HORNELL— THE INDIAN CONCH , 51 



resume the use of similar bangles except in the very rare cases where re-marriage is 

 permitted to widows. Tavernier says ^ " when a man dies, all his relatives and friends 

 should come to the interment and when they place the body in the ground they take 

 off aU the bracelets which are on their arms and legs and bury them with the defunct." 

 This burial of the widow's bangles with the dead may still be continued by some castes, 

 but as earth-burial is now rapidly being displaced by cremation as orthodox Hinduism 

 secures a firmer hold on the people, this custom must tend to die out. Generally in Bengal 

 the Hindu women wear sankhas as visible tokens of the possession of living husbands. 

 The Hindu Shastras are said to enjoin their use as it is believed that this contributes 

 to the prosperity and longevity of their husbands. 



Surti, Tuticorin and Rameswaram chanks are necessary in the manufacture of 

 both bdla and churi bangles as these require to be made from the finest quahty of shells 

 — those possessing a pure white porcellaneous appearance and a dense well-conditioned 

 substance susceptible of high polish. 



Among Bengal castes of inferior social status, particularly those whose physical 

 characteristics bespeak Dravidian descent and whose customs are not yet thoroughly 

 Hinduised the use of chank bangles made up into massive gauntlets composed of 

 numerous separate bangles is very prevalent. Prominent among these are the widely 

 spread Kochh tribe in their two principal sub-divisions of Rajbansi and PaHya. It is 

 largely to supply the women of this tribe with their characteristic ornaments that the 

 chank bangle workshops in Dinajpur and Rangpur exist, as in these districts the tribe 

 has its chief settlement with an approximate total of one milhon individuals. Kuch 

 Behar and Jalpaiguri account for another half milhon, while considerable numbers are 

 found also in'Purnia, Maldah, the Darjeeling Terai, Bogra, Murshidabad, Nadiya and 

 Dacca. The Rajbansi and Paliya gauntlets are composed usually of ten separate 

 bangles. As the wearers belong largely to the labouring and agricultural classes the 

 bangles forming these gauntlets are broad and thick, frequently without any ornament 

 whatever ; where decoration is attempted, it consists of simple fine patterns made of 

 shallow groovings which impair very little the strength of the bangle and yet are very 

 effective and elegant (Text-figure 2). Neither are they usually polished, hence dead 

 shells from Jaffna are largely employed in this manufacture, although inferior shells 

 of the better quahties from the Indian side are also extensively made use of. 



The Muchi is another important Bengal caste where the wearing of numerous 

 chank bangles is a distinctive custom among the women. This is a leather-dressing and 

 cobbler caste, socially a shade higher than the allied Chamars from whom the Muchis 

 appear to be an offshoot. One of the obvious distinctions between the women of these 

 castes lies in the character of the bracelets worn. Thus while the female Chamar prides 

 herself on huge bracelets of bell metal adorning her arms, the Muchi woman always 

 substitutes chank bangles.. The Muchis, like the Paraiyar of the South, are largely 



1 Loc. cit., Vol. II, p. 285. 



D 2 



