1899.] Mnjor Waddell — TF/Vri Trihrs of tlio Brahviaputra Valley. 115 



are fasfc losing their primitive customs and adopting those of their 

 Hvnduised Assamese neighbours. And practically no steps are being 

 taken to fix their rare vestiges of prehistoric society still surviving 

 amongst them. 



Nor has anything even been done to record the physical type of 

 these tribes by precise measurement, so as to trace their racial elements, 

 their affinities, and the routes and streams of their emigrations to their 

 sources. 



It is chiefly with reference to this latter, hitherto unexplored, 

 .aspect of these tribes that I here present the results of my own private 

 labours, as a contribution townrds fixing the pliysical type and racial 

 affinities upon the only trustworthy basis, namely actual measurement. 

 The vast number of these tribes, however, and the great difficulties in 

 the way of a private individual reacliing them makes the completion of 

 this research on a sufficiently large scale to secure finality in results, 

 quite beyond the reach of private effort. 



Some explanation seems needed as to why I have attempted this 

 huge task single-handed, and with my scant leisure, without ever 

 having had the advantage of having beeu stationed officially in Assam. 

 I undertook this self-imposed task because, although it is of such im- 

 portance, no one else had attempted it ; and also because I had already 

 done so much in a similar direction in regard to the allied Himalayan 

 tribes of Sikhim, Eastern Nepal, Bhotan and the Koch tribe of Northern 

 Bengal. In those researches I had found that, contrary to the usually 

 accepted opinion, the affinities of many of those tribes lay rather with 

 the Indo-Chinese tribes of Assam than with the trans-Himalayan 

 Tibetans. As nothing was on record practically in respect to the 

 physical type of the former, I had therefore to devote several periods 

 of private leave to visiting Assam specially for the purpose of supplying 

 this deficiency. All the more so did I feel compelled to do this because 

 of tlie recognised necessity that for comparative purposes it is essential 

 that one and the same individual sliould if possible take all the measure- 

 ments so as to avoid that piolific source of error — the different ' personal 

 equations ' of different ol)servers. 



Moreover, I had already personally visited and measured not only 

 the surrounding tiibes of the Eastern Himalayas above-mentioned, 

 but also Tibetans from all parts of Tibet including the valley of the 

 Tsang-po (that is the Upper Brahmaputra) and also most of the tribes 

 of Burma as far up as the Kachins or ' Singphos ' above Bhamo, on the 

 southern confines of China and Assam. So that, on including the 

 Brahmaputra Valley I had the unique advantage for compai-ative pur- 

 poses of having personally measui'ed most of the tribes from Mongolia 



