162 
end from the cord encircling the neck, the whole forming 
a most uncomfortable-looking decoration, particularly 
as the custom is to wear them slung at the back of the 
neck. * 
Sixty years ago chanks constituted the currency of 
the Naga tribes, but with the advent of the rupee, the 
consideration in which these shells was held largely 
disappeared, and now these quaint chank necklaces are 
seldom worn. Mr. Kemp saw them worn on only one or 
two occasions during the Abor expediticn (1912). 
At death these ornaments and all the other items of 
the deceased’s dress together with all his treasured 
weapons are laid upon the grave. 
Among the Abors the custom of wearing chank orna- 
ments must be very rare, for Mr. Kemp, who most. kindly 
gave attention to this subject, saw only a single instance 
a Gam or headman of Komsing village, who was found 
wearing a necklace composed of round concave discs of 
shell. 
The furthest point east to which I have been able to 
trace the use of chank discs is the banks of the Upper 
Mekong to the northward of Tali-fu in the Chinese 
Province of Yunnan. Here Prince Henri d’Orleans 
(“From Tonkin to India,” p. 174, London, 1898) 
found the women of the wild Lissu tribe, a branch of 
the Lolo race, ‘often naked to the waist; they had a 
little hempen skirt and a Chinese cap decked with 
cowries and round white discs which are said to be 
brought from Thibet and looked to me as if cut out of 
large shells.” In some villages they wore a_ heavy 
turban in place of the little white disc’d cap. 
The finest discs I have seen are prehistoric in age, 
having been taken from the very peculiar oblong 
sarcophagi, made of red pottery and raised on 6 or 8 
stumpy legs, from the ancient graves at Perambair in the 
south of Chingleput District, near Madras. These discs, 
* Similarly bisected chanks hung by acord round the neck are also 
seen among the Chins of the Central and Northern sections of the Chin 
hills in Burma. My informant, Mr. W. Street of the Burma Commission, 
states that the women alone wear this neck ornament ; usually a single shell 
is used and apparently fresh supplies no longer come into the country as 
those now worn are heirlooms in the families of the wearers. It is probable 
that cessation of the supply synchronized with the discontinuance of chank 
shell currency among the Naga tribes living to the north of the Chin country, 
