156 On the Bohsas of Bijnour. [No. 3, 



who gets a rupee or two for his trouble. Besides his special fees, 

 each puroliit receives a general contribution from every village in his 

 beat, apparently amounting to about 5 maunds of grain each crop, which 

 is allocated among families according to their means. 



In small matters also the Boksas adhere to Hindoo customs. Thus, 

 they do not wear their shoes (when they have any to wear) during 

 cooking, and they kill animals to be used as food, by jhatha a blow 

 or cut on the back of the neck, and not by the throat-cutting haldl- 

 Jcarna of the Mussulmans. 



A good many of the tribe are said to profess special devotion 

 to particular deities, the only ones named to me being the spouse 

 of Siva ; under her designations Bhowani and Devi, with Baba 

 Kalu and Surwar Sakki. Of the personality of the last, I could learn 

 nothing. Kalu Saiyid is a local saint, who, curious enough, they state 

 to have been a Mussulman, as indeed the appellation Saiyid, if it be 

 not a corruption, would indicate. Some traditions about his life and 

 death are current, and before his shrine, at the entrance to the main 

 pass through the Siwaliks into the Path Doom, Hindoos of all sects 

 make offerings, and his name " Kalu Saiyid hi jai" is invoked in the 

 neighbourhood of the tomb on entering upon an undertaking, or when 

 engaged in severe exertion such as heaving up a load, &c. 



The Boksas only marry among their own tribe, but there does not 

 appear to be any restriction within its limits. In this tract they will 

 have nothing to say to intermarriage with the Tharoos (who, they 

 declare, " eat frogs and lizards"), and there is some authority for 

 believing that Elliot must have been misinformed, when told that 

 some of the eastern Boksas, " in Kilpoory and Subna, occasionally 

 intermarry with the Tharoos." The wife always follows the 2^ath of 

 her husband, and the children that of their father, in regard to a 

 difference to be presently mentioned. 



Their purohits are (xour Brahmins who hold fine office here- 

 ditarily. They do not live among their flock, but outside the 

 forest tract, one residing at Afzulghur, towards the eastern end, and 

 two in Nujeebabad towards the western end of the liatlii. One of 

 those of Nujeebabad has the six most westerly villages in his charge 

 the other has the three in the centre, and the Afzulghur man has the 

 lorn: easternmost with the Path Doon villages. I conversed with all 



