 1381 the village of Haindorf in northern Bohemia paid 66 squirrels a year, and Nickel Vogeler von Einsiedel had to pay 30 squirrels as annual tax. Even in 1603, people in the Tyrolean Weitental used to pay with animal skins according to the old custom.

In the Slavic East in particular, with its rich occurrence of fur animals in antiquity, fur money was a popular means of payment for a long time. In ancient times, fur skins were one of the most important sources of prosperity for Eastern Europe. Their domestic value, however, was at times quite depressed by the large amount of the local seizure. For example, it was customary for a long time that the buyer of a copper kettle had to fill it up to the brim with sable fur as the purchase price. The cleric Adam von Bremen (* probably before 1050; † probably 1081/1085) describes this disproportion: “And indeed, they value these skins, as I believe, to our own ruin no more than dung, while we use right and wrong means longing for a marten dress as for the highest bliss. Therefore we offer those for woolen garments, which we call "faldones", these precious marten skins. "

The Arab geographer Ahmad ibn Rustah reports from the 10th century about the Bulgarians : “Their main wealth is the“ deleq ”(marten). They have no minted money, but their dirhems are the deleq. A marten skin is worth two and a half dirhem. White round dirhems only come to them from Islamic countries for payment ”. Schöps wrote in 1951: “This equation of the noble fur with the coins of neighboring countries is still common today among the nomadic peoples of northeast Russia and Siberia.

For the polar peoples, furs were a valuable commodity for which you could even exchange a wife. With the Ostyaks, the married young man had to add 50 cross fox skins to the 150 reindeer. According to the zoologist Otto Finsch, the locals understood it to be the mouse-gray fur of a young arctic fox, which has blackish longitudinal and transverse markings over the back and shoulders. The Samoyed , a small ethnic group of the Urals language tribe, contented themselves with fabrics and other things with 90 reindeer, but there were also 45 cross foxes and 5 blue foxes. The pesécъ "stone fox" is still the unit of currency in trade between Russians and Samoyed people. The Russian dealer says z. For example: "I gave you (the Samoyed) for one or two stone foxes." It cannot be ruled out that the increasing trade with the Finnish tribes contributed to the expansion and maintenance of this fur money. "In the Mansi language , to the Obugian branch of finno -Urian language tribe, the ruble is named with "sêt-lîn", one hundred squirrels, in other Ural-Altaic languages ​​the Russian kopecks are called squirrels. In the Marisprache and Syrjänischen they are called "ur" (Finnish "orava"), in the Udmurt "koni" in Wogulischen "Lin" and Tartar "ti'in".

In older Russian, the most popular word for money is “kuna”, “kuny”, which, including its derivative “kunica”, originally referred to the marten. Also in Russian "bӗlka", squirrel, used to refer to a unit of coins. The Russian “vékša”, which is presumably a pet form of “vӗverica”, squirrel, is used to designate a widespread medium of exchange in Old Russian that had a monetary function. In the more recent Pravda of the 13th century, a type of small change was mentioned, the so-called "Rjesanen" (from "rӗzanъ" to Old Slavic "rӗzati", which means to cut), these were cut pieces of fur with different names . In this sense, marten snouts ("mórdki"), squirrels' foreheads ("lobki") and other pieces of fur were used as generally popular small change and change in the large trading centers of Novgorod and Pskow . Hare skins were also used in barter in Russia as a dividing coin , the smallest copper coin there was given the name Polutska, from Poluschken, half a hare skin. Wergeld was levied in skins , road taxes, bridge fees and trade duties were paid, and the clergy were also used to hold spiritual masses for the deceased. The Soyots from the headwaters of the Yenisei had yet to deliver annually to the 1910s their taxes in the form of marten and Zobelfellen to China that were it driven from their tribal chiefs.

From the 14th century, metal money was used in the countries of the Russian Empire. Finally, the squirrel and marten snouts used as currency, which had been in circulation for no less than 500 years, were exchanged for silver. But there were also leather "kunen" from the state treasury, but they fell in value because the Mongols did not want to accept them instead of silver. That is why they no longer recognized the Russians of the Grand Duchy, and they disappeared again from circulation there. In other parts of Russia these money tokens were in use for longer. In the 16th century, the envoy from Emperor Maximilian I , who was in Russia in 1517 and 1518, reported that until recently the Russians had used the snouts and ears of squirrels and other animals instead of coins. At the beginning of the 15th century you could still pay with kunen in the land of the Dvina. Around 1410 they were abolished by the government in Novgorod and copper coins were introduced, and in 1420 silver coins were also introduced.

A Croatian kuna with a picture of two martens

Just like the West Slav princes, who paid homage to the German emperors to a large extent in the form of skins, more than a millennium later the subjugated peoples of Siberia still paid tribute to the Russian conquerors. In the fur trade, the term crown sable is still used today for the very finest sable skins, the "Bargusinski" from the Bargusin Mountains , actually the name for the tribute paid to the tsar (Jassak, Yassak or Iassak), or the tribute paid by the Russian crown to foreign dignitaries gave away sable hides or furs. In 1610, a war chest was captured containing 5,450 rubles in silver and 7,000 rubles in fur. In 1920 the sable skin was practically a coin among the inhabitants of Kamchatka. All business was done in skins, even the "school fees". Teaching a boy cost a sable skin, girls were a little cheaper with a fox skin.

In earlier centuries in North America, beaver fur was used as a means of payment. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Hudson's Bay Company had the following exchange rates, all based on beaver fur

Number of skins Equivalent Number of skins Equivalent
15 beaver skins a shotgun 5 beaver pelts a woolen blanket
3 beaver skins a dozen knives 2 beaver skins a pound of tobacco, etc.
2 beaver skins an axe a black fox was equal to 20 beaver skins.

Even then, contemporaries were astonished by the enormous prices the Indians had to pay for European goods, but this is a somewhat improved, regulated list. It is even less realistic to read that for a shotgun as many beavers had to be piled up as it was long. Which is said to have led to the fact that the rifles exchanged for the Indians grew longer every year. At times, more skins were brought in than the Hudson's Bay Company had to deliver in terms of goods from stock. They made do with the fact that the consignors were given pieces of beaver fur, cut into pieces and stamped by the company, as "fur money".

Also blue fox furs and white fox skins were up in 1900 in northern America as a kind of fur money in exchange traffic with the Inuit.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Zvi Rudi: Ethnosociology of Soviet peoples (ways and guidelines) . Francke Verlag Bern, Munich 1962, pp. 139–141.
  2. Schier: Furs from an ancient perspective . P. 44. Primary sources Hjalmar Falk: Altwestnordische Kleiderkunde . Heidelberg 1919. - Bernhard Kummer: costume and jewelry in the mirror of the sagas = costume and jewelry in the Nordic region . Edited by Alexander Funkenberg, Leipzig 1939, I, p. 49.
  3. Schier: Furs from an ancient perspective . P. 44. Primary source J. Renvall: Lexicon linguae finnicae . Åbo, 1826, sv raha: pellis ferinae carior; omne id quod in pretio est, res quaevis mercium pretio inserviens, ec pellis, metalla etc., inde hodie pecunia, nummus.
  4. ^ Oskar Lenz: About money among primitive peoples . Lecture given on February 28, 1895 at the Litterarian Society in Vienna. In: Collection of generally understandable lectures , Issue 217–240, Verlaganstalt und Druckerei A.-G. (formerly JF Richter), Hamburg 1895, p. 13.
  5. Schier: Furs from an ancient perspective . P. 44 Primary source: Tzschoppe and Stenzel: Document collection on the history of the origins of the cities in Silesia and Upper Lusatia . Hamburg 1832, p. 35.
  6. Schier: Furs from an ancient perspective . P. 45. Primary source Bruno Schier: Flur und Siedlung = local history of the Friedland district in Bohemia . Hsgr. Erich Gierach, Josef Schubert, Friedland 1927, II, p. 95.
  7. Schier: Furs from an ancient perspective . P. 45. Primary source: Jacob Grimm: German legal antiques . 4th edition, Leipzig 1809, I, p. 224 f. - Johann Adof Heyl: Folk tales, customs and opinions from Tyrol . Brixen 1897, No. 177.
  8. Paul Larisch : The furriers and their characters . Self-published, Berlin 1928, p. 47.
  9. Schier: Furs from an ancient perspective . Pp. 45-46. Primary source: Adam v. Bremen: Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesia pontificum IV, 18 = Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores VII . S. 374. “Et illi quidem ut stercora haec habent ad nostram credo dampnationem, qui per fas et nefas ad vestem anhelamus marturinam, quasi ad summam beatitudinem. Itaque pro laneis indumentis quae nos dicimus faldones, illi offerunt tam pretiosos martures. "
  10. Schier: Furs from an ancient perspective . P. 45. Secondary source Chwolson: Reports on the Khazars, Bolgars, Magyars, Slavs and Russians by Abu-Ali-Akhmed-Ben-Omar Ibn Dastah . Peterburg 1869, p. 24. See Frähn and Hommel: The names of mammals among the South Semitic peoples . Leipzig 1879, p. 331. Cf. Georg Jacob: Which commercial articles did the Arabs of the Middle Ages obtain from the Nordic-Baltic countries . 2nd ed., Berlin 1891, pp. 35–36.
  11. Otto Finsch: Journey to West Siberia in 1879 , Berlin, 1879. Primary source Dr. Damm: furs as a means of payment . In Das Pelzgewerbe , supplement to the magazine Hermelin , issue 9-10, 1951, Hermelinverlag Paul Schöps, Berlin / Leipzig, p. 28
  12. Schier: Furs from an ancient perspective . P. 46. Secondary source Otto Schrader, Nehring: Reallexikon der Indo-European antiquity . 2nd edition, Berlin 1917-1929, I, p. 372.
  13. Schier: Furs from an ancient perspective . P. 46. Secondary source A. Ahlquist: The cultural words of the Western Finnish languages, a contribution to the older cultural history of the Finns . Helsingfors 1875, p. 188 ff.
  14. a b c Bruno Schier: Furs and fabrics as means of payment in olden times . In: Furs from an ancient perspective . Publishing house Dr. Paul Schöps, Frankfurt / Main 1951, pp. 42–51 ( → table of contents ).
  15. Schier: Furs from an ancient perspective . P. 26. Secondary source Schrader / Nehring, IS 226.
  16. ^ Johann Carl Leuchs: General Goods Lexicon . 2 parts, Nuremberg 1835.
  17. Karl Wenzeslaus Rodecker of Rotteck: State-dictionary or encyclopedia of political science: In conjunction with many of the most respected publicists Germany , Volume 11 P. 12. Accessed October 16, 2015.
  18. Reinhold Stephan, Bochum: On the history of the tobacco trade in antiquity and the Middle Ages and the development of the Russian-Asian region from 16. -18. Century . Inaugural dissertation University of Cologne 1940, p. 46. Primary source: Josef Kulischer : General economic history of the Middle Ages and the modern times . Munich, Berlin 1928/1929, vol. 1, p. 116. Table of contents .
  19. a b c "dt.": From old Russian fur money . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt , March 26, 1943, p. 5.
  20. "dt": skins as money signs . In: Kürschner-Zeitung No. 11/12, Leipzig April 15, 1942, p. 92.
  21. Dr. Damm: furs as a means of payment . In Das Pelzgewerbe , supplement to the magazine Hermelin , Issue 9-10, 1951, Hermelin Verlag Paul Schöps, Berlin / Leipzig, p. 28
  22. Christian Franke / Johanna Kroll: Jury Fränkel ’s Rauchwaren-Handbuch 1988/89 . 10th revised and supplemented new edition. Rifra-Verlag, Murrhardt 1988, p. 187 .
  23. ^ Paul Larisch , Josef Schmid: Das Kürschner-Handwerk II. Part, self-published Paris 1903, p. 13.
  24. Fritz Schmidt: The book of the fur animals and fur . FC Mayer, Munich 1970, p. 207 .