1S52.] Notes on the Heumd or " Shendoos" 209 



from hearsay, but emissaries from the last mentioned place had been 

 as far as his town of Bookee, demanding tribute, which they had 

 received last year from him in the shape of a musket, a dog, a large 

 pig, and a bundle of cotton-thread and one of cotton-wool from each 

 house. 



From these particulars I am inclined to suppose Hekka is not a 

 Shendoo town at all, but a district in Burmah. In Pemberton's map the 

 only name resembling this that I can find is " Aika" which does not 

 however appear marked as the capital of any division or district, and is 

 moreover some way to the S. E. of the Shendoo mountains, about 94° 

 E. Long, and 21° 40' N. Lat. quite out of the direction described by 

 my informant. It appears moreover that the people of Mowtoo, 

 Tantlang and Hekka, speak a different dialect to the Heuma language. 

 This may probably then be Burmese, but Lebbey's entire ignorance of 

 that language prevented my ascertaining this point. 



The houses of the Heuma, he tells me, are made of timbers by the 

 more opulent, and of bamboos by the poorer classes ; thatched with 

 grass, and all on raised platforms, a peculiarity common to the Mon- 

 golian races from eastward of the Hindu Koosh down to Borneo. 

 They are rich in poultry and pigs, and cultivate the grains usually 

 raised in jungly hills, such as maize, bajra, and hill rice, [of this but 

 little], also plantains, yams, kudoos, ginger, cotton, til, linseed, and 

 sugar-cane, [of which they make no use beyond eating it in its natural 

 state.] 



They prize dogs as food, and also all sorts of game [deer, wild pigs, 

 &c] and elephants, the flesh of which they are very fond of. With 

 fish they are almost unacquainted, having indeed no other name for it, 

 than the Burmese one of Nga. 



The elephants are generally shot with large heavy arrows, set in 

 trap bows of immense size, the plan of which by description must be 

 very similar to that of the bows set by our Bughmars in India. The 

 Shendoos however set two, pointing inwards, both connected by the 

 same line that pulls the trigger, so that the animal passing through 

 or touching the line with his foot, receives an arrow into each side. 

 This double dose is the more necessary, as the Shendoos appear quite 

 unacquainted with the use of any venomous poison. Elephant's teeth 

 form one of their principal articles of barter. 



