54 OKHAMANDAL MARINE ZOOLOGY— PART II 



in Thibet and Bhutan, inhabited by other MongoKan races. To supply the needs of the 

 Maghs, bangle cutters are established in Chittagong ; these work-people are chiefly 

 Muhammadans and the work they do is of the roughest and crudest description in 

 conformity with the undeveloped artistic taste of their customers who appear to wear 

 these bracelets rather as amulets than as ornaments. Broad arm ornaments of similar 

 simple form are used by the Papuans and by the wild inhabitants of several groups 

 of the Melanesian islands ; sometimes round the wrist, sometimes on the upper arm 

 above the elbow. I do not know, however, whether the shell employed in these instances 

 be Turbinella or not. Among these island tribes it is the men who wear these 

 ornaments. 



Outside of Bengal and Assam the only considerable demand for chank bracelets 

 comes from Thibet and Bhutan. The trade is one of long standing, for Tavernier, in 

 1666, found Bhutanese merchants taking home from Pabna and Dacca bracelets sawn 

 from " sea-shells as large as an egg." He also states that ' 2,000 men were occupied 

 in these two places in making tortoise-shell and sea-sheU bracelets and " aU that is 

 produced by them is exported ^ to the kingdoms of Bhutan, Assam, Siam and other 

 countries to the north and east of the territories of the great Moghul " {loc. cit., 

 p. 267). 



Chank bangles appear to be worn very generally throughout Thibet, from Ladakh 

 in the west to the Kham country in the east. Neve records ^ seeing the poorer women 

 in Kashmiri Thibet wearing broad shell-bangles in shape like a cufi on both wrists, while 

 on the march of the British expedition to Lhassa in 1904 they were noted as in frequent 

 use by Thibetan women. This ornament is assumed early in life while the hand is 

 stUl small and pliable ; after a few years it becomes impossible to remove it without 

 breakage which these women will suffer only in the last resort, as it cannot be replaced 

 except by one of large diameter which will fit more loosely on the arm than they like. 

 A medical officer with the Thibet mission has informed me that in one instance a 

 Thibetan woman was brought to him for the treatment of a festering wound on the 

 wrist. On examination the cause _of the trouble was found to be the presence of a 

 chank bangle so small that the wrist had been wounded and circulation impeded ; 

 gangrene was imminent and although the woman was loth to part with her bangle 

 it had to be filed off to save the hand. 



The export of round and square discs of chank shell to the Buddhist countries of 

 the north appears to be much less than in Tavernier's time, as it is now comparatively 

 insignificant. Among the Nagas, the discs are employed to ornament the men's hair- 

 bedecked helmets, and Prince Henri d'Orleans ^ found the women of the wild Lissus,, 



^ Evidently a lapsus calami as the custom of wearing chank bangles was even more prevalent in 

 Tavernier's day among Bengali women than it is to-day, vide Orta, loc. cit. 

 2 "Beyond the Pir Panjal," London, 1912. 

 8 " From Tonkin to India," English Translation, London, 1898. 



