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were counted supplies of tortoise shell, coral, amber and 
chank ornaments. The last named commodity com- 
prises in present day trade massive single-piece bracelets 
without ornamentation, tabular pieces of shell and some 
of the columella which are broken out from the shell 
before it is sawn into circlets. 
Chank bangles appear to be worn very generally 
throughout Thibet, from Ladakh in the west to the 
Kham country in the east. Neve records* seeing the 
poorer women in Kashmiri Thibet wearing broad shell- 
bangles in shape like a cuff on both wrists, while on the 
march. of the British expedition to Lhassa in 1904 they 
were noted as in frequent use by Thibetan women. 
This ornament is assumed early in life while the hand is 
still small and pliable; after a few years it becomes 
impossible to remove it without breakage which these 
women will suffer only in the last resort, as it cannot be 
replaced except by one of large diameter which will fit 
more loosely on the arm than they like. A medical 
officer with the Thibet mission has informed me that 
in one instance a Thibetan woman was brought to him 
for the treatment of a festering wound on the wrist. 
On examination the cause of the trouble was found to 
be the presence of a chank bangle so small that the wrist 
had been wounded and circulation impeded ; gangrene 
was imminent and although the woman was loth to part 
with her bangle it had to be filed off to save the hand. 
The export of round and square discs of chank shell 
to the Buddhist countries of the north appears to be 
much less than in Tavernier’s time, as it is now com- 
paratively insignificant. From information gleaned in 
Dacca, it would appear that these tabular pieces are 
usually worn suspended from the hair as charms, and 
my informants stated that this custom is found princi- 
pally among Thibetans, (Bhotia as they term them) and 
also to some extent among the Naga and Khasia 
peoples. Among the Nagas, the discs are employed to 
ornament the men’s hair-bedecked helmets. As already 
noted, some Bhotia tribes are also said to wear the 
columella of the chank as an ear-ornament and Prince 
Henri d’Orleanst found the women of the wild 
* «* Beyond the Pir Panjal,” London, 1912. 
t ‘From Tonkin to India,” English Translation, London, 1898 
