152 On the Boksas of Bijnour. [No. 3, 
which, however, was only heard locally. Singular enough, the Tharoos 
as Madden mentions, apply a special name Koron, to that tree. But 
little stress, however, can be laid on any, specially in the names of 
plants, which, with the natives of other parts of India, are often found 
to alter within a few miles, even among the same or closely allied 
tribes. 
There are some peculiarities in the boli of the Boksas by which one 
of them is at once recognized by members of their own or other tribes. 
Thus nis constantly substituted for 7, as sdén for sdl and nath for 
lath, and less frequently changed into 7, and n into /, as dari for ddl 
and thalela for thanela. Two of these changes are often met together, 
as Baglana, which is very often substituted for Bagnala, the name of 
their chief village. One is struck also by a dialectic manner of 
pronunciation, which alters the short a, and occasionally the long a of 
Hindustani, into a sound approaching that of the French eu. Thus, 
Boksa is called Boksuh, and achha stikha rahté hai is pronounced 
achhuh sikhuh rahtuh hac. 
The earliest historical indication of the existence of the Boksas 
consists in the circumstance of a certain division of the Chourassi 
Mull in Rohilkhund, nearly 300 years ago, having been called 
Boksér, a term which is now, as then, applied to a tract of country 
thickly inhabited by them (as well as to the tribe, and sometimes 
to a single village of the Boksas). With regard to the traditional 
origin of the race, the clear and connected statements given by 
Elliot and Batten on this head are by no means borne out by the 
discrepant and, in some cases, absurd scraps of information which only 
these western Boksas, and the three purohits who are their spiritual 
guides, can impart. The writers mentioned, state that the traditions 
of the Boksas make them out to be Powar Rajputs descended from 
Oodya Jeet, (or his relative Jug Deo) and his followers, who in the 12th 
century left his native place in Rajputdna on account of family quarrels 
and came, either mediately or directly, to settle here. 
In reply to the inquiries I made on these points, instead of 
frequently, or at all getting a connected account like the above, 
the only assertions that most of these Boksas agreed in, were two, 
viz., that they are of Rajput origin, although they confess that the 
Rajputs of the plains hold them impure on account of their less cleanly 
