™ eeneeeteien ee See ee ft el 
a ee tee eS, a ee en eeri> ee, ee 

1923. ] An Essay on the History of Newar Culture. 493 
irrigation is resorted to, as among the Tharus of the Terai, 
a streamlet is simply dammed up and the fields inundated. 
No artificial channels are constructed to lead the water under 
control to the fields.! It cannot be said that this mode of culti- 
vation is more paying.? The only conclusion that can be drawn 
is that most of these tribes possess only the barest knowledge of 
the domestication of plants and that evolution has certainly not 
brought them to irrigated cultivation in flats or terraces. It is 
not possible, without detailed analysis, to say how much of 
even this knowledge is the result of observation of the elemen- 
tary facts of nature by those tribes, and how much is due to 
residence in the close neighbourhood of more advanced people. 
This is however outside the scope of thisessay. The facts, in any 
case, definitely prove that an appreciation of the usefulness 
of rice, cotton, millet and other crops, even when joined 
the soil of Nepal is quite fertile 
lus to improve cultivation should come in Nepal from the 
conditions of the country. An evolution of terraced cultivation 
in Nepal from a primitive mode of agriculture without levelling 
the land or irrigating it has therefore to be rejected. No great 
importance, however, need be attached to the actual formation 
of step-like terraces on hillsides or to the use of stone in the 
ridges built to retain water in the fields. The principal element 
is systematic irrigation. As the chief crop of Nepal is rice 
I shall support this statement by facts from the great rice 
country of India, Bengal. Throughout this great alluvial plain 
Tice is the most common grain cultivated and o the three 
main varieties grown the most valuable is Rowa. The other 

H. H. Risley: Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Calcutta, 1891. § Mali 
Mech, Mal Paharia, etc. : 
Stack and C. J. Lyall: The Mikirs, London, 1908, p. 11. 
A. Playfair: The Garos, London, 1909, p. 34. II 
C. A. Soppitt: The Kachcha Naga tribe, Shillong, 1885, Chap. II. 
earn two rupees by ‘‘ jhum ” cultivation, as — is one w. Ea aiven 
men produce on ibi 4 : F 
(ibid.) details of the expenses and income of hill cultivators nc ined 
jhum, plough cultivators of the plains and the hoe c hanced : Sect 
He concludes that in spite of their hard work the Bodo an ee ot 
oo. from a half to a third of the plainsmen and about two-thirds o 
ewars. 
