Dear BY: Come to think of it, I made a purchase from a bumboat woman in the Funafuti atoll, in WWII. She came out to the troopship in an outrigger canoe paddled by a little wimp. She was so fat her buttocks hung oveer both gunnels. Her only merchandise was cowrie shells, the bottom of which strongly suggests the female pudenda. She had them singly and in necklaces. She would give one shell for one buck. I got a whole necklace for a bottle of Pinaud aftershave that I had no dared use, it was so highly scented. But Mama loved it. She nodded her approval so vigorously I thought she would tip the outrigger over, and hitched a large necklace to my line. My wife threw it away because she thought it indecent.
Funafuti is now called Tuvalu, and is worried that rising sea level will put it under water.