OCCUPATIONS AND TRADE.
The latter often represent rows of grains of rice or dholl, and are most effective.1[1]
Brass and bell-metal work is usually done hy the Kaucharis. In Párvatípur is a colony of the caste who speak Uriya, came long ago from Berhampur, and still marry with their kinsfolk in that town. Their work is held in much repute, especially the little vessels which they laboriously forge out of a single solid ingot by repeated re-heatings and hammerings. Anakapalle, Bobbili, Sómalingapálem near Yellamanchili, Anantavaram near Álamanda and Lakkavarapukóta are other centres for this industry.
The work consists, as usual, partly in casting vessels and then polishing them, and partly in making them out of sheets of metal which have to be shaped, soldered and hammered. A further branch of it in this district consists in the manufacture of the brass and copper jewellery which is so popular among many castes. This takes multifarious forms, among the most interesting of which are the heavy brass anklets and armlets which are cast in brass by the cire perdue process. In this process a core of clay is overlaid with wax moulded to the pattern desired, which is then covered with a coating of more clay. As soon as the latter has hardened, the whole is heated and the wax melts and runs away, leaving a hollow space into which the molten brass can pass and take the form assumed just before by the wax. In moulding the pattern, threads of wax (made by forcing the wax with a stick down a hollow bamboo ending in a perforated brass plate) are used to build up any required pattern, such as cables or spirals,while rosettes and the like are made by pressing the wax into brass dies.2[2]
Most of the masses of heavy brass jewellery with which many of the women in the Agency are bedecked are made locally by Chitra Ghásis and Kodrus, but the lighter items, such as the little brass chains which some of them delight to hang from their ears, are manufactured in the plains and sent up to the hills by middlemen. German silver is rapidly cutting out brass and bell-metal as a material for these lesser ornaments.
Besides the ordinary work in iron (such as the making of agricultural implements and tools), sugar-boiling pans are made at Anakápalle; knives, sword-sticks, etc., at Kódúr, eleven miles north-east of Chódavaram; tangis (axes) out of the native iron by the Lóháris round about Tentulakunti; and very excellent
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