ILK 

 CHAMPA AND MEZANKUHI ATTACUS menu 



K- 



liiantiiv of silk afforded varies according to the brood. Th >W- 

 weather n>s,>, t gives the least, and is accordingly usually wml 

 breeding, only the inferior cocoons being m 



N<> part of the muga cocoon U, however, rejected M Tinlm The fl^tr Cardad 

 phioked ..II from the outer surface of the cocoon, before reeling m com- and Bpun. 

 menoed, the shell that remains around the chrysalis, and the cocoons from 

 which the moths have escaped in breeding, are all reserved to be car 

 Hii.l spun, and the by-product thus obtained is called era and is often 

 imx.'d with them silk the product of the next species (tee pp. 1013. ! 



Manufacture. The muga silk thread varies according to quality from M.nufao 

 Rs. 8 to Rs. 12 per seer, era or spun thread being sold at half these rates. tur. 

 The cloth woven from muga yarn has a hi ,\v colour and a pretty 



gloss. It stands washing much bett.-r tlmn any other siUc, looping its 

 gloss and colour to the very last. It is usually soM in pi.-, -,.* ,,: 

 long and 4 feet broad, the price varying from Rs. 1-8 to Rs. 2 per square 

 yard. There is no large market where either thread or cloth can be 

 purchased, but the headquarters of the industry is the district of Sibsagar 

 sam, more especially the Sub-divisions of Golaghat and Jorhat. The 

 exports are mainly in thread, which go to Calcutta for local consumption 

 or for export to Persia it is too dear for the English and Continental 

 markets the price quoted being Rs. 6 to Rs. 12 per seer. There is no 

 means of knowing the total production, but it has been estimated that 

 exports come to about 280 maunds a year. 



The Champa and Mezankuri muga* are only the silks of the worm Mesankuri 

 obtained from insects fed on the trees of these names 31 i< /,,/,,, Silk, 

 ChdiHjHH'd for the former and /.*/>/ / // / tn for the latter. Moriaui M-TMH 

 is the chief locality for the mezankuri silk. The champa silk seems almost 

 quite forgotten to-day, but it was the fine white silk worn by the Ahom 

 kings and nobles of Assam in former times. Buchanan-Hamilton (in 

 Montgomery Martin, Gaz. of Assam, 1838, iii., 679-80) speaks of the 

 medanggori silk constituting the dress of the higher ranks, " most of which 

 are dyed red with lac but some are white." Until quite recently it could 

 be said that the muga silk was the material of dress with the middle 

 classes of Assam. 



IV. Attacus ricini, Boisd., Ann. Soc. Entom. Fr. t 1854, 755; DAP, 

 Phalcena cynthia, Roxburgh, Trans. Linn. Soc., 1804, vii., 42-8, t. 3 ; also Soc. vU pt. ill, 

 Arts London, 1806, xxiii., 414 ; Buchanan-Hamilton, StaL Ace. Dinaj.. 214 ; JJJ 

 Hugon, Proc. As. Soc. Beng., 1837, 23-6, t. v ; Geoghegan, Silk in India, 

 155-9 ; Stack, Silk in Assam, 1884 ; Wardle, Wild Silk of India, 48-55 ; 

 also Journ. Soc. Arts, 1885, xxxiii., 676 ; Cotes, 2nd. Mus. Note, i., 16. 

 Mukerji, Handbook of SericuU., 1899, 184-94 ; Allen, Monog. Silk CloA of 

 Assam, 1899, 4-10 ; Mukerji, Monog. on the Silk Fabric* of Bengal, 1903, 

 138-46. The Eri Silk, Assam Silk, Palma Christi Silk, etc. The en, KM* 

 endi, arindi, etc. 



It may be said that commercially this silk is obtained from Assam, 

 though Roxburgh and Buchanan-Hamilton speak of it as if in thrir 

 time it had been confined to Dinajpur and Rangpur. To-day it is foutul 

 throughout Eastern Bengal in the districts Purnea, Bogra, Jalpaiguri. in 

 addition to Dinajpur and Rangpur. It is also not uncommon in Dar- 

 jeeling, Nepal, Kumaon, Gaya, Shahabad, Chittagong, Pun, and its 

 cultivation has recently been attempted in Upper India. 



lull 



