Wild races of south-eastern India

Front matter

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THE LIBRARY

Part I. The Hill Tracts

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The Country — Its Boundaries — Rivers — Scenery — Soil — Climate — Roads — Produce — Forests — Cultivation— Fauna . . ... 7

The Rise and Progress of British Power in the Hill Tracts — Old Records — Portuguese Influence — Character of the Revenue System — Relations of the Hill Chiefs to the British Authorities — Present System of Administration — Its Nature and Weaknesses . . . . . .46

Part II. The Hill Tribes (sons Of The River)

Introduction — The Hill Tribes — Classification — Our Relations with Burmah affected by them — Customs common to all Hill Tribes — Slavery, &c. . . 72

Vlll CONTENTS.

The Khyoungtha (Tributaries) — Their Clans — Religion— Festivals — Dress — Social Habits — Songs — Proverbs — Marriages — Funeral Ceremonies — Legends — Drama ...... 93

The Chukmas (Tributaries) — Their Origin — Chronological List of Chiefs — Language — Clans — Festivals — Religion — Love-making — Marriages — Funerals — Criminal Punishments — Songs — Music . 157

Part III. The Hill Tribes (sons Op The River)

Continued.

The Tipperah and Mrung Tribes (Tributaries) ; with their Modes of Life and Habits . . .190

The Kumi, Mru, Khyeng, Bungjogee, and Pankho Tribes (Tributaries), and their Customs . . 220

The Kookies or Lhoosai and the Shendoos (Independent Tribes) — Their Customs now and a Century ago 246

Introduction

XTOVELTY is as attractive now as ever it was, even in the days when the Athenians went about hearing or telling of some new thing. I think, therefore, that no apology is needed in introducing to English readers races of people of whom but little is known, and whose habits and customs have never before been described.

The mighty empire of Hindostan is now bound up by a hundred ties of interest with the present and future of England. Many are the hearths by which is kept sacred the empty place of some dear member of the family circle, who is absent in those torrid

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2 INTRODUCTION.

climes ; and books relating any thing new of this far-off but no longer strange land of the East, are studied by all classes of English people with sentiments of growing attention and admiration for the great but unfinished work we are carrying on there.

These pages were written day by day among the people of whom they treat, during a three years' sojourn among them. Sometimes under the shelter of a straw-thatched bungalow on a remote hill top, with the pathless jungle undulating in vast sweeps of hill and dale beneath the gaze ; at other times in boats, poling along the hill streams, or by the firesides of the people in their bamboohouses, perched securely in some hillside nook. The work was commenced at first with no fixed plan as to a detailed account of these races of men ; indeed, as one of their many proverbs says, "Unlaid eggs cannot

INTRODUCTION. 3

be counted ;" but I simply noted down as I heard them any tales, traditions, or striking customs that fell under my observation in the course of my wanderings among them. Little by little, however, my interest was awakened and my affections drawn to them : I found them a people worthy of esteem, worthy of note. It is unfortunately too often the custom among English people, as a body, to contemn and despise all races speaking an alien tongue ; among the commonalty at the present time even, the French are regarded as an outlandish and ignorant people ; while as for people like these hill races, whose skin is dark and breech bare, out and alack ! they are savages and barbarians forsooth, very little better, indeed, than the apes among whom they reside. I have, nevertheless, found among all wild and so-called barbarous races, that when one grows acquainted with their

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4 INTRODUCTION.

language, and they, becoming habituated to you, allow a knowledge of their social life and habits, they are very much the same as other people ; there is not much difference, indeed, between human nature all the world over, — they love and hate, eat and drink, live and die, in much the same, and often in a far more natural and sensible manner than we of the civilized races, who hold ourselves so loftily aloof in our fancied intellectual and moral superiority. It would seem almost a solecism to announce this fact as if it were some novel discovery ; but any one who has lived in the East and seen our Englishmen, whether Government officials, merchants, or planters, will, with some rare exceptions, find that they know, and care to know, nothing of the people they are thrown among — they are with them but not of them — hardly troubling themselves, indeed, to become acquainted with

INTEODUCTION. 5

the language of the people among whom they live, and never admitting them, or seeking themselves any admission into social intimacy or friendship. Broad and umbrageous as is the tree of our Eastern Government at present, this is the canker that will eventually eat it through at the root, until it fall with a crash, in ruin.

This very book is a proof of my assertion. We have been living at the door of these hill races, and in close contact with them for more than eighty years, and yet no Englishmen (Government officials or otherwise) that I ever met, knew any thing of them in any way, save that perhaps they were dully conscious of the proximity of certain hill tribes, who, as was stated in an official document quoted in the body of this work, " go unclothed, and know not the use of fire-arms."

It is, then, into the private life of these

6 INTRODUCTION.

simple and primitive races that I venture to introduce my readers ; to make them, if so it may be, partakers of wild hospitality, and intimate with the domestic society of men and women — children of Nature.

WILD KACES OF SOUTH-EASTEKN INDIA,

Part I. The Hill Tracts

T) IS ING from the rice swamps and level land of the Chittagong District, of which it forms the eastern boundary, there stretches out a vast extent of hilly and mountainous country, inhabited by various hill races. Of this country and of these people I purpose here to give some account, but more especially I shall notice such part of it as, lying between Lat. 21° 25' and 23° 45' north, and

THE HILL TEACTS.

Long. 91° 45' and 92° 50' east, is subject to British rule, and distinguished by the name of the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

The country in question lies on the south-eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal, and is bounded on the west by the maritime District of Chittagong ; on the south and east, as far as the Blue Mountain, by the Province of Arracan ; on the north, by the Fenny River, which divides the Hill Tracts from Hill Tipperah, a semi-independent State ; while to the north and north-east the boundary is undefined, and may be said to be conterminous with the extent to which the influence of the British Government is acknowledged amongst the hill tribes in that direction.

The extent of the district, however, may be roughly summarized as the country watered by the Rivers Fenny, Kurnafoolee, Sungoo, and Matamooree, with their tributaries from the water-sheds to the entry of these rivers into the Chittagong District.

The River Fenny and the western major tributaries of the Kurnafoolee have their

EIVEES. 9

sources in the range of tills from which, on the other side, rises the Dallesur and Gotoor streams, which again are affluent of the Kiver Barak in Cachar.

The Kurnafoolee ', or, to call it by its hill name, the Kynsa Khyoung, has its rise in a lofty range of hills to the north-east ; from this same range springs the Sonai and Tipai streams, tributaries of the Barak in Cachar, and the Koladan or Koladyne River, which last debouches into the Indian Ocean at Akyab in Arracan.

The Sungoo 2, or Rigray Khyoung, and the Matamooree, or Moree Khyoung, take their rise in the range of hills which divides Arracan from the Chittagong Hill Tracts on the south-east. Of these two rivers, the Kurnafoolee is the principal. It is navigable at all seasons of the year, for boats of considerable

1 Kurnah, an ear (Sanscrit) ; foolee, or phoolie, from phool, flower. The Mahommedan Wuzeer duriDg the Moghul rule |s said to have dropped his earring into the river ; hence the name.

3 Sungoo, from sunkh, a shell.

size, as far as 20 miles beyond Kassalong, one of our frontier guard-posts ; but here all further progress is stopped by the Burkhul rapids, which offer an insurmountable obstacle to further progress. Above Burkhul the river narrows considerably, as it enters the higher ranges of hills : its course has not been followed farther than the Demagree falls, some three days' journey above Burkhul. Boats, however, can proceed three days' journey northwards up the Kassalong and Chingree streams, both of which are tributaries of the Kurnafoolee. The scenery along the course of the Kurnafoolee and its tributaries is for the most part dull and uninteresting, the river flowing between high banks of earth, covered either with tall elephant grass or dense jungle, which effectually prevent any view being obtained of the surrounding country. At one place only on the Kurnafoolee, shortly after reaching the small Police Station of Eangamuttee, the character of the scenery changes from its usual dull monotony of reaches of

SCENERY. 11

still water and walls of dark green verdure to a scene of marvellous beauty, resembling somewhat the view on the Rhine, near the Lurleiberg. Dark cliffs of a brown vitreous rock, patched and mottled with lichens and mosses of various colours, tower up on either hand ; while occasionally, on the right or left, shoots back a dark gorge of impenetrable jungle. At this place the river runs with great rapidity through a rocky defile, and at some seasons of the year it is difficult for boats to make head against the strength of the current.

The character of the scenery on the Fenny River is much the same as that of the Kurnafoolee. Here and there on the banks of the stream, or perched on the ridge of some adjacent hill, may be seen the houses of the hill men ; and they and their families, the women in quaint distinctive dress, grouped themselves on the bank, to observe our boats going up. The sources of the Fenny River have not been visited or surveyed.

The rivers in the southern part of the district differ considerably from those of the north. The country is more rocky, and the adjacent hill ranges narrower and of greater height. The River Sungoo is known by three names. In the upper portion of its course it is called Bigray Khyoung by the hill men; about midway, before entering the plains, it is known as the Sabuk Khyoung ; while in the plains, the Bengallees have given it the name of the Sungoo. It is a clear stream, running for the most part of its hill course over sand and among rocks ; it abounds in small rapids, and in its higher parts is navigable only to the smallest boats. Ordinary- sized boats of burden can, in the dry season, go no further than a place called Bundrabun.

The Matamoree, or Moree Khyoung, is a shallow and not very important stream, running parallel for a great part of its course with the Sungoo, although the rivers debouch by different mouths into the sea. Although the course of the river itself is monotonous, yet up some of its affluents, particularly as they near their sources in the hills, the scene

SCENERY. 13

becomes one of unmixed beauty. I remember once going up the Twine Khyoung, a tributary of this river. The stream ran briskly in a narrow pebbly bed, between banks that rose nearly perpendicularly, and so high that the sun only came down to us by glints, here and there. Enormous tree ferns hung over our heads, some 50 feet up, while the straight stems of the " G-urjun" tree shot up without a branch, like white pillars in a temple ; plantains, with their broad drooping fronds of transparent emerald, broke at intervals the dark-green wall of jungle that towered up in the background, and from some gnarled old forest giant here and there the long curving creepers threw across the stream a bridge of nature's own making. Sometimes we came upon a recess in the bank of verdure which rose on either hand; and there the tinkling of a cascade would be heard behind the veil, its entry into the stream being marked by a great gray heap of rounded rocks and boulders, toppled and tossed about in a way that showed with what a sweep the water came down in the rains. Scarlet dragonflies and butterflies of purple, gold, and azure, flitted like jewels across our path ; while silvery fish, streaked with dark-blue bands, flew up the stream before us, like flashes of light, as we poled along.

The western limit of China, the Province of -Yunan, is shown in the map as about 97° 98' degrees of Longitude east, in the Parallel of 24°. Our eastern frontier, then, is not more than 300 miles from the western boundary of China. The tribes in that direction are known to have intercourse with the Province of Meckley, subject to the King of Burmah, and it seems not improbable that at some future time a practicable route might be discovered between the sea-port of Chittagong and the eastern portion of the Empire of China.

This idea was contemplated as early as 1761, when Mr. Harry Verelst, the Chief of Chittagong, wrote to the President of the Council, Fort William, that " we have reason to believe that a passage may be found

SCENERY. 15

through the mountains of Tconke 3 into Thibet and the northern parts of Cochin China. Although this may be a work of time, yet, when effected, it may redound greatly to the State of Europe."

The area of the Chittagong Hill Tracts is estimated to be 6796 miles. The most noticeable feature of the country is that it is divided into four river valleys, marked out more or less distinctly by well-defined chains of hills running parallel from the south in a north-westerly direction. The Sungoo and Matamoree Rivers, until they enter the plains, run parallel to the hill ranges, forming two of the river valleys alluded to. The Kurnafoolee and Fenny Rivers, however, run transversely across the line of the hills. The river valleys here are formed by large tributary streams entering the Kurnafoolee at right angles to its course.

3 No such place as Tconke is known to us now; but as Mr. Verelst was reporting on the prospects and resources of the Chittagong District, it seems not unlikely that he referred to the hills which abut thereon.

16 THE HILL TRACTS SOIL.

The soil of the district is composed for the most part of a rich loam, but in many parts the hills are found to consist of a schistose clay, much resembling sand-stone in appearance, which falls to pieces very easily on force being applied. In the alluvial valleys and watercourses large pieces of dicoly-tedonous wood are frequently found lying in a horizontal position : they are usually more or less petrified.

The climate of the Hill Tracts is distinguished by two characteristics ; its coolness, and its unhealthiness as regards foreigners. There are no hot winds in the hills, and the hottest part of the year is tempered by cool sea-breezes. It is the custom of the people to remain in their villages until the cultivation season commences in May, and then the whole country-side moves up, every man to his patch of cultivation, on some lofty hill. It is to this custom, I consider, that their comparative immunity from sickness may be traced, for hill men, on abandoning their usual mode of life, and taking to other occu-

CLIMATE. 17

pations not involving the periodical move to the hill tops, are nearly as much subject to fever as the people of the plains.

During the months of November, December, January, and February, dense fogs settle over the hills during the night, seldom clearing away until the middle of the following day. Those fogs, however, do not seem to have an unhealthy effect, as the four months in which they prevail are the healthiest throughout the year. During the month of February some rain generally falls, but the rainy season does not set in until the end of May or beginning of June, when it continues, almost without intermission, until the end of September. The quantity of rain that falls is very large, the average yearly fall being about 120 inches. During the rainy season, it is well-nigh impossible to move about the country on account of the rising of the hill streams. Before the setting in of the rains, the hill people lay in a stock of provisions, as at that season of the year the bazaars are abandoned by the men

c of the plains, and trade almost entirely ceases.

It is at this season of the year that the large floats of timber come down with the rising of the waters from the hills.

The most unhealthy month of the year is September, the close of the rains. Fever of a bad type is then very prevalent. In the months of April and May the epidemics of small-pox and cholera make their appearance, ceasing at the commencement of the rains. The prevalent wind during the rains and hot season is from the south-west. An easterly wind, if of" long continuance, is said to be unhealthy. In the cold season the wind generally comes from the north. At the commencement and breaking up of the rains, violent storms of thunder and lightning occur.

Where the hills rise to any considerable height, they become rocky and precipitous, the lower ranges being composed generally of sand or a rich loam. The dark-brown rocks, of which the higher ranges are composed, are undoubtedly of igneous origin ; indeed subter-

CLIMATE. 19

ranean volcanic force must at some remote period have caused the strange bellowy upheaval of the face of the country, which gives it its present distinctive character. On the 2nd of April, 1762, Chittagong was violently shaken by an earthquake, the earth opening in many places, and throwing up water and mud of a sulphureous smell. At a place called Bardavun a large river was dried up ; and at Bakur Chunak, near the sea, a tract of ground sank down, and 200 people, with all their cattle, were lost. Unfathomable chasms are described as remaining open in many places after the shocks; and villages, some of which subsided several cubits, were overflown with water, among others, Deepgoung, which was submerged to the depth of 7 cubits. Two volcanoes are said to have opened in the Seeta Ciinda Hills. The shock was also felt at Calcutta4. There are at present in the Seetakoond Range, in the Chittagong District, several hot springs, from one

c 2 of which an inflammable gas rises in such quantity, that it is kept constantly burning over the spring. I have heard also of hot springs existing in the Loongshem Range in this District, but I have not visited them. Salt licks are found at many places in the hills ; the best known are those at Bhang-amora, in the north, and Mawdang Tlang, in the eastern part of the district.

Lignite is found at two or three places in the hills, but no coal has as yet been discovered. An inferior species of lime-stone is found in two places ; on being burnt, however, it has not given a return sufficient to render its manufacture profitable.

In many parts of the district are found large and richly alluvial plains, covered for the most part with forest trees. These plains, if cleared of timber, would be found admirably adapted for plough cultivation. Far in the jungles on the banks of the Myannee, an affluent of the Kassalong River, are found tanks, j.i-uit- trees, and the remains of masonry buildings, — evidence that, at some by-gone

CLIMATE. 21

period, the land here was cultivated and inhabited by men of the plains. Tradition attributes these ruins to a former Rajah of Hill Tipperah, who, it is said, was driven from that part of the country by hordes of hill men coming from the south. At one place only in the hills, at Rangamuttee, on the Kurnafoolee River, has the usual method of cultivation by the plough been introduced ; and there are there about 120 families of Bengallees who till the land. The settlement, although established some six years ago, does not appear to have increased either in numbers or in the area of land brought under cultivation. Along the whole border of the district adjacent to Chittagong the narrow glens and small patches of low land have been cultivated by the Bengallees ; but the men of the plains have an invincible objection to enter the hills. They are, I believe, principally deterred from settling there by the insalubrity of the climate, which seems to be deadly to their race, although innocuous to the hill men.

22 THE HILL TEA GTS — ROADS.

There are at present no roads in the district ; the nature of the country, indeed, with its transverse ranges of hills, offers very great engineering obstacles to the construction of roads or the employment of wheel-carriage. Paths there are, of course, in every direction ; but, with the exceptions to be mentioned hereafter, only such paths as the people of the country can make use of. The favourite path throughout the district is the sandy bed of a stream, as it offers coolness for the feet and shade from the umbrageous canopy of jungle overhead. In crossing a hill range, however, this sort of path necessarily becomes of a precipitous, not to say break-neck, description.

During the last few years a line of paths lias been cut through the jungle, connecting the Government frontier guard-posts and the three principal stations in the Hill Tracts : these paths, however, are cut chiefly with a view t'o military defensive operations, and are not much used as yet by the country people. There are four bazaars or markets in

BAZAAES. 23

the hills, to which the hill people resort to barter their produce for such articles of daily consumption as salt, spices, dried fish, and the like, which are only procurable from the plains. These bazaars are situated at Kassalong, Rangamuttee, and Chandragoona, on the Kurnafoolee, and at Bundrabun, on the River Sungoo. The bazaar at Chandragoona derives a fictitious importance from that place being at present the head-quarters of the district ; but should the central station be at any time removed, the bazaar would collapse, the position occupied not being a true mercantile centre, and the bazaar, moreover, being brought into a competition which it is unable to sustain with the adjacent market of Rangonea, which is an old-established place of barter, much resorted to by the hill population 5.

The population of the hills also resort to such of the markets of the plains as may be

5 The question of the transfer of the district head-quarters from Chandragoona to Rangamuttee is at present under the consideration of the Bengal Government.

within a day's journey from their homes, along the border of the Ohittagong District.

The hill men bring down for sale cotton and timber, either in the rough or hewn into boats ; and if much pressed for money, they collect for sale the oil-bearing seeds of a tree in the jungle (chal mongree), or cut and float down a raft of bamboos. They also occasionally bring in for sale ivory and wax in small quantities. The principal articles disposed of to the hill people in the bazaars are salt, tobacco (in small quantities), piece goods, metal goods, trinkets, dried fish, pigs, and cattle. About 50,000 cubic feet of timber per annum, it is calculated, is brought down yearly to the plains from the Hill Tract forests ; and 55,854 maunds of cotton are estimated to be yearly exported by the hill people, — this in addition to the not inconsiderable quantity reserved by them for home consumption. The Hill Tracts, indeed, seem peculiarly well fitted, both in soil and climate, for the production of cotton. The quantity produced, however, depends almost entirely

PKODUCE FOEESTS. 25

upon the amount of rain-fall. Too heavy a fall of rain spoils the cotton crop ; there is especial danger of this at the commencement of the rains, when the plants are young. Measures have been taken to introduce improved varieties of the cotton plant among the hill tribes. The Flora of the Hill Tracts is of the Malayan type ; the forests being principally of brilliant, glossy evergreen trees.

Throughout the whole district are found large tracts of valuable forest trees. Teak is not indigenous, but thrives if planted; it grows, however, plentifully in the forests on the other side of the hill range separating this district from Arracan. A large trade in rail way- sleepers has lately sprung up from the port of Chittagong ; the Port Conservator estimates that upwards of 30,000 sleepers have been exported during the last two years.

As yet no organized inquiry into the vegetable products of this part of the country has ever been instituted, and but little, consequently, is known on the subject. The tea plant is believed to be indigenous in the district, but it has not hitherto been found in abundance. The fir-tree and the caoutchouc tree are found in the lofty hills in the east of the district ; but the hitherto unsatisfactory relations existing between us and the more remote hill tribes have prevented any use being made of these otherwise valuable forest products.

In the wilder parts of the district the forest trees are festooned with numerous ligneous creepers (phytocrene) hanging in a labyrinth of coils from every tree ; some are as thick as a man's arm. On cutting one of these, water is obtained ; and as they grow on the loftiest hill where water is often not obtainable, this property of theirs is most useful. The most curious thing is, that should the coil be cut in one place only, so as to leave two pendent ends, no water issues. It is necessary to cut a piece clean out of the creeper with two quick, consecutive strokes, before water is obtained. If with an unskilled hand three or four hacks are made before severing it,

PRODUCE. 27

the only result is a dry stick. Two speedy cuts, however, and from the piece of creeper trickles out about half a tumbler full of clear, cool water. The hill men explain this by saying that when the stem is cut the water tries to run away upwards.

There is also a tree in the jungles called " chowr " by the Bengallees, and " samul " in the Tipperah tongue. The young shoots of this tree are delicious eating, being white and tender, with a filbert flavour. Between the outer husk and the trunk of this tree is a soft layer of substance that makes an exdellent tinder.

In shady spots is also found another edible plant, something like asparagus; the Bengallees call it " tara." It is cultivated as a vegetable by the Bengallees, but the wild variety growing in the virgin soil of undisturbed forests is far superior. The young shoots of the cane and bamboo, just as the young plant emerges from the earth, are very good eating. On the hills, also, the wild yam is found plentifully, so that no man able to search for food in the jungles could starve in these hills.

The hill people have many plants and simples which they use medicinally. They make two or three dyes from the roots and leaves of plants. They also use a certain creeper in catching fish ; this plant, when steeped in a stream, and the water confined by a dam, has the property of intoxicating and stupefying the fish, which come floating, belly upwards, to the surface of the water, and are then easily caught.

There are eleven varieties of the bamboo found throughout the hills, and canes grow in profusion. The cane is the hill man's rope; with it he weaves baskets, binds his house together, and throws bridges over the otherwise impassable hill torrents.

The bamboo is literally his staff of life. He builds his house of the bamboo ; he fertilizes his fields with its ashes ; of its stem he makes vessels in which to carry water; with two bits of bamboo he can produce fire; its young and succulent shoots provide a

THE BAMBOO. 29

dainty dinner dish ; and he weaves his sleeping mat of fine slips thereof. The instruments with which his women weave their cotton are of bamboo. He makes drinking-cups of it, and his head at night rests on a bamboo pillow ; his forts are built of it ; he catches fish, makes baskets and stools, and thatches his house with the help of the bamboo. He smokes from a pipe of bamboo; and from bamboo ashes he obtains potash. Finally, his funeral pile is lighted with bamboo. The hill man would die without the bamboo, and the thing he finds hardest of credence is that in other countries the bamboo does not grow, and that men live in ignorance of it. Throughout the whole of India, indeed, the bamboo occupies a forward place in the domestic economy of the inhabitants. It remained only that it should be deified; and this, it seems, has been done. In Dr. Balfour's account of the migratory tribes of Central India (J. A. S., No. 61 of 1844), he tells of a tribe called the Bhatos, a tribe who follow the profession of athletaa, and perform most of their feats with the aid of a bamboo.