1849] Kdcchy Bodo and Bhimal people. 719 



and give them marriage presents, such are held to be their own, and 

 will be retained by them in the event of divorce. Neither Bodo nor 

 Dhimal can marry beyond the limits of his own people, and if he do, 

 he is severely fined. Within those limits only, two or three of the 

 closest natural ties are deemed a bar to marriage. In the event of 

 divorce, the children belong to the father or the sons to the father, and 

 the daughters to the mother. If the husband take the adulterer in the 

 fact, he may beat him and likewise the wife ; but no more ;* and there- 

 after, if he please, he may put his wife away, when she and the adul- 

 terer will continue to abide together as man and wife, without scandal, 

 but without marriage rite ; or, if the husband please, he may pardon 

 her and frequently does so, should the offence have been the first, and 

 committed with one of the tribe and not with an alien. Chastity is 

 prized in man and woman, married and unmarried ; and, as a necessary 

 consequence, women are esteemed and respected, and divorce and sepa- 

 ration rare, notwithstanding the bad footing upon which the custom or 

 law of these nations sets the nuptial union. Siphilis is absolutely 

 unknown among the Bodo and Dhimal, — a fact that speaks volumes, 

 and one that renders it scarcely necessary to add, that any class of 

 women, devoted to unchastity, is a thing for which their languages have 

 no name, and their manners, no place. Filial piety is not a marked 

 feature in their character, nor perhaps the want of it. Sons, on mar- 

 riage, quit the parental roof, and sometimes, previously : but it is 

 deemed shameful to leave old parents entirely alone, and the last of the 

 sons, who by his departure, does so, is liable to fine as well as disin- 

 heritance. Infanticide is utterly unknown, with every savage rite allied 

 to it, such as human sacrifice, self-immolation and others, too frequent 

 among rude people. Daughters, on the contrary, are cherished, and 

 deemed a source of wealth, not poverty, for every man must buy his 

 wife with coin or labour, and 'tis very seldom that the price comes to 

 be redemanded by the wronged and unforgiving husband. There is no 

 bar to re-marriage, and satti is a rite held in abhorrence. 



Learning. — Of learning and letter s y the Bodo and Dhimals are totally 

 devoid, and always have been so. The numerals of the cardinal scale 



* Among the Parbettias of Nepal the wronged husband may, nay must, slay the 

 adulterer. 



