DescriptionWhen I got these from a dealer in Shanghai about 10 years ago he called these “special wawa.” Wawa is what Ramsden called “cicada money,” a bronze thing that looks to me like a rice bag tied with a loop in the middle, with a bar on the back. The things with bars are obviously at least semi-decorative, with that loop. This, without a loop, is more like just a conveniently sized bit of bronze bullion, to me at least.There are a variety of small bronze items that have been speculatively considered to have been some kind of local money, but they are not mentioned in the classical Chinese monetary and numismatic books. Notwithstanding, some of these objects are found in such large quantities that it seems reasonable to consider them as money objects. The idea that enigmatic bronze objects were early forms of Chinese “money” was popularized in Europe by a monograph written by H. A. Ramsden in 1912.
