HORNELL— THE INDIAN CONCH 41 



longitudinally, each half being hung as a pendant by one 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 expedition (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 ornaments 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 Tah-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 httle 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, two in number, now on exhibit in the Madras Museum, are respectively about 

 2| and 3 inches in diameter ; in both there is a small central perforation. They appear 

 to have been cut from the belly of large shells as the convexity is not great. The convex 

 surface in each case is ornamented with geometrical patterns (different in each case) 

 of much delicacy. One is illustrated on PI. XXXIII. of the report for 1908-09 of the 

 Director-General of Archaeology. 



The shape and size of these ornaments and the character of the incised patterns 

 suggest that they have been used as boss ornaments for the back hair in the manner 

 affected by native women of certain castes in South India. Until I had seen these 

 ancient chank ornaments I had never heard of the chank shell being used for this purpose, 

 but subsequently I have been told that the custom still survives in Travancore and that 



^ Similarly bisected chanks hung by a cord 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 a,lone 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 synchronised with the discontinuance 

 of chank shell currency among the Naga tribes living to the north of the Chin country. 



