1849.] Kdcch, Bodo and Dhimdl people. 715 



spot prove unfertile, they decamp after the first harvest is got in.* 

 They are all in the condition of subjects (of Nepal, Sikim, Bhutan or 

 Britain) having no property whatever in the soil they till, and discharg- 

 ing their dues to the Government they live under (Sikim, for example) 

 1st, by the annual payment of one rupee per agricultural implement, 

 for as much land as they can cultivate therewith, (there is no land 

 measure ;) 2nd, by a corvee or tribute of labour for the sovereign and 

 for his local representative. They calculate that they can raise 30 to 40 

 rupees worth of agricultural produce with one agricultural implement, 

 so that the land tax is very light ; and the corvee is more irksome 

 than oppressive. It requires them, on the Rajah's behalf, to quit 

 their homes for 3 or 4 days, thrice a year, in order to carry burdens 

 for him into the hills, whenever he has goods coming from the plains ; 

 but, on the representative's behalf, to work only on the spot. Four 

 times a year they must help to till his fields ; also to build or repair 

 his dwelling-house ; to supply him with fuel and plates (leaves) when- 

 ever he gives a feast ; and, lastly, they must pay him one seer of cot- 

 ton each year, for every cotton field they have. Very similar is 

 the condition, in regard to taxation, of the Bodo and Dhimals, under 

 the Nepal and Bhutan Governments. Under the British, the perma- 

 nent cultivators of the open lands of Kamrup are subject to the usual 

 burdens, incidental to our rule, which they discharge with ease, owing 

 to their industrious and orderly habits. Major Jenkins gives them the 

 highest character, observing that — " they are a remarkably fine peasant- 

 ry and have very superior cultivation of the permanent kind." This 

 is abundant proof of the docility of the Bodo, and strong presumptive 

 evidence that their erratic habits and adhesion to the wilds, elsewhere, 

 are the result of oppression, at least as much as of the bias of pristine 

 custom. But, as the Kamnipian Bodo have abandoned with their 

 erratic propensities, a deal of whatever is most characteristics of them 

 as a distinct race, I resume the delineation of them and of the Dhimals, 

 as still found in primitive simplicity between Bijni and Morang. There 



* Such are the primitive habits, still in use from the Konki to the Monash, and 

 which are most worthy of study and record, as being primitive, and as being com- 

 mon to two people, the Bodo and Dhimal, though abandoned by the Kamrupian 

 and most numerous branch of the Bodo. 



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