428 
J. HORNELL ON 
of the finished products is made by the intermediary of itinerant vendors who resort 
to Haragasli at periodical intervals to buy fresh supplies. These bangle peddlers 
buy parcels worth anything from Rs. ioo up to Rs. 1,000 at a time. Most of them have 
had business relations with the Haragash firms extending over many years, and so 
being well known, have no difficulty in obtaining credit till their return, three or even 
four months later. 
The Rajbansi, Kochhi and Paliya castes of Hindus, inhabiting Rangpur, Dinajpur, 
and Jalpaiguri Districts and the terai of Darjeeling, are the chief buyers of Haragash 
bangles, which consist largely of compound gauntlets of from ten to twelve rings in 
each set. The best centres of sale are Dhubni, Goalpara, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar. 
Dinajpur is another typical local centre. In the town itself the quarter where 
the chank-workers live is known as Shakhari Patti, and this, in view of the small 
number — four families only — now engaged in the industry, suggests its greater impor- 
tance in former days. Indeed the men state that their numbers now are much 
reduced. They claim to be descendants of a colony from Chatmohr, in Pabna Dis- 
trict, and are in consequence of the Vaisya caste, and wear the sacred thread (see 
pi. xiv, figs. 9 & 10). 
Of recent years Muhammadan workers have entered into competition with the 
regular caste workers, and to-day the bulk of the local trade has passed into their hands. 
They form a separate settlement at Maljhar village near Rajapara Ferry Ghat, a short 
distance from Dinajpur. In all there are about 100 of these Muhammadan work- 
people engaged in bangle-making as against the four Vaisya Sankhari workshops, 
each employing five to six men. The piece-work system is in use. 
The Dinajpur Sankharis do not produce their own working sections ; all they 
require are obtained in the rough from four wholesale dealers (Hindus) belonging to 
Nadia who are located at Sahibganj, a small place a few miles east of Dinajpur. The 
shell sections sold at Sahibganj are said to be sawn at Nadia from shells brought from 
Calcutta. The Vaisya employers at Dinajpur usually purchase from Rs. 200 to Rs. 300 
worth of sections at a time from the Sahibganj dealers on two to three months’ credit. 
These working sections are tied up in strings of hundreds and packed in baskets at 
Nadia or Dacca, as the case may be, whence they are forwarded to their destination in 
charge of an employee ; wherever possible preference is shown for transit by a country 
boat as the safest method in the case of brittle articles such as bangle sections. 
The bulk of the Dinajpur trade consists in the production of bangles to meet the 
requirements of the lower castes — people who require broad, strong, serviceable bangles 
not readily broken in the course of their day’s labour. Fully 7 5 per cent, of the pro- 
duction is thus accounted for, considerably less than 25 per cent, being medium and 
high grade work suitable for Hindu ladies of good caste. Further, while the latter 
only care at most to wear one or two pairs of narrow bangles, their poor sisters of 
humble position are keen to possess and wear as many as they can get upon their 
forearm — a set covering a length of 3 inches and sometimes even more is quite com- 
mon among the Paliya and Santal women who form the bulk of the clientele of the 
Dinajpur workshops. 
