37' 



GANGETIC HINDOOSTAN. 



District of 



TlP£RA. 



m0untan£ers 

 ofTipera, 



A SAVAGE 

 PeOPLE. 



proximate to that of the Hindoos, but their facrifices of living 

 animals forbid me to alTent to the opinion. 



Tipera is a diftric5t that lies immediately fouth of Silbet. This 

 country was vifited between the years 1583 and 1594, by our 

 countryman, Ralph Fitchej merchant of Londo)!, who pafTed 

 the interval between thofe years, chiefly in travels through In- 

 dia. He fays that the king of Tipera or Forto-grande (as it was 

 called by the Portuguefe) was in thofe days at conftant wars 

 with the monarch of Aracan. In the end it was fubdued by 

 that prince, but at prefent makes part of Bengal. We make 

 fome gain out of each of thefe diftri(5ts, for it appears by our 

 Eaji India kalendar that we keep coUeiftors both at Silbet and 

 Tipera, and I may add a collector of the fait duties on the ille of 

 Sundive, on the eaftern fide of the Ganges. 



The Cuci, or mountaneers of llpra or Tipera, are mofl emi- 

 nently favages, they have no idea of heaven or hell, rewards of 

 good or punilhment of bad ad:ions. They believe in a creator 

 of the univerfe, whom they name P^//)'^;^, and think that a deity 

 exifts in every tree, and that fun and moon are gods, and when- 

 ever they worfliip thefe fubordinate deities, Patiyan is well 

 pie a fed. 



In modern times they cut off the heads of all the women 

 whom they find on the lands of their enemie>. This barbarity 

 refulted from the notion that they are left at heme to Cviltivate 

 the lands for their hufbands who are gone to war againft them, 

 and who could not othervvife fally forth, were not the women 

 left to raife food for them. If they happen to kill a pregnant 

 woman, they exult in their good fortune, as they deftroy two 

 * enemies 



