HORNELL— THE INDIAN CONCH 43 



and engraved with some attractive or distinctive pattern, suitably designed buttons 

 should meet with appreciation in the European and American dress trade. Rough 

 cut buttons priced at what seems to the European ridiculously high rates are worse 

 than useless, and beyond this the imagination of the Dacca manufacturer cannot soar 

 — at present. 



(j) FEEDING SPOUTS. 



In the ordinary everyday Kfe of the people of Southern India, the chank subserves 

 several useful functions. Some of these have already been touched upon, but the 

 most useful remains to be mentioned — ^that of small shells used as feeding spouts when 

 weaning infants. The bazaars in every big Tamil town furnish these primitive 

 utensils, made from undersized shells usually of the sub-fossil description obtained from 

 the muddy lagoons near Jaffna in Ceylon. 



The shells are prepared for market by breaking down parts of the inner portion 

 of the terminal whorls just inside the mouth and by removing the central part of the 

 columella. The canal-shaped canahculum of the mouth is deepened and straightened 

 to form a rough spout ; the exterior surface of the shell is rubbed down and upon it 

 is engraved a rude pattern, usually in the form of a spiral scroll with a few star-shaped 

 emblems ; last of all it receives a thin coating of fine lime or whitewash to hide imper- 

 fections and improve the colour (PI. VI, Fig. 4). For the purpose intended it is quite 

 effective, but how far the crevices of the interior, by offering obstacles to efficient 

 cleansing, harbour and promote the rapid growth of bacteria and so lead directly to 

 infantile diarrhoea, it is difficult to say. If the shell be boiled daily, a very simple pre- 

 caution and easier to do in the case of a chank than in that of a glass bottle, there would 

 be no danger, but I fear this is seldom thought of. In feeding baby monkeys just taken 

 from their mother I have found this feeding shell most useful ; the sight of the little 

 creature hanging on with both fore-paws to the shell, half choking in its eagerness to 

 swallow the milk and all the time trying to locate every noise and movement in the 

 room with its great nervous eyes is one of the quaintest pictures imaginable. 



(k) CURRENCY. 



That the chank once served a savage people as a form of currency is little known, 

 but so it was in the Naga country of Assam until less than 50 years ago. Major-Geueral 

 John Butler, who commanded an early expedition into the Naga hiUs, tells {he. cit., 

 p. 157) that he found the Nagas of many villages using chank-shells as currency with 

 a fixed and thoroughly well-determined exchange value relative to the price of all 

 articles of trade. Slaves and cattle in particular were always valued in chank-shells. 

 Thus while a male slave was worth one cow and three chank-shells, a female slave — 



