648 Notes on Northern Cacliar. [No. 7. 



This when rendered into the modern dialect, without reference to 

 the metre is as follows : — 



Keiyong " Jolkhenga" chenading kadoiye 



" Chaltui" Chinga, " Kimlenem" ahaina kagnaiye 



Chal akdn to bunge ka oome. 



Chaltui tang or ching means the mountain of "chaltui," chal 

 and tui being two words signifying bamboos and water. The com- 

 parison of himself to a bent bamboo, by the poet, may therefore, 

 have some punning reference to the name of the mountain, on which 

 his mistress is sighing. These old songs are the only ones generally 

 known, and common to all. There are also modern compositions 

 among the people, but each man is generally his own poet, and 

 musical composer, and his works die with him. The Kookies use 

 a musical instrument called the " ghoshem," which consists of a 

 hollowed pumpkin, into which are inserted seven bamboo pipes, 

 which are regulated by stops, a mouth-piece is inserted at the stalk 

 end of the pumpkin, and the different notes are produced both by 

 inspiration and respiration. It is an instrument of no great power 

 but has a soft and pleasing sound. Chimes are also beaten upon 

 gongs of different sizes with good effect. The largest of these gongs 

 are sometimes upwards of two feet in diameter, and have a fine deep 

 sound ; they are valued at about thirty or forty rupees each. A small 

 gong about six inches or less in diameter is used as a war-gong, 

 and is beaten during battle by an individual appointed for the pur- 

 pose. The sound can be heard for four or five miles round. This 

 gong is attached to the families of the Eajahs, and is handed down 

 as an heir-loom of great value, and is consequently never parted with. 



The manufacture of gongs is not carried on among the Kookies : 

 they were brought originally from their own country, and are doubt- 

 less of Burmese handiwork. 



The Kookies bury their dead, and no religious rite appears to be 

 attached to the ceremony. The bodies, even of the poor are kept 

 above ground as long as possible, and during that time the house 

 of the deceased is open to all comers, who walk in and look at the 

 corpse, and are entertained at the expense of the estate of the 

 deceased. Indeed to such an extent is this love for lying in state 

 carried, that the bodies of wealthy men, or of Eajahs, are dried 



