OF KAMAON. 21 



omens decides the question. The office of diviner appears to be assumed 

 indiscriminately by all males of good age ; certain previous purifications 

 are undergone on each occasion. 



The Bhotias ought necessarily to have no distinctions of caste : the 

 Mana, Niti, and Jinvar Bhotias, however, pretend to consider those of 

 the Darma and JByanse Ghats as an inferior sect, and neither eat nor 

 intermarry with them. The descendants of the first colonists in the 

 villages at the mouths of the Ghats, who now confine their pursuits 

 to agriculture, and maintain no direct intercourse with Tibet, affect similar 

 pretensions in regard to the Bhotias within the Ghats, while all unite 

 in assumptions of superiority to the Natives of Tibet, though on their 

 annual visits to that country, they are compelled to drink tea at the 

 houses of their several correspondents, such ceremony being there an 

 indispensable preliminary to every commercial dealing. Of late years, 

 the Juwdr Bhotias have affected to imitate the niceties and scruples of 

 Hindus, in regard to food, and have assumed the designation of " *Sm/i;" 

 but they have derived no consideration from these pretensions, and con- 

 tinue to be regarded with abhorrence by the Hindus, as descendants from 

 a cow-killing race. The policy which may have dictated this line of con- 

 duct having now ceased, with the abrogation of the Brahminical govern- 

 ment, it may be expected that these pretensions will gradually disappear, 

 and that the Bhotias will relapse into the unscrupulous habits of their 

 Tartar ancestors. 



In the institution of marriage, the inclinations and will of the fe- 

 male appear to have greater weight than is common in the east, both in 

 regard to the formation of such engagements, and in the subsequent 

 domestic management. Contracts are formed at an early age, but the 

 marriage is not commonly concluded till the parties arrive at maturity. 



o- Should 



