1849.1 Kdcch, Bodo and Bhimdl People. 707 



and of the creed and customs of this remnant with those of the other 

 aborigines around them. I have already stated that I failed to get at 

 the unconverted Kocch, and that my Vocabulary is that of the converted. 

 Hereafter I trust to supply this desideratum, and in the meanwhile I 

 cannot do better than give Buchanan's unusually careful and ample ac- 

 count of the condition, creed and customs of this people — which, being 

 compared with my own subsequent statement of the condition, creed 

 and customs of the Bodo and Dhimal (of whom Buchanan says little or 

 nothing), will satisfactorily demonstrate the affinity I have insisted on. 



Kdcch Status. — " The primitive or Pani Kocch live amid the woods, 

 frequently changing their abode in order to cultivate lands enriched by a 

 fallow. They cultivate entirely with the hoe, and more carefully than 

 their (Arian) neighbours who use the plough, for they weed their crops, 

 which the others do not. As they keep hogs and poultry they are bet- 

 ter fed than the Hindus, and as they make a fermented liquor* from rice, 

 their diet is more strengthening. The clothing of the Pani Kocch is 

 made by the women, and is in general blue, dyed by themselves with 

 their own indigo, the borders red dyed with Morinda. The material is 

 cotton of their own growth, and they are better clothed than the mass 

 of the Bengalese. Their huts are at least as good, nor are they raised 

 on posts like the houses of the Indo-Chinese, at least, not generally so. 

 Their only arms are spears : but they use iron shod implements of agri- 

 culture, which the Bengalese often do not. They eat swine, goats, 

 sheep, deer, buffaloes, rhinoceros, fowls, and ducks — not beef — nor 

 dogs, nor cats, nor frogs, nor snakes. They use tobacco and beer, but 

 reject opium and hemp. They eat no tame animal without offering it 

 to God (the gods), and consider that he who is least restrained is most 

 exalted, allowing the Garos to be their superiors, because the Garos may 

 eat beef. The men are so gallant as to have made over all property to 

 the women, who in return are most industrious, weaving, spinning, brew- 

 ing, planting, sowing, in a word, doing all work not above their strength. 

 When a woman dies the family property goes to her daughters, and 

 when a man marries he lives with his wife's mother, obeying her and 

 his wife. Marriages are usually arranged by mothers in nonage, but 



* The classic Zyth, £v6oi', beer without hops, as universal among the Abori- 

 gines in the absence of spirits or distilled waters. 



4 y 2 



