143 



chank is then buried beneath the first stone laid. An 

 old reference to this occurs in a petition quoted by 

 Wheeler {fide Thurston, III., 147) from two natives of 

 Madras, in connection with the jfounding of a village 

 called Chintadrepettah, now a populous division of 

 Madras City. The entry runs : — " Expended towards 

 digging a foundation where chanks were buried with 

 accustomary ceremonies." Roman Catholic converts 

 from low castes follow this custom, as well as Hindus ; in 

 Tuticorin, if a Roman Catholic Parayan desires to build 

 a house, the carpenter employed by him chooses an 

 auspicious day by reference to a native calendar, a chank 

 is bought in the bazaar and on the day chosen, having 

 dug a foundation trench and prepared at the bottom a 

 bed of coral stone and mortar, the chank is laid thereon. 

 In the cavity of the shell small fragments of five metals 

 (panjalokam), gold, silver, copper, iron and lead, are 

 placed, turmeric and sandalwood water is sprinkled over, 

 and then the whole is hidden under a mass of sweet- 

 smelling flowers. The ceremony is ended ; the first 

 stone may now be lowered into place upon the chank 

 and its contents, and good luck is believed to be assured 

 to him who will inhabit the house. 



It may, however, happen that in spite of every pre- 

 caution, an inauspicious site appears to have been chosen 

 as shown by a sequence of misfortunes happening to the 

 householder. In such cases Hindus may perform a 

 special ceremony called Chankusthabanam to remedy 

 the evil. A chank-shell is filled with water and incanta- 

 tions made for forty-five days. At the end of this period 

 of propitiation, the chank is buried under the house wall. 

 (Winslow, Tamil and English Dictionary, p. 390, Madras 

 1862.) 



Among the Tarawa caste living in Tuticorin and 

 other coast towns and villages in Tinnevelly and 

 Ramnad, misfortune is often sought to be averted from 

 the individual by almost completely burying a chank 

 shell in the floor of the hall {kuciai?i), about two feet on 

 the inner side of the doorway to the street. A small 

 portion of the back of the shell shows as a patch of white 

 on the surface of the floor. The explanation of the 

 custom current among Parawas is that the shell is so 

 placed that when an inmate leaves the house, he must 



