1840.] Memoir of Sylhet, Kachar, ^ adjacent Districts, 837 



been known to shew any desire, but they kill and carry away the 

 heads of as many human beings as they can seize, and have been 

 known in one night to carry off fifty. These are used in certain 

 ceremonies performed at the funerals of the chiefs, and it is always 

 after the death of one of their Rajas that their incursions occur. 



The proper limits of the Kukis are undefined, but they never seem 

 to have stretched northward of Chattrchura peak, and Kukitunga 

 on the frontier of Sylhet, nor above Soor and Tungtching in Kachar. 

 The villages at Abong in Upper Kachar are exceptions, but they 

 are well known to have been settled by Raja Krishnachundra with 

 Kukis from the southward, who had sought his protection. The Kukis 

 have been accused of cannibalism, and I am aware of an instance 

 in which the charge seemed substantiated, but they disclaim the 

 imputation with much vehemence, and I have seen no reason to think 

 that the practice is frequent among them. 



People of Sylhet. — The inhabitants of Sylhet are Bengalis, and 

 not distinguishable from that race in the districts to the westward. 

 On a closer examination, however, it will be observed that the lower 

 classes, especially the inferior castes of Hindu cultivators, bear marks 

 of their indigenous origin, and a striking difference may be remarked 

 between their features and those of the Musulman descendants of 

 the colonists by whom the country was gradually conquered. The 

 few families of any consideration in the district are known to be 

 of Hindustani or Persian origin, and these are the most respected, 

 though they have been superseded of late years by one or two consi- 

 derable Hindu houses, which have acquired fortune and consequence 

 in our service. There are also some Musulman families, descendants 

 of chiefs or Rajas under the Kamrup dynasty, who were forced to 

 conform to Mahomedanism on the change of masters ; of these the 

 principal is that of the Baniachuny Raja, whose ancestor was probably 

 the party conquered by Esau Afghan, in the reign of Akhbar, when 

 *' the kutbeh was read, and the coin struck in the Bhatta country," 

 according to Abul Fuzil. It must have been a Raja of the same 

 family also who was attacked in 1254 a. d. by Mulic Yuzbeg, the 

 Governor of Bengal, who afterwards lost his life in Southern Assam, 

 or rather in the mountains between Assam and Sylhet. The family 

 though converted to Mahomedanism has always retained the title 



