1855.] Notes on Northern Cachar. 633 



indeed the Manipurees, who were but eighty or ninety years ago a 

 tribe of Kookies, have thrown aside their old faith and embraced 

 Hinduism ; and therefore, there is every reason to believe that 

 these superstitions are not deeply rooted in the minds of the tribe. 



I feel confident that a zealous missionary with a good medicine 

 chest, and some slight knowledge of the healing art, who would take 

 the trouble to associate with the people, live among them, acquire 

 their language and obtain a knowledge of the general character of 

 the tribe, would in a short time make numbers of converts, and 

 tend in a great measure to raise the remainder from the depths of 

 ignorance and filth into which they are plunged. 



The Kookies are naturally a migratory race, never occupying the 

 same place for more than two or at the utmost three years at a time, 

 but removing to new sites as soon as they have exhausted the land 

 in the immediate vicinity of their villages which they appear to do 

 in much less time than any of the other tribes. 



The rice raised by the Kookies, and indeed the whole of their 

 agricultural produce, is of a much superior quality to that of the 

 Cacharees and Nagas, which may be owing to their not tasking the 

 soil to the same extent, but abandoning it after the first or second 

 crop. They are extensive growers of cotton of a very good quali- 

 ty, and carry on a large trade with merchants from Cachar, who 

 come up to the hills to buy their crops, bartering the raw material 

 for vessels and ornaments of iron and brass, and live poultry, the 

 latter being considered equivalent to their weight in cotton, and 

 the Bengali beparies frequently obtain some extra pounds by making 

 the fowls swallow a few ounces of lead each before being weighed. 



Migratory though the Kookies be, their villages have a much 

 more permanent and finished appearance than those of their neigh- 

 bours. They sometimes consist of as many as a thousand houses, 

 but the difficulty of finding sufficient quantity of arable land, for 

 the supply of such a large population in any one place, causes them 

 to split into different communities and occupy sites considerably 

 removed from each other, and thus in N. Cachar the largest villages 

 do not exceed three hundred houses. When separated in this 

 manner the Rajah generally takes up his abode with the largest 

 party, the others being placed under Thtishois, or members of his 



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