152 On the Boksas of Bijnour. [No. 3, 



which, however, was only heard locally. Singular enough, the Tharoos 

 as Madden mentions, apply a special name Koron, to that tree. But 

 little stress, however, can be laid on any, specially in the names of 

 plants, which, with the natives of other parts of India, are often found 

 to alter within a few miles, even among the same or closely allied 

 tribes. 



There are some peculiarities in the boli of the Boksas by which one 

 of them is at once recognized by members of their own or other tribes. 

 Thus n is constantly substituted for Z, as sdn for sdl and nath for 

 lath, and less frequently changed into r, and n into Z, as ddri for ddli 

 and thalela for thanela. Two of these changes are often met together, 

 as Baglana, which is very often substituted for Bagnala, the name of 

 their chief village. One is struck also by a dialectic manner of 

 pronunciation, which alters the short a, and occasionally the long a of 

 Hindustani, into a sound approaching that of the French ceu. Thus, 

 Boksa is called Boksuh, and achha sukha rahtd hai is pronounced 

 achhuh siikJtuh rahtuh hai. 



The earliest historical indication of the existence of the Boksas 

 consists in the circumstance of a certain division of the Chourassi 

 Mull in llohilkhund, nearly 300 years ago, having been called 

 Boksdr, a term which is now, as then, applied to a tract of country 

 thickly inhabited by them (as well as to the tribe, and sometimes 

 to a single village of the Boksas). With regard to the traditional 

 origin of the race, the clear and connected statements given by 

 Elliot and Batten on this head are by no means borne out by the 

 discrepant and, in some cases, absurd scraps of information which only 

 these western Boksas, and the three purohits who are their spiritual 

 guides, can impart. The writers mentioned, state that the traditions 

 of the Boksas make them out to be Powar Rajputs descended from 

 Oodya Jeet, (or his relative Jug Deo) and his followers, who in the 12th 

 century hit his native place in Raj putana on account of family quarrels 

 and came, either mediately or directly, to settle here. 



In reply to the inquiries I made on these points, instead of 

 frequently, or at all getting a connected account like the above, 

 the only assertions that most of these Boksas agreed in, were two, 

 viz., that they are of Rajput origin, although they confess that the 

 Rajputs of the plains hold them impure on account of their less cleanly 



