94 GEORGE D-S-DUNBAR ON 



the IyO-nakpo in Galong and Minyong Abor country; and the Lo-tawa in the area 

 occupied by the Padam Abors between the Dihang and the Dibang. The remarks 

 made by earlier explorers, and others interested in this part of the world, are of some 

 interest. Hodgson writes that the Yaru (or Brahmaputra) passed from Khombo into 

 Lhokaptra beneath a great snowy mountain called Khombochari. This we may con- 

 clude is Namshia Barwa. Other writers such as Fr. Horace Delia Penna refer to what 

 we know as the Abors, as L,hopas : the Barkans or L,ho-ka-ptra of Fr. Georgius 

 to the north of the Subansiri tribes may be the Boka. The Abor country is called 

 indifferently IJioga, Lhopa, Lhoba and L,hokalo. : 



Immediately below the gorge of the Tsanpo the country is precipitous and here 

 the Abors have been left undisturbed in their struggle to scratch and snatch a liveli- 

 hood from their wretched jhums and the none too prolific jungle. Iyower down now 

 on one bank, now on the other, the country offers more favourable opportunities for 

 the agriculturist — a term that it is impossible, in spite of his vSisyphean industry, to 

 apply to the Abor — and here mixed communities of Abor and Memba are to be found. 

 On this fringe of the Memba country nature and the earlier inhabitants have com- 

 bined to drag the more cultured race down to the level of its surroundings. The 

 Abor type consequently predominates, the houses are poor and the roofs are thatched 

 instead of planked, while the Memba principles of agriculture, that include wet rice 

 cultivation and ploughing with cattle, are completely discouraged. 



To the south of this inhospitable zone lies the Memba country proper, easy, pros- 

 perous and placid where rice fields stretch between the comfortable solid-built hamlets 

 with the high stone monastery, or temple, on its knoll above the village; where the 

 roads are carefully graded when they cross the deep ravines that here and there 

 intersect the broad terraces of fields; and where the rivers are spanned with excellent 

 bridges, some cantilever suspension, that display engineering ability of no mean 

 order, being built of baulks and planks of the stoutest description, without a 

 nail or fastening of any sort, and with good solid masonry work. All this comes as a 

 very welcome change for the traveller who has emerged from the less hospitable 

 Abor country below. 



On the right bank the most fertile portions of the valley extend from a little 

 above Marpung down to Shirang. Tuting, in which one Memba family has recently 

 settled, is the most northern Abor village on the right bank, until the mixed Tangam 

 Memba villages below the gorge are reached. The left bank above Jido x was not 



1 p. 6, of Memoir. See also Proc. A.S B. Feb. 1913, p. 116 with foot-note, and Explorations on Tsanpo by the 

 Explorer Kinthup, Survey of India, Dehra Dun, 1911. Sarat Chandra Das. on the authority of Lama SarapGyatso, 

 gives three different tribes of " Lhopas " — the Lho-Karpo, '• white and somewhat civilized, " the L,ho-Nagpo, " black and 

 a little less civilized," and the Lho-Tawas, " mottled and quite barbarous Lopas." He also calls this tribe the I<o- 

 khabta. As the Lho-tawas " on the left bank of the lower part of the Tsanpo " were stated to indulge in cannibalistic 

 rites during their marriage ceremonies (eating the bride's mother if no wild men were procurable), the epithet seems 

 appropriate enough. While the nearest approach to this is found in the horrible custom of the wilder Mishmis, who 

 actually kill the old and infirm to relieve the community of the burden of supporting them, it may be observed that 

 our arrival in the Memba country was heralded by the report that we were cannibals. See also p. 5 of this Memoir. 



2 Jido was visited by Captain Bethell, 10th Gurkha Rifles, serving with the L,akhirnpur Battalion, Military Police. 

 He crossed by the 780 foot cane tubular bridge at Kodak and found Jido to consist of 40 houses and Ngamying of 60. 

 He noted, as Kinthup did before him, that there is an excellent bridge over the Yang Sang Chu. 



