704 Account of A rakan. [No. 117. 



people must then look out for another home ; their village is aban- 

 doned, and forth they go, men, women, and children, two, three or more 

 days' journey, to build their bamboo huts near some spot where they 

 may raise food ; men and women may on those occasions be seen toiling 

 up the steep hills> their conical baskets on their backs, fastened by a 

 strap passing round the forehead ; in some their children sleeping con- 

 tentedly, others containing their worldly goods. I have entered de- 

 serted villages, in which perhaps half the people's property, such as it 

 was, had been left, until they could return and take it away at leisure ; 

 there were baskets of rice, dhan, pounding mortars, cotton spinning and 

 weaving machines. I have even seen spoons, the bowl rudely cut out 

 of wood, and a bamboo handle lashed on. The cotton cloths these 

 people weave are really excellent, the threads are coloured with vari- 

 ous vegetable dyes, blue, red, yellow, &c. and are frequently woven in- 

 to very handsome patterns. 



The houses of the hill tribes are built entirely of bamboo in the 

 walls, the supports, and the flooring. They are roofed with leaves of the 

 same plant. The houses are raised on platforms, and from the steep- 

 ness of the hills, oneside may be from twelve to fifteen feet above the 

 ground, and being supported by bamboo props, not more than two in- 

 ches in diameter, they look very slight ; but last well, with trifling re- 

 pairs, for three years, the general period for which they are required. 

 The chief's house usually consists of a spacious hall, extending right 

 across the dwelling, in which the feasts are held, and where is always a 

 large hearth of plastered mud, on which a whole ox might be roasted ; 

 on either side of the hall are separate rooms for the different members 

 of the family, the unmarried sons and daughters. The houses of the 

 people of course are not on such a large scale as the chiefs, but they 

 are spacious ; two families sometimes live together, in which case they 

 ordinarily cook and eat separately. 



The villages consist of from twenty to forty, or fifty houses, which 

 are built as regularly as the nature of the ground will admit. The 

 rapidity with which these people will run up a bamboo hut is surprising. 

 Journeying in the hills, I have come to halting ground for the night, 

 fifty Ku-mis with their dhas leap into the bamboo forest, which resounds 

 with the sharp strokes of the dka in rapid succession, and forth they 

 come, dragging the slender stems after them in bundles of eight or ten. 



