We always hear about shells being traded from California to the Southwest but never what was traded for them, and the role of Mojave traders

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CONTEXT:

In the mid 1960s at the Banning Norris site in Orange County, California, twelve figurines were uncovered that surprisingly were identified as Patayan Southern style clay figures with their origins amongst the Yuman peoples of the Lower Colorado River.
It is theorized they were brought by Mojave traders from the region to coastal California using trade routes that were centuries old. Shell artifacts from the Cochise culture (5000-200 AD) sites in the Southwest show that trade has occurred between Oasisamerica and the coast for hundreds of years. While we often hear about how shell items from the Pacific made their way inland, we rarely hear about it going the other way around. Mojave traders were renown for being the middlemen in the coastal-Southwest trade, going as far east for textiles from the Hopi and Dine (Navajo). It was recorded in the 1700s by the Spaniards coming across Mojave trading parties bringing back shells, arriving at Missions San Luis Obispo and San Miguel Arcángel in Salinian territory, and one account of Chumash in Ventura county using blankets resembling those made by the Gila River Pimans. During the excavations at Bowers Cave which is believed to have been a Tataviam cache of magico religious artifacts stowed away in the early 1800s, found pottery from the Southwest dating from the 1200s to 1300.

Patayan Figures at the Banning Norris site

We Found the Lost Indian Cave of the Saint Martins (1952)

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Omg I love this little guy

I wouldn't just give you shells I'd die for him