1855.] Notes on Northern Cacliar. 625 



so churlish an act, as refusal of admittance to a party returning 

 fatigued from the chase. Several of the Kookies were transported 

 for this offence, and it has on the whole had a beneficial effect upon 

 them, showing the power and determination of our Government to 

 punish all outrages. Notwithstanding this and several other petty 

 disturbances and quarrels, the new Kookies cannot be characterised 

 as a turbulent race, but on the contrary as one well under control, 

 and easily managed. 



Eor three years after their settlement in N. Cachar, they were 

 exempted from paying any revenue to the state, after which time, 

 they were regularly assessed at an uniform rate of one rupee per 

 house per annum. No European officer being present in the hills 

 on their first arrival, the hills being left very much to the manage- 

 ment of Cacharees, the new comers fell into the hands of this class 

 and were subjected to a great deal of petty oppression and extortion 

 and the influence that these men obtained over them, as ministers 

 under us, and on other pretexts, has not yet been entirely done 

 away with. 



As subjects, the Kookies must always be looked upon, under 

 existing circumstances, as a poorer class than any of their neighbours, 

 for not only have they to pay the revenue exacted from them by us, 

 which is indeed equitable and light, but they support among them- 

 selves a form of government which must be both expensive and 

 oppressive. Each of the four clans is divided into separate and 

 independent Rajahlics, of greater or less power and numbers, con- 

 sisting of one or more villages, each of which is presided over by a 

 hereditary chief or liajah, whose power is supreme, and who has a 

 civil list as long, in proportion to the means of his subjects, as that 

 possessed by any other despot in the world. All these Eajahs are 

 supposed to have sprung from the same stock, which it is believed 

 originally had connexion with the gods themselves, their persons are 

 therefore, looked upon with the greatest respect and almost supersti- 

 tious veneration, and their commands are in every case law. The reve- 

 nue exacted by these chieftains is paid in kind and labour. In the 

 former each able-bodied man pays annually a basket of rice containing 

 about two maunds : out of each brood of pigs or fowls reared iu the 

 village, one of the young becomes the property of the Rajah, and 



4 n 2 



