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/) Feeding spouts. 



In the ordinary everyday life of the people of Southern 

 India, the chank subserves several useful functions. 

 Some of these have already been touched upon, but the 

 most useful remains to be mentioned — that of small shells 

 used as feeding spouts when weaning infants. The 

 bazaars in every big Tamil town furnish these 'primitive 

 utensils, made from undersized shells usually of the sub- 

 fossil description obtained from the muddy lagoons near 

 Jaffna in Ceylon. 



The shells are prepared for market by breaking 

 down parts of the inner portion of the terminal whorls 

 just inside the mouth and by removing the central part 

 of the columella. The canal-shaped canaliculum of the 

 mouth is deepened and straightened to form a rough 

 spout ; the exterior surface of the shell is rubbed down 

 and upon it is engraved a rude pattern, usually in the 

 form of a spiral scroll with a few star-shaped emblems; 

 last of -all it receives a thin coating of fine lime or white- 

 wash to hide imperfections and improve the colour. For 

 the purpose intended it is quite effective, but how far the 

 crevices of the interior, by offering obstacles to efficient 

 cleansing, harbour and promote the rapid growth of 

 bacteria and so lead directly to infantile diarrhoea, it is 

 difficult to say. If the shell be boiled daily, a very simple 

 precaution and easier to do in the case of a chank than 

 in that of a glass bottle, there would be no danger, but I 

 fear this is seldom thought of. In feeding baby 

 monkeys just taken from their mother I have found 

 this feeding shell most useful ; the sight of the little 

 creature hanging on with both fore-paws to the shell, 

 half choking in its eagerness to swallow the milk and all 

 the time trying to locate every noise and movement in 

 the room with its great nervous eyes is one of the 

 quaintest pictures imaginable. 



[rn] Currency. 



That the chank once served a savage people as a 

 form of currency is little known, but so it was in the 

 Naga country of Assam until less than 50 years ago. 

 Major-General John Butler who commanded an early 

 expedition into the Naga hills, tells [loc. cit., p. 15 7)" that 

 he found the Nagas of many villages using chank-shells 

 as currency with a fixed and thoroughly well-determined 

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