444 
J. HORNELL ON 
As elsewhere in India, it is the invariable custom in orthodox Hindu households 
for widows to discard all their jewellery on the death of their husbands. In the case of 
chank and glass bangles, it is usual for the widow to break and throw them away on 
the first occasion when she bathes after her husband’s death. They never resume 
the use of similar bangles except in the rare cases where widow remarriage is per- 
mitted. Tavernier says : 1 “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 all 
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, Hindu women wear Sankhas as visible tokens of the possession of living hus- 
bands ; the Hindu Shastras are said to enj oin their use as it is believed that they con- 
tribute to the prosperity and longevity of the husbands. 
Tuticorin and Rameswaram chanks are necessary in the manufacture of both 
bala and churi bangles as these require to be made from the finest quality 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 in the form of massive gauntlets made up of numer- 
ous separate bangles is very prevalent. Prominent among these are the widely spread 
Kochh tribe in their two principal subdivisions of Rajbansi and Paliya. 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 million individuals. Kuch Behar 
and Jalpaiguri account for another half million, while considerable numbers are found 
also in Purniah, Maldah, the Darjeeling Terai, Bogra, Murshedabad, Nadia, 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 form- 
ing these gauntlets are broad and thick, frequently without any ornament whatever ; 
where decoration is attempted, it consists of simple line patterns made of shallow 
groovings which impair very little the strength of the bangle and yet are effective and 
elegant Neither are they usually polished, hence dead shells from Jaffna are largely 
employed in this manufacture, although inferior shells of the better qualities from the 
Indian side are also extensively made use of. 
The Muchi is another numerous 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 
J Tavernier, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 285. 
