836 Memoir of Sylhet, Kachar, ^ adjacent Districts, [No. 104. 



those peculiarities about the eye which stamp the tribes of Indo-Chi- 

 nese origin. 



Nagas. — The Nagas are found in all the tracts east of the Kupili 

 River, as far as the country of the Khamtis, much of which is un- 

 explored. This generic name seems to have been applied to them 

 by the Hindus of the plain, with reference either to their scanty cloth- 

 ing, or more probably to their residence in the mountains, but is not 

 acknowledged among themselves or the other hill tribes, among whom 

 they call themselves " Kwaphee." They are associated commonly with 

 the Kukis or Koonjye, from whom however they are essentially distinct 

 in customs, and personal appearance. The Nagas though often power- 

 ful men, yet do not commonly display those marks from which great 

 strength may be inferred. Their limbs have not the massive confi- 

 guration of the Kukis and other hill men. It is a distinguishing 

 particular of the Naga tribes that they are not a migratory or wan- 

 dering people, and while the hill Kacharis and Kukis continually change 

 their locations, seldom keeping their villages more than three years in 

 one spot, the Nagas remain fixed, and their insignificant villages, 

 which appear in one of Rennell's early Maps, are to be found still as 

 they stood in 1764. Again, the Nagas are remarkable as using 

 no weapons but the javelin and dao, a sort of bill common to the 

 Birmas, Shans, and most of the hill tribes except the Kasias ; and 

 they have no prejudices on the score of food, eating every thing 

 indiscriminately, as well that flesh which has been slain for food as that 

 which has not. In common with the Kukis and Garrows however 

 they abstain strictly from milk, butter, or ghee, looking on the use of 

 them with great aversion. The religion of both tribes is limited to a 

 few superstitious practices, differing among themselves, but presenting 

 nothing from which their origin or connexion with other tribes is 

 to be inferred. 



Kukis, — The Kukis have long been notorious for their attacks 

 on the peaceable inhabitants of the plains, to whom along the Sylhet 

 and Kachar frontier they have at times been very troublesome. In 

 addition to the javelin they employ bows and poisoned arrows, a 

 practice perhaps suggested by their contests with the larger animals, as 

 elephants and tigers, with which their forests abound. The object 

 of their inroads on the plains is not plunder, for which they have never 



