1849.] K6cch, Bodo and Dhimal people. 737 



Bodo and Dhimals are few, simple and domestic. Agriculture is the 

 grand and almost sole business of the men, but to it is added the con- 

 struction and furnishing of the dwelling house in each of the frequent 

 migrations of the whole people. The boys look after the domestic 

 animals. The women, aided by the girls, are fully employed within 

 doors in spinning, weaving and dying the clothing of the family, in 

 brewing, and in cooking. The state of the arts will be sufficiently 

 and most conveniently illustrated by a description of the household 

 furniture, clothes, food and drinks of the people, preceded by an ac- 

 count of the implements, processes, and products of agriculture. 



Agriculture. — The agricultural implements are an ax to fell the 

 forest trees, a strong bill or bill-hook to clear the underwood and also 

 to dig the earth, a spade for rare but more effectual digging, and lastly 

 a dibble for sowing the seed. The ax is called Rua by the Bodo, 

 Duphe by the Dhimals. It is a serviceable implement of iron (the head) 

 similar to that in use in the plains where the head is bought ; the haft 

 being made at home. The bill, called Chekha by the Bodo, Ghongoi* 

 by the Dhimals, is a "jack of all work," like in shape to our English 

 bill, but with the curved extremity or beak prolonged and furnished 

 with a straight downward edge of some three inches. It is of iron, 

 of course, and purchased in the Kocch marts. The spade is the ordi- 

 nary short, bent one of the plains, where it is bought, and where it is 

 called Kodak The Bodo and Dhimals use it but little, and have no 

 name of their own for it. The dibble is a wooden staff about 4 feet 

 long, made by the people themselves. It is like a stout walking staff 

 sharpened at the lower end. The process of culture, emphatically 

 called 'clearing the forest/ is literally such for the most part, and 

 would be so wholly, but that several of the species grown being bien- 

 nials, a field is retained over the first year, so that the second year's 

 work consists merely of weeding and resowing rice amid the other 

 standing products. The characteristic work is the clearing of fresh 

 land, which is done every second year, and thus, axes and bills clear 

 away the wood : fire completes what they have left undone, and at the 

 same time spreads over the land an ample stratum of manure (ashes) ; 

 the soil is worked nearly enough in eradicating the undergrowth of 

 trees (for the lords of the forest are only truncated) ; so that what little 

 additional digging is needed, may be and is performed with the square 



5 c 



