103 



Bengali people, together with the Hindu communities 

 settled in Assam, Behar and Orissa. Baishnab women 

 however do not wear these bangles according to the 

 Collector of Birbhum. Information received from a 

 Muhammadan source indicates that women of the lower 

 classes of this community in Dacca, Darjeeling and 

 Assam occasionally wear chank bangles as wrist orna- 

 ments. 



As elsewhere in India, it is the invariable custom in 

 Benofal in orthodox Hindu households for widows to 

 discard all their jewellery on the death of their husbands. 

 In the case of chank and glass bangles, it is usual for the 

 widow to break and throw them, away on the first occasion 

 when she bathes after her husband's death. They never 

 resume the use of similar bangles except in the very 

 rare cases where re-marriage is permitted to widows. 

 Tavernier says * " when a man dies, all his relatives and 

 friends should come to the interment and when they 

 place the body in the ground they take off all the brace- 

 lets which are on their arms and legs and bury them 

 with the defunct." This burial of the widow's bano-les 

 with the dead may still be continued by some castes but 

 as earth-burial is now rapidly being displaced by 

 cremation as orthodox Hinduism secures a firmer hold 

 on the people, this custom must tend to die out. Gene- 

 rally in Bengal the Hindu women wear sankhas as 

 visible tokens of the possession of living husbands. The 

 Hindu Shastras are said to enjoin their use as it is 

 believed that this contributes to the prosperity and 

 longevity of their husbands. 



Tuticorin and Rameswaram chanks are necessary in 

 the manufacture of both bala and chiiri bangles as these 

 require to be made from the finest quality of shells — those 

 possessing a pure white porcellaneous appearance and a 

 dense well-conditioned substance susceptible of high 

 polish. 



Among Bengal castes of inferior social status, parti- 

 cularly those whose physical characteristics bespeak 

 Dravidian descent and whose customs are not yet 

 thoroughly Hinduised the use of chank bangles made up 

 into massive gauntlets composed of numerous separate 

 bangles is very prevalent. Prominent among these are 



* Loc.cit., Vol. II, p. 285. 



