gold coins, silver coins- the dark spirituality of violating earth; a lifeless money representing lifeless Things. In the mid 1800s Yuroks " threw around coins like you toss around stones." What is their value? What a Yurok elder would do is " go into the mountains and pray for money, for wealth. And we're not talking only about wealth as you know it... we're talking spiritual power."	Materials like dentilium are accumulated for the social, moral, and spiritual services they render that balance a community and balance the earth. Such shell makes payment for wrong doing or may buy a canoe. Accumulation of such shell feeds and supplies a World Renewal Ceremony; it does not represent the dance- it is dancing. It is singing. Such shell is Money is what	Northwestern Indigenous Nations of California call Precious. -Rebecca Haff (1) Chris Peters Indigenous Wealth- (photo top left) Dentilium shells and beads passed down for generations were used to make this necklace. The cap was made by Lena Reed McCovey. Photo by Sandra Lowry, copyright 1999 Activity Button
" The most precious items are religious things- a woodpecker headroll, a white deerskin- precious within our economic systems, tied directly to the ceremony process." (1) Dentilium, clam shell- materials of wealth- accumulated not because they represent dead Things:
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