36 
P. R. T. Gurdon— The Morans. 
[No. 1, 
The Mortons, — By Major P. R. T. Gurdon, Superintendent of Ethno¬ 
graphy in Assam . 
[Read June, 1903.] 
Mr. Gait in the Census Report of 1891 stated that it is evident that 
the Morans belong to the great Bodo group ; at the time of that Census 
I made a collection of a few Moran words which I forwarded to the 
Census Superintendent, who was of opinion that Moran is only a variety 
of Bodo or Kachari. That this diagnosis was right there will be little 
doubt if the vocabulary attached to this note is examined. It will be 
seen that I have given the English with its Moran, Kachari (modern), 
Dimasa or Hills Kachari, and Hodgson’s Bodo, (which is probably Mech), 
equivalents. At once the very strong affinity between the four languages 
will be evident. Take the numerals. “One” is the same in all four 
languages, e. gS3, Se or Stoi , Si and Ghe. The word ne ( two), in Moran and 
Kachari becomes gini in Dimasa and gni in Mech. Sam (three) in Moran 
becomes Tham in Kachari, gatham in Dimasa, and tham in Mech. The 
word for six is the same in all four languages. The word for fish, nto , 
which is identical in the first three languages becomes gnto in Hodgson’s 
Bodo, and compare the Burmese gntopi and the Garo nathu. The word 
for “Egg” in all four languages is Daodi, and what is still more remark¬ 
able, each of the four languages expresses the word for egg in exactly 
the same manner, dao meaning fowl and di water, dao m di therefore 
signifies fowl’s water. With reference to dao, it may be noted that it is 
a generic word, daokhto meaning a crow, being evidently an onomatopoeic 
sound, daokha signifying the “caw-caw” bird. 
There seems to have been a considerable amount of confusion regard¬ 
ing the Morans. In the Census Report of 1881 it was stated that the 
meaning of the word Moran is not very clear, but that the name Moran 
was applied to the upper portion of the Matak country and is now used to 
designate the extensive tract of waste land to the East and North-East of 
