1858.] On the Kiranti tribe of the Central Himalaya. 449 



popular inclusion of the latter people is important and I believe 

 well founded, as also that of the Yakhas, though both are often 

 alleged to be not Kirantis. They are at all events closely allied 

 races, having essential community of customs and manners with 

 the Kirantis, and they all intermarry, nor probably do the dialects 

 of the Limbus and Yakhas differ much more from the Khwombu* 

 tongue, than that tongue now does from itself, as seen in the several 

 dialects of the septs set down above under " Middle Kirant." The 

 comparative vocabulary already submitted to the Society will go far 

 to decide these questions when taken in connexion with that gram* 

 matical analysis of the Limbu tongue which I am now engaged on. 

 The boundaries of Kirant in its three subdivisions are — 



1. Sunkosi to Likhu, 1 ^i , 



T •■, , , A , ' > Khwombuan. 



2. .Likhu to Arun, ) 



3. Arun to Mechi and ) T . , 



c,. ■■> ! . -, > Limbuan. 



femguela ridge, ) 



Such are the territorial limits of the extant Kiranti race, in the 

 larger sense. Their numbers probably do not now exceed a quarter 

 of a million ; but the tradition which I referred to above, assigns 

 two and a quarter millions as the amount of their population at 

 some remote and not well ascertained period when their country 

 was customarily spoken of as the " no lakh kirant," and the 

 phrase was interpreted to mean that a house tax at two annas per 

 family yielded nine hundred thousand annas, whence, if we allow five 

 souls to a family, we shall obtain two and a quarter millions of 

 people for the Kirantis inclusive of the Limbus and Yakhas, and 

 possibly the Yayus also. The Kirantis occupy the central or health- 

 ful region of the mountains, and never descend, to dwell there, into 

 the lowest and malarious valleys of that region. Consequently 

 they are not reckoned among the Awalias or tribes inured to malaria. 

 Nor can they be placed among the broken tribes, great as is 

 their antiquity and devoid as they long have been of political 

 independence, and moreover, allied as they are by the character 

 of their language to the above two sections of the population of 

 Himalaya or the Awalias and the broken tribes, (see Essay 

 referred to above). The Chiefs or kings of the Kirantis were 



# Potius Khombn. The intercalated "w" is a dialectic peculiarity of Balling, 



2 j, 



