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 
Bengal 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 bangles 
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 é@/a and churz 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. 
