650 On the Chepang and Kusunda tribes of Nepal. [Dec, 



On the Chepang and Kusunda tribes of Nepal, by B. H. Hodgson, Esq. 



Amid the dense forests of the central region of Nepal, to the west- 

 ward of the great valley, dwell, in scanty numbers and nearly in a state 

 of nature, two broken tribes having no apparent affinity with the civi- 

 lized races of that country, and seeming like the fragments of an earlier 

 population. 



" They toil not, neither do they spin ;" they pay no taxes, acknow- 

 ledge no allegiance, but, living entirely upon wild fruits and the produce 

 of the chase, are wont to say that the Rajah is Lord of the cultivated 

 country as they are of the unredeemed waste. They have bows and 

 arrows, of which the iron arrow-heads are procured from their neigh- 

 bours, but almost no other implement of civilization, and it is in the 

 very skilful snaring of the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air 

 that all their little intelligence is manifested. 



Boughs torn from trees and laid dexterously together constitute their 

 only houses, the sites of which they are perpetually shifting according 

 to the exigencies or fancies of the hour. In short, they are altogether 

 as near to what is usually called the state of nature as any thing in 

 human shape can well be, especially the Kusundas, for the Chepangs are 

 a few degrees above their confreres, and are beginning to hold some 

 slight intercourse with civilized beings and to adopt the most simple of 

 their arts and habits. It is due, however, to these rude foresters to say 

 that, though they stand wholly aloof from society, they are not actively 

 offensive against it, and that neither the Government nor individuals 

 tax them with any aggressions against the wealth they despise or the 

 comforts and conveniences they have no conception of the value of. 



They are, in fact, not noxious but helpless, not vicious but aimless, but 

 morally and intellectually, so that no one could without distress behold 

 their careless unconscious inaptitude. It is interesting to have opportunity 

 to observe a tribe so circumstanced and characterised as the Chepangs, 

 and I am decidedly of opinion that their wretched condition, physical 

 and moral, is the result, not of inherent defect, but of that savage fero- 

 city of stronger races which broke to pieces and outlawed both the 

 Chepang and the Kusunda tribes during the ferocious ethnic struggles 

 of days long gone by, when tribe met tribe in internecal strife contend- 

 ing for the possession of that soil they knew not how to fructify ! Nor 



