MURIClDiE. WHELK. 
127 
disease-makers^ or sorcerers, to entreat them to stop 
plaguing their victims. “ These disease-makers col- 
lected any nahak, or rubbish, that had belonged to any 
one, such as the skin of a banana he had eaten, wrapped 
it in a leaf like a cigar, and burnt it slowly at one end. 
As it burnt, the owner^s illness increased ; and if it was 
burnt to the end, he died : therefore, as soon as a man 
fell ill, feeling sure that some sorcerer was burning his 
rubbish, shell trumpets, which can be heard for miles, 
are blown as a signal to the sorcerers to stop, and wait 
for the presents which should be sent in the morning. 
When a disease-maker fell ill himself, he too believed 
that some one was burning his rubbish, and had his 
shells blown for mercy 
The large chank-shell, Turbinella rapa, is a chief in^ 
strument of the Buddhists, who blow three times a day 
on this sacred shell, to summon believers to worship ; and 
the same authority states that, according to the most 
ancient annals of the Cingalese, the chank-shell is 
sounded in one of the superior heavens of the demi- 
gods (similar to the conch-blowing tritons of Grecian 
mythology) in honour of Buddha, as often as the latter 
wanders abroad on the earth. f Sir J. E. Tennent men- 
tions that this chank-shell is exported from Ceylon to 
India as a wind instrument, and also to be sawn into 
rings for anklets and bracelets | and also that a chank 
in which the whorls were reversed, and ran from right 
to left, instead of from left to right, was regarded with 
such reverence, that a specimen formerly sold for its 
weight in gold, but that now, one may be had for £4 or 
* Turner, ‘ Polynesia/ as quoted in Taylor’s History of Mankind, 
p. 128 . 
t ‘ Voyage of the Novara,’ vol. i. p. 388. 
