1840.] Note on the Lepchas of Sikkim. 387 



much more a hunting than a military tribe. I do not mean to 

 insinuate that they are wanting in courage to fight, or that they 

 might not, under English tuition and example, make good 

 soldiers ; but only to say, that deprived as they long, or always 

 have been of any union in government, or as subjects of any 

 one state, they have not that spirit of personal enterprise, and 

 disregard of personal danger, which when constantly exhibited 

 gratuitously, or for glory's sake, gives races of men the stamp of 

 military habits. 



We have no record of Major Latter* s opinion of the 

 Lepchas, who aided him on behalf of Sikkim during the Nipal 

 war, but I have heard since my arrival in this quarter that at 

 Nagri, after the Sikkimites were expelled thence by the Goorkas 

 in 1812 or thereabouts, they proved most troublesome enemies, 

 by their custom of lying in wait in the neighbouring forests for 

 months at a time, and losing no opportunity of carrying off and 

 massacring any luckless Goorkha who happened to stray out 

 of musket range of the stockades. They are pretty good marks- 

 men with the arrow, but do not practise it regularly ; they use 

 it poisoned in hunting as well as in war. 



The Lepchas are poor agriculturists, their labours in this 

 art being confined to the careless growing of rice, Indian 

 corn, murwa,* and a few vegetables, of which the brinjal, cu- 

 cumber, and capsicum are the chief. Their habits are incurably 

 erratic, they do not form permanent villages, and rarely remain 

 longer than three years in one place, at the expiration of which 

 they move into a new part of the forest, sometimes near, often 

 distant, and there go through the labour of clearing a space for 

 a house, building a new one, and preparing the ground for a 

 crop. The latter operations consist in cutting down the smaller 

 trees, lopping off the branches of the large ones, which are 

 burnt, and scratching the soil with the Ban, after which, on the 

 falling of a shower of rain, the seed is thrown into the ground. 



Their houses are built entirely of bamboo, raised about 

 five feet from the ground, and thatched with the same material, 

 but a smaller species, split up. This roofing is, I believe, pe- 



* Sesasum orientalis. 



3 j> 



