HORNELL THE INDIAN CONCH 53 



origin attributed to the Kochh tribe which includes both the Rajbansi and the Paliya, 

 this becomes a matter of great significance as well as of much difficulty, for whereas 

 the Kochh people are professed Hindus, the Santfils hold the animistic beliefs 

 characteristic of Non-Hinduised Dravidians. However Oldham, as quoted by 

 Risley (I, p. 492), states that " the adhesion of the Kochh tribe to Hinduism is 

 comparatively recent as shown by their own customs as regards burial, food and 

 marriage." 



The section of the Kurmi caste found in Chota Nagpore and Orissa also wear chank 

 bangles. In view of what has been said above in regard to the Dravidian origin of the 

 Kochhs and Santals, it is of importance to find that Risley (I, p. 530) considers this 

 territorial section of the caste as undoubtedly Dravidian, as shown by their physical 

 characteristics, religious beliefs and social customs. In appearance, he says that in 

 Munbhum and the north of Orissa, it is difficult to distinguish a Kurmi from a Bhumij 

 or a Santal. In their religion the animistic beliefs characteristic of the Dravidian 

 races are overlaid by the thinnest veneer of conventional Hinduism, and the 

 vague shapes of ghosts and demons who haunt the jungles and the rocks are the 

 real powers to whom the Kurmi looks for the ordering of his moral and physical 

 welfare. 



Alike with the Santals the internal structure of that branch of the Kurmi caste 

 living in Chota Nagpur and Orissa is founded upon a distinct and well-defined totemism 

 in which a large proportion of the totems are still capable of being identified. Risley 

 (II, appendix, p. 88) enumerates 60 totemistic sections or septs in this caste, among 

 which is one termed Sankhawfir whose members are prohibited from wearing chank 

 shell ornaments. Among the Santals, the place of this sept is taken by one called 

 Sankh, wherein all individuals are forbidden, under pain of caste punishment, the use 

 of the chank shell in any form ; they may neither cut, burn, nor use the shell, nor may 

 the women of this sept use it in personal adornment (I, p. xliii). 



The prevalence of the use of chank bangles among these Dravidian races, the 

 present animistic beliefs of the Santills and Chota Nagpur Kurmis, and the comparatively 

 recent renunciation of the same cult by the great Kochh tribe, taken in conjunction 

 with other facts and especially with the widely spread archaeological finds detailed 

 elsewhere in these pages, point to the use of chank bangles as having had a purely 

 Dravidian origin and as having been a custom prevalent and solidly established among 

 at least certain sections of the race throughout India anterior to the advent of the Aryan 

 invaders and the rise of the Brahmanic faith. The cult of the chank would therefore 

 appear to be one adopted (and modified) by the Brahmans from the religious belief 

 which they found indigenous to India. 



Finally, in the hill tracts of Chittagong, we find the women of the Maghs, a race 

 of Indo-Mongolian extraction and Buddhists by religion, using very broad unornamented 

 sections of chank shells as bracelets in similar manner as we shall next see is the habit 



