59 
Part I] Lindsay and Harrow : Lac c:nd Shellac 
butchers ”—referring to the destruction of insect life caused by the 
collection and manufacture of lac. It should not be forgotten that, in 
its earlier history, the industry concentrated on the manufacture of 
lac-dye, which was composed chiefly of the bodies of the lac insects. 
In those days, therefore, it was necessary to collect the lac before 
the fresh brood had swarmed. This practice still survives although 
it is unsatisfactory inasmuch as lac is now valued for its resinous 
properties and not for the dye, which must be entirely washed out if 
the quality of the shellac is to be good. Hence the proverb and the 
prejudice survive although they have lost much of their force. 
The object of manufacture is principally to refine the crude lac 
and remove the dye, fibre, animal remains, and other impurities. 
Care has, however, to be taken that none of the essential qualities 
of shellac are prejudicially affected by manufacture. The following 
is the process adopted in the larger factories and, with some modi¬ 
fications, in the smaller factories and in the cottage industry. 
The first step is to clean and roughly grade the stick-lac. The 
process is locally known as halorna. The stick-lac is hand-picked, 
and the broken fragments separated from that still adhering to the 
parent twig. The former is called gullet, and, being absolutely the 
pure raw product, is used for first quality shellacs. The latter is 
called phal and is used for second and third quality shellac. 
The phal is now sifted (chalna) through a No. 6 mesh, and 
what passes through is called ekraya> the lowest quality of unwashed 
grain-lac or kachha chaori. The phal which remains on the sieve 
and also the gulla are then ground in stone mills, chatki or corn 
crushing machines, which break off the lac from the stick. The 
large sized Kusum lac and certain better quality Baisakhi lacs have 
to have specially adapted rollers to break them up as they will not 
pass through the ordinary corn-crusher. Sieves and corn-crushers 
may be worked by hand or steam power. 
The lac is now winnowed carefully in basket work trays (sup) 
by women who by this process are able to get lac wonderfully clean 
of sticks and dirt and are also adepts at recovering the last traces of 
lac from the refuse. 
The lac, now known as unwashed grain-lac (kachha chaori), is 
next taken to the washing department. This consists of a cement 
floor on which stand rows of stone pots; known as nand or athali . 
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