Money

 
Okay, so the Macro Day theme is "Money" -- I found out that it's not quite as hard as I thought to manipulate a dollar bill inside a cowrie shell. Why a cowrie shell, you ask? It was a form of money as early as 1200 BC and as late as the 1700's to buy slaves from West African groups. At the Monticello cite I read, and it was so boggling I don't know whether to believe it, that cowrie shells were imported from Asia to Europe as essentially "packing peanuts" and then exported from Europe to Africa as the currency to buy people on that continent.

PS I just found out this received "Editor's Pick" on Macro Day. Wooooohooooo! My first Internet Challenge recognition. Yowza. Thanks Carlo Ferroni!