152 



hole is bored or broken in the back and the rope passed 

 through this and out at the mouth of the shell. The 

 surface is generally roughly engraved in a coarse spiral 

 or scroll pattern. 



Used probably for a similar purpose may have been 

 the handsomely engraved large chank shell obtained in 

 an oblong sarcophagus of red pottery found in the 

 prehistoric burial site at Perambair in the south of 

 Chingleput district. The size is much greater than any 

 I have ever seen used to decorate ordinary cattle ; no 

 ordinary person owned it we may be certain — probably 

 it decorated the forehead of a bull or possibly of an 

 elephant belonging to a man of great local importance. 

 From the same tombs came three other handsomely 

 decorated chank ornaments, two of which were probably 

 ornaments for the hair (see p. 162 for further particulars). 



Nowhere have I ever seen more than a sinole shell 

 hung round the neck of any animal, but that in ancient 

 times a different habit at least occasionally prevailed is 

 possible, to judge from the string of ib small chank 

 shells from a barrow near Guntakal junction in the 

 Anantapur district, now to be seen in Madras Museum. 

 All these shells have had the apices broken in and partly 

 rubbed down and each has the thickest part of the body 

 perforated from side to side so permitting them to be 

 strung together. They appear to have formed a 

 necklace but whether they were suspended round the 

 neck of a bull or may be hung like a chain of office round 

 the neck of some personof importance we have no means 

 of determinincr. 



In Malabar the chank is little in evidence, but Logan 

 (Malabar Manual, 1887, vol. I, p. 175) records a belief 

 there prevalent that a cow will stop giving milk unless a 

 shell (not necessarily a chank) is tied conspicuously about 

 her horns and at Tanur, Malabar, I have seen valuable 

 sheep with shells other than chanks hung round the neck. 



Further north, in the coast villages of South Canara, 

 south of Mangalore, rings made from Strombus shells 

 but known locally as chank rings are employed by 

 parents to avert thu! evil eye from their young children. 

 At Kasargod, Bekal and the adjacent villages I have 

 found the custom especially common among the Muku- 

 vans, a caste of immigrant Malayali fishermen. Children 



