604 Notes on Northern Cachar. [No. 7, 



necessary to make these sterile bills yield fertile crop3 of almost 

 any kind. By means of the hoe (a rude and uncouth instrument, 

 consisting merely of a wooden handle about two feet in length, with 

 a piece of iron attached to the end of it, something in the manner 

 of an adze, only not on such a large scale) the soil lying below the 

 ashes is turned up and mixed with them in the places between the 

 stumps of the burned bamboos, which are still left to cumber the 

 ground. Nor is the immunity enjoyed by these stumps, the effect 

 of indolence or a desire to save labour at the expense of the crop on 

 the part of the cultivators, but, on the contrary, an established 

 custom, which experience has forced them to adopt, for these roots 

 and stumps serve in a great measure to prevent the loose soil being 

 washed away from the faces of the hills, and furthermore facilitate the 

 re-growth of the jungle, when cultivation on the spot is abandoned. 

 The soil being thus prepared, the seeds are dropped in, nor is care 

 taken to allot to different vegetables, different spaces, but paddy, 

 sugar-cane, tobacco and cotton are all found growing in the same 

 beds. The harvest is reaped in September or October, sometimes 

 even as late as November and December, and the ground may be 

 again made to yield for another year or two, according to the custom 

 of the cultivators or the richness of the soil. The Purbuttia Cacha- 

 rees plant the same ground for two years at a time. When the land 

 is considered exhausted, jungle is allowed to re-cover it, the bamboo 

 again springs up in its old locality, and in the course of between 

 seven and ten years, the soil is once more fit to be brought under cul- 

 tivation. This is the only kind of culture practised in N. Cachar, and 

 is common to all the tribes with very trifling variations. The Meekirs 

 and old Kookies, as well as some of the new Kookies, cut down the 

 forest in the low lands as well as bamboo jungle, and put it through 

 the same process, cultivating on the same spot for four or five years- 

 but forest-cutting is more laborious than bamboo-cutting, and the 

 trees take thirty or forty years to grow up again when the ground 

 is abandoned. 



2nd, Meekirs. — Of this tribe the tradition is as follows. They 

 were originally settled in Toolaram's country, under chiefs of their 

 own. Being conquered by the Rajah of Cachar, they fled to Jynteah 

 for protection, and meeting with great oppression from that state, 



