438 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



been liquidated. The ivory received in Bombay is not 

 exported in the form of tusks, but the latter are cut up and 

 the parts variously distributed. To Europe go the solid 

 tips especially well adapted for the manufacture of billiard 

 balls, and also the bases of the hollow shaft of the tusks, 

 known as "bamboo ivory." For home consumption the 

 middle part of the tusk is reserved; this is called churdar, 

 from its use in the making of churis, or bangles; China re- 

 ceives a small amount of an inferior material. A somewhat 

 curious circumstance is that those who cut up the tusks do 

 not receive any remuneration in money, although the em- 

 ployer furnishes the requisite tools, but they are allowed to 

 keep the ivory dust, for which they find purchasers among 

 cattle raisers, who believe that milch cattle will secrete milk 

 more abundantly if they be given a solution of ivory dust. 

 Another use (in Northern India) is as a tonic medicine.* 

 A recent ordinance provides that in the State of Mysore all 

 elephant tusks shall be sold at public auction by the dis- 

 trict treasury officer, at Bangalore, once every year.f 



The internal commerce in ivory is mainly carried on by 

 Marawis, who furnish the stocks for the chief markets, 

 Palee in Jodhpur, Surat in Guzerat, and Amritsar in the 

 Panjab. This last-named mart supplies in its turn the 

 material for the Delhi comb makers and for the inlayers of 

 Dera Ismail Khan, while a good part of the ivory is kept 

 in Amritsar where the small combs worn by the Sikhs are 

 produced in great quantity. These combs constitute an 

 important article of masculine dress among the Sikhs, 

 as the religious regulations do not permit the men to cut 

 their hair, and it has to be carefully bound up and kept 

 in place by a comb beneath the turban. Strange to say, 



*J. L. Kipling, the Journal of Indian Art, Vol. I, No. 7, p. 49, July, 1885. 



fConsul Henry D. Baker of Bombay, India, "Report on Ivory and Elephants in India," 

 June 8, 1914. 



