THE CHANK BANGLE INDUSTRY. 
427 
Dacca became the manufacturing centre of the chank-bangle trade in modern 
times chiefly owing to its geographical situation at the present-day centre of bangle- 
wearing. To-day the wearing of chank bangles is virtually confined to Bengal and 
to the hill- tribes to the north and east of Eastern Bengal. The custom ranges from 
the home of the Santals in the West of Bengal, to Assam and Manipur on the East, 
from the Sunderbands in the South to Thibet and the Himalayas on the North. 
From Dacca, the Brahmaputra and its branches enable the peddlers of bangles to 
penetrate to the trading posts of the wild Naga, Bhutea, and Khasi tribes, while the 
river network of the Ganges delta gives cheap transit to the westward. The impor- 
tance conferred upon Dacca by the Emperor Jehangir when he made it the capital of 
Bengal was a contributing factor, the importance whereof we can judge by the strength 
of the tendency, apparent at the present time, for the centre of the manufacturing 
section of the industry to shift to Calcutta in the wake of the import trade now con- 
centrated wholly at the latter port. 
As a consequence of the centralizing influence which from reasons of economy 
tends to create factories at or near the port of import, Calcutta now ranks next to 
Dacca as a manufacturing centre ; large numbers of bangles have been produced there 
of late years. So far, however, its trade is a low-grade one dealing chiefly with the poor 
quality sub-fossil shells shipped annually in great quantities from Jaffna in the north 
of Ceylon. These cheap shells are utilized in the production of the commonest grades 
of bangles. With a few exceptions the patterns followed are crude, the workmanship 
rough and without regard to finish, deficiencies matched by the bad taste and wretched 
execution characterizing the lacquered coloration when present. 
Nadia is a third centre where chank shells are largely cut up both for conversion 
locally into bangles and for distribution to bangle-workers in other centres. Other 
bangle-factories are situated in the districts of Sylhet in Assam and Mymensingh, 
Chittagong, Pabna, Rangpur, Dinajpur, Murshedabad, Jessore, Kulna, Burdwan, 
Bankura and Balasore, showing a widespread distribution throughout Bengal. Many 
factory groups are however of small numerical importance, often consisting of no more 
than three or four families. 
My experience generally has been that the chank- workers’ hamlets are situated 
as a rule in outlying villages served by the worst possible of roads. Haragash in the 
Rangpur District is a typical instance. This large village, a long straggling collection 
of hamlets covering a considerable area, lies about eleven miles outside of the district 
town of Rangpur. The special hamlet inhabited by the bangle- workers is known in 
consequence as Shakharipara ; out of a total of about 90 workpeople, some 70 are 
Vaisya Sankharis, the remainder being Muhammadans. There are four principal 
employers of labour ; of these three have intimate business relations with Dacca houses 
importing therefrom all the bangle sections they require ; the fourth employer obtains 
his requirements from Murshedabad and Nadia where he has factories for the sawing 
of the shells into working circlets. No sectioning of shells is done in Haragash, where 
work is confined to rubbing down the rough sawn sections to the required degree and 
to incising standard patterns with the aid of files and small handsaws. Distribution 
