Native Cubans Valued Shoelace Tags More Than Gold.

Posted by Alex in Everything Else on October 5, 2006 at 6:00 am


Scientists from University College (isn’t that redundant?) London, United Kingdom analyzing the graves of indigenous Cubans who traded with Columbus found that they valued shoelace tags more than gold:

… the most common artefacts were small brass tubes thought to be cheap lacetags from European clothing.

These tags were used from the 15th Century onwards in Europe, to prevent the ends of laces fraying, and to ease threading in the points for fastening clothes.

The native Taino people of Cuba often threaded the tags into necklaces.

Early chroniclers report that pure gold was considered the least valuable metal among indigenous Cubans. It held significantly less esteem than copper-based alloys.

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COMMENT

7 comments to "Native Cubans Valued Shoelace Tags More Than Gold."

  1. Julian
    October 5th, 2006 at 9:08 am

    If you think that is redundant, check out the University of Maryland University College!

  2. Reed
    October 5th, 2006 at 10:57 am

    It makes sense. Gold is not useful for many practical purposes (outside of electronics, etc.) while small brass tubes could be either useful, or impressive at how they were worked into tubes (vs. lumps of raw gold).

  3. tom
    October 5th, 2006 at 11:40 am

    The correct term for those thingys that keep your shoelace from turning into poodle-tails is “aglet. As in “your aglets are awry.” That’s a classy way to tell someone their shoelaces are untied. Right before you give them a blistering uppercut to the jaw.

  4. Denita TwoDragons
    October 5th, 2006 at 4:29 pm

    Ya think about it, only a “civilized” country would hold one of the most useless metals in such high esteem! *LOL*

    –TwoDragons

  5. Aleki
    October 5th, 2006 at 8:03 pm

    Gold’s hardly useless. It’s virtually indestructible, it is a soft metal, easy to work with, shape, flatten or draw out into microscopic strands. Besides jewelry it’s used in telecomunications, computers, semiconductors, powered wheelchairs, spacecraft, telephones, wall jacks, tv’s, vcr’s, medicine, dentistry, eye surgery, lasers…..etc. etc.

    not to mention toilets and rocking horses

  6. jesse
    October 5th, 2006 at 10:32 pm

    I totally agree with the cubans on this one, gold-smold but shoelaces…where would you be without them?

  7. s'rah
    October 8th, 2006 at 11:16 am

    College and University and two different things in the UK, so no, to answer the question.


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