View from Mr. Hodgson’s of range of snowy mountains—Their extent and
elevation—Delusive appearance of elevation—Sinchul, view from and
vegetation of—Chumulari—Magnolias, white and purple—Rhododendron
Dalhousiæ, arboreum and argenteum—Natives of Dorjiling—Lepchas, origin,
tradition of flood, morals, dress, arms, ornaments, diet—cups, origin
and value—Marriages—Diseases—Burial—Worship and religion—Bijooas—Kampa
Rong, or Arratt—Limboos, origin, habits, language,
etc.—Moormis—Magras—Mechis—Comparison of customs with those of the
natives of Assam, Khasia, etc.
The summer, or rainy season of 1848, was passed at or near Dorjiling,
during which period I chiefly occupied myself in forming collections,
and in taking meteorological observations. I resided at Mr Hodgson’s
for the greater part of the time, in consequence of his having given me
a hospitable invitation to consider his house my home. The view from
his windows is one quite unparalleled for the scenery it embraces,
commanding confessedly the grandest known landscape of snowy mountains
in the Himalaya, and hence in the world.[33] Kinchinjunga (forty-five
miles distant) is the prominent object, rising 21,000 feet above the
level of the observer out of a sea of intervening wooded hills; whilst,
on a line with its snows, the eye descends below the horizon, to a
narrow gulf 7000 feet deep in the mountains, where the Great Rungeet,
white with foam, threads a tropical forest with a silver line.
[33] For an account of the geography of these regions, and the
relation of the Sikkim Himalaya to Tibet, etc., see Appendix.
To the north-west towards Nepal, the snowy peaks of Kubra and Junnoo
(respectively 24,005 feet and 25,312 feet) rise over the shoulder of
Singalelah; whilst eastward the snowy mountains appear to form an
unbroken range, trending north-east to the great mass of Donkia (23,176
feet) and thence south-east by the fingered peaks of Tunkola and the
silver cone of Chola, (17,320 feet) gradually sinking into the Bhotan
mountains at Gipmoochi (14,509 feet). The most eloquent descriptions I
have read fail to convey to my mind’s eye the forms and colours of
snowy mountains, or to my imagination the sensations and impressions
that rivet my attention to these sublime phenomena when they are
present in reality; and I shall not therefore obtrude any attempt of
the kind upon my reader. The latter has probably seen the Swiss Alps,
which, though barely possessing half the sublimity, extent, or height
of the Himalaya, are yet far more beautiful. In either case he is
struck with the precision and sharpness of their outlines, and still
more with the wonderful play of colours on their snowy flanks, from the
glowing hues reflected in orange, gold and ruby, from clouds illumined
by the sinking or rising sun, to the ghastly pallor that succeeds with
twilight, when the red seems to give place to its complementary colour
green. Such dissolving-views elude all attempts at description, they
are far too aerial to be chained to the memory, and fade from it so
fast as to be gazed upon day after day, with undiminished admiration
and pleasure, long after the mountains themselves have lost their
sublimity and apparent height.
The actual extent of the snowy range seen from Mr. Hodgson’s windows is
comprised within an arc of 80° (from north 30° west to north 50° east),
or nearly a quarter of the horizon, along which the perpetual snow
forms an unbroken girdle or crest of frosted silver; and in winter,
when the mountains are covered down to 8000 feet, this white ridge
stretches uninterruptedly for more than 160°. No known view is to be
compared with this in extent, when the proximity and height of the
mountains are considered; for within the 80° above mentioned more than
twelve peaks rise above 20,000 feet, and there are none below 15,000
feet, while Kinchin is 28,178, and seven others above 22,000. The
nearest perpetual snow is on Nursing, a beautifully sharp conical peak
19,139 feet high, and thirty-two miles distant; the most remote
mountain seen is Donkia, 23,176 feet high, and seventy-three miles
distant; whilst Kinchin, which forms the principal mass both for height
and bulk, is exactly forty-five miles distant.
On first viewing this glorious panorama, the impression produced on the
imagination by their prodigious elevation is, that the peaks tower in
the air and pierce the clouds, and such are the terms generally used in
descriptions of similar alpine scenery; but the observer, if he look
again, will find that even the most stupendous occupy a very low
position on the horizon, the top of Kinchin itself measuring only 4°
31" above the level of the observer! Donkia again, which is 23,176 feet
above the sea, or about 15,700 above Mr. Hodgson’s, rises only 1° 55"
above the horizon; an angle which is quite inappreciable to the eye,
when unaided by instruments.[34]
[34] These are the apparent angles which I took from Mr. Hodgson’s
house (alt. 7300 feet) with an excellent theodolite, no deduction
being made for refraction.
This view may be extended a little by ascending Sinchul, which rises a
thousand feet above the elevation of Mr. Hodgson’s house, and is a few
miles south-east of Dorjiling: from its summit Chumulari (23,929 feet)
is seen to the north-east, at eighty-four miles distance, rearing its
head as a great rounded mass over the snowy Chola range, out of which
it appears to rise, although in reality lying forty miles beyond;—so
deceptive is the perspective of snowy~mountains. To the north-west
again, at upwards of 100 miles distance, a beautiful group of snowy
mountains rises above the black Singalelah range, the chief being,
perhaps, as high as Kinchinjunga, from which it is fully eighty miles
distant to the westward; and between them no mountain of considerable
altitude intervenes; the Nepalese Himalaya in that direction sinking
remarkably towards the Arun river, which there enters Nepal from Tibet.
The top of Sinchul is a favourite excursion from Dorjiling, being very
easy of access, and the path abounding in rare and beautiful plants,
and passing through magnificent forests of oak, magnolia, and
rhododendron; while the summit, besides embracing this splendid view of
the snowy range over the Dorjiling spur in the foreground, commands
also the plains of India, with the courses of the Teesta, Mahanuddee,
Balasun and Mechi rivers. In the months of April and May, when the
magnolias and rhododendrons are in blossom, the gorgeous vegetation is,
in some respects, not to be surpassed by anything in the tropics; but
the effect is much marred by the prevailing gloom of the weather. The
white-flowered magnolia (_M. excelsa,_ Wall,) forms a predominant tree
at 7000 to 8000 feet; and in 1848 it blossomed so profusely, that the
forests on the broad flanks of Sinchul, and other mountains of that
elevation, appeared as if sprinkled with snow. The purple-flowered kind
again (_M. Campbellii_) hardly occurs below 8000 feet, and forms an
immense, but very ugly, black-barked, sparingly branched tree, leafless
in winter and also during the flowering season, when it puts forth from
the ends of its branches great rose-purple cup-shaped flowers, whose
fleshy petals strew the ground. On its branches, and on those of oaks
and laurels, _Rhododendron Dalhousiæ_ grows epiphytically, a slender
shrub, bearing from three to six white lemon-scented bells, four and a
half inches long and as many broad, at the end of each branch. In the
same woods the scarlet rhododendron (_R. arboreum_) is very scarce, and
is outvied by the great _R. argenteum,_ which grows as a tree forty
feet high, with magnificent leaves twelve to fifteen inches long, deep
green, wrinkled above and silvery below, while the flowers are as large
as those of _R. Dalhousiæ,_ and grow more in a cluster. I know nothing
of the kind that exceeds in beauty the flowering branch of _R.
argenteum,_ with its wide spreading foliage and glorious mass of
flowers. Oaks, laurels, maples, birch, chesnut, hydrangea, a species of
fig (which is found on the very summit), and three Chinese and Japanese
genera, are the principal features of the forest; the common bushes
being _Aucuba, Skimmia,_ and the curious _Helwingia,_ which bears
little clusters of flowers on the centre of the leaf, like
butcher’s-broom. In spring immense broad-leaved arums spring up, with
green or purple-striped hoods, that end in tail-like threads, eighteen
inches long, which lie along the ground; and there are various kinds of
_Convallaria, Paris, Begonia,_ and other beautiful flowering herbs.
Nearly thirty ferns may be gathered on this excursion, including many
of great beauty and rarity, but the tree-fern does not ascend so high.
Grasses are very rare in these woods, excepting the dwarf bamboo, now
cultivated in the open air in England.
Before proceeding to narrate my different expeditions into Sikkim and
Nepal from Dorjiling, I shall give a sketch of the different peoples
and races composing the heterogeneous population of Sikkim and the
neighbouring mountains.
The Lepcha is the aboriginal inhabitant of Sikkim, and the prominent
character in Dorjiling, where he undertakes all sorts of out-door
employment. The race to which he belongs is a very singular one;
markedly Mongolian in features, and a good deal too, by imitation, in
habit; still he differs from his Tibetan prototype, though not so
decidedly as from the Nepalese and Bhotanese, between whom he is hemmed
into a narrow tract of mountain country, barely 60 miles in breadth.
The Lepchas possess a tradition of the flood, during which a couple
escaped to the top of a mountain (Tendong) near Dorjiling. The earliest
traditions which they have of their history date no further back than
some three hundred years, when they describe themselves as having been
long-haired, half-clad savages. At about that period they were visited
by Tibetans, who introduced Boodh worship, the platting of their hair
into pig-tails, and very many of their own customs. Their physiognomy
is however so Tibetan in its character, that it cannot be supposed that
this was their earliest intercourse with the trans-nivean races:
whether they may have wandered from beyond the snows before the spread
of Boodhism and its civilisation, or whether they are a cross between
the Tamulian of India and the Tibetan, has not been decided. Their
language, though radically identical with Tibetan, differs from it in
many important particulars. They, or at least some of their tribes,
call themselves Rong, and Arratt, and their country Dijong: they once
possessed a great part of East Nepal, as far west as the Tambur river,
and at a still earlier period they penetrated as far west as the Arun
river.
An attentive examination of the Lepcha in one respect entirely
contradicts our preconceived notions of a mountaineer, as he is timid,
peaceful, and no brawler; qualities which are all the more remarkable
from contrasting so strongly with those of his neighbours to the east
and west: of whom the Ghorkas are brave and warlike to a proverb, and
the Bhotanese quarrelsome, cowardly, and cruel. A group of Lepchas is
exceedingly picturesque. They are of short stature—four feet eight
inches to five feet—rather broad in the chest, and with muscular arms,
but small hands and slender wrists.[35] The face is broad, flat, and of
eminently Tartar character, flat-nosed and oblique-eyed, with no beard,
and little moustache; the complexion is sallow, or often a clear olive;
the hair is collected into an immense tail, plaited flat or round. The
lower limbs are powerfully developed, befitting genuine mountaineers:
the feet are small. Though never really handsome, and very womanish in
the cast of countenance, they have invariably a mild, frank, and even
engaging expression, which I have in vain sought to analyse, and which
is perhaps due more to the absence of anything unpleasing, than to the
presence of direct grace or beauty. In like manner, the girls are often
very engaging to look upon, though without one good feature they are
all smiles and good-nature; and the children are frank, lively,
laughing urchins. The old women are thorough hags. Indolence, when left
to themselves, is their besetting sin; they detest any fixed
employment, and their foulness of person and garments renders them
disagreeable inmates: in this rainy climate they are supportable out of
doors. Though fond of bathing when they come to a stream in hot
weather, and expert, even admirable swimmers, these people never take
to the water for the purpose of ablution. In disposition they are
amiable and obliging, frank, humorous, and polite, without the
servility of the Hindoos; and their address is free and unrestrained.
Their intercourse with one another and with Europeans is scrupulously
honest; a present is divided equally amongst many, without a syllable
of discontent or grudging look or word: each, on receiving his share,
coming up and giving the donor a brusque bow and thanks. They have
learnt to overcharge already, and use extortion in dealing, as is the
custom with the people of the plains; but it is clumsily done, and
never accompanied with the grasping air and insufferable whine of the
latter. They are constantly armed with a long, heavy, straight
knife,[36] but never draw it on one another: family and political feuds
are alike unheard of amongst them.
[35] I have seldom been able to insert my own wrist (which is smaller
than the average) into the wooden guard which the Lepcha wears on his
left, as a protection against the bow-string: it is a curved ring of
wood with an opening at one side, through which, by a little
stretching, the wrist is inserted.
[36] It is called “Ban,” and serves equally for plough, toothpick,
table-knife, hatchet, hammer, and sword.
[Illustration: Lepcha girl and Bhoodist Lama]
The Lepcha is in morals far superior to his Tibet and Bhotan
neighbours, polyandry being unknown, and polygamy rare. This is no
doubt greatly due to the conventual system not being carried to such an
excess as in Bhotan, where the ties of relationship even are
disregarded.
Like the New Zealander, Tasmanian, Fuegian, and natives of other
climates, which, though cold, are moist and equable, the Lepcha’s dress
is very scanty, and when we are wearing woollen under-garments and
hose, he is content with one cotton vesture, which is loosely thrown
round the body, leaving one or both arms free; it reaches to the knee,
and is gathered round the waist: its fabric is close, the ground colour
white, ornamented with longitudinal blue stripes, two or three fingers
broad, prettily worked with red and white. When new and clean, this
garb is remarkably handsome and gay, but not showy. In cold weather an
upper garment with loose sleeves is added. A long knife, with a common
wooden handle, hangs by the side, stuck in a sheath; he has often also
a quiver of poisoned arrows and a bamboo[37] bow across his back. On
his right wrist is a curious wooden guard for the bowstring; and a
little pouch, containing aconite poison and a few common implements, is
suspended to his girdle. A hat he seldom wears, and when he does, it is
often extravagantly broad and flat-brimmed, with a small hemispherical
crown. It is made of leaves of _Scitamineæ,_ between two thin plates of
bamboo-work, clumsy and heavy; this is generally used in the rainy
weather, while in the dry a conical one is worn, also of platted slips
of bamboo, with broad flakes of talc between the layers, and a
peacock’s feather at the side. The umbrella consists of a large hood,
much like the ancient boat called a coracle, which being placed over
the head reaches to the thighs behind. It is made of platted bamboo,
enclosing broad leaves of _Phrynium._ A group of Lepchas with these on,
running along in the pelting rain, are very droll figures; they look
like snails with their shells on their backs. All the Lepchas are fond
of ornaments, wearing silver hoops in their ears, necklaces made of
cornelian, amber, and turquoise, brought from Tibet, and pearls and
corals from the south, with curious silver and golden charm-boxes or
amulets attached to their necks or arms. These are of Tibetan
workmanship, and often of great value: they contain little idols,
charms and written prayers, or the bones, hair, or nail-parings of a
Lama: some are of great beauty, and highly ornamented. In these
decorations, and in their hair, they take some pride, the ladies
frequently dressing the latter for the gentlemen: thus one may often
see, the last thing at night, a damsel of discreet port, demurely go
behind a young man, unplait his pig-tail, teaze the hair, thin it of
some of its lively inmates, braid it up for him, and retire. The women
always wear two braided pig-tails, and it is by this they are most
readily distinguished from their effeminate-looking partners, who wear
only one.[38] When in full dress, the woman’s costume is extremely
ornamental and picturesque; besides the shirt and petticoat she wears a
small sleeveless woollen cloak, of gay pattern, usually covered with
crosses, and fastened in front by a girdle of silver chains. Her neck
is loaded with silver chains, amber necklaces, etc., and her head
adorned with a coronet of scarlet cloth, studded with seed-pearls,
jewels, glass beads, etc. The common dress is a long robe of indi, a
cloth of coarse silk, spun from the cocoon of a large caterpillar that
is found wild at the foot of the hills, and is also cultivated: it
feeds on many different leaves, Sal (_Shorea_), castor-oil, etc.
[37] The bamboo, of which the quiver is made, is thin and light: it is
brought from Assam, and called Tulda, or Dulwa, by the Bengalees.
[38] Ermann (Travels in Siberia, ii. p. 204) mentions the Buraet women
as wearing two tails, and fillets with jewels, and the men as having
one queue only.
In diet, they are gross feeders;[39] rice, however, forming their chief
sustenance; it is grown without irrigation, and produces a large, flat,
coarse grain, which becomes gelatinous, and often pink, when cooked.
Pork is a staple dish: and they also eat elephant, and all kinds of
animal food. When travelling, they live on whatever they can find,
whether animal or vegetable. Fern-tops, roots of _Scitamineæ,_ and
their flower-buds, various leaves (it is difficult to say what not),
and fungi, are chopped up, fried with a little oil, and eaten. Their
cooking is coarse and dirty. Salt is costly, but prized; pawn (Betel
pepper) is never eaten. Tobacco they are too poor to buy, and too
indolent to grow and cure. Spices, oil, etc. are relished.
[39] Dr. Campbell’s definition of the Lepcha’s _Flora cibaria,_ is,
that he eats, or must have eaten, everything soft enough to chew; for,
as he knows whatever is poisonous, he must have tried all; his
knowledge being wholly empirical.
They drink out of little wooden cups, turned from knots of maple, or
other woods; these are very curious on several accounts; they are very
pretty, often polished, and mounted with silver. Some are supposed to
be antidotes against poison, and hence fetch an enormous price; they
are of a peculiar wood, rarer and paler-coloured. I have paid a guinea
for one such, hardly different from the common sort, which cost but
4_d._ or 6_d._ MM. Huc and Gabet graphically allude to this
circumstance, when wishing to purchase cups at Lhassa, where their
price is higher, as they are all imported from the Himalaya. The knots
from which they are formed, are produced on the roots of oaks, maples,
and other mountain forest trees, by a parasitical plant, known to
botanists, as _Balanophora._
Their intoxicating drink, which seems more to excite than to debauch
the mind, is partially fermented. Murwa grain (_Eleusine Coracana_).
Spirits are rather too strong to be relished raw, and when a glass of
wine is given to one of a party, he sips it, and hands it round to all
the rest. A long bamboo flute, with four or six burnt holes far below
the month-hole, is the only musical instrument I have seen in use among
them. When travelling, and the fatigues of the day are over, the
Lepchas will sit for hours chatting, telling stories, singing in a
monotonous tone, or blowing this flute. I have often listened with real
pleasure to the simple music of this rude instrument; its low and sweet
tones are singularly Æolian, as are the airs usually played, which fall
by octaves: it seems to harmonize with the solitude of their primæval
forests, and he must have a dull ear who cannot draw from it the
indication of a contented mind, whether he may relish its soft musical
notes or not. Though always equipped for the chase, I fancy the Lepcha
is no great sportsman; there is little to be pursued in this region,
and he is not driven by necessity to follow what there is.
Their marriages are contracted in childhood, and the wife purchased by
money, or by service rendered to the future father-in-law, the parties
being often united before the woman leaves her parents’ roof, in cases
where the payment is not forthcoming, and the bridegroom prefers giving
his and his wife’s labour to the father for a stated period in lieu. On
the time of service expiring, or the money being paid up, the marriage
is publicly celebrated by feasting and riot. The females are generally
chaste, and the marriage-tie is strictly kept, its violation being
heavily punished by divorce, beating, slavery, etc. In cases of
intermarriage with foreigners, the children belong to the father’s
country. All the labours of the house, the field, and march, devolve on
the women and children, or slaves if they have them.
Small-pox is dreaded, and infected persons often cruelly shunned: a
suspicion of this or of cholera frequently emptying a village or town
in a night. Vaccination has been introduced by Dr. Pearson, and it is
much practised by Dr. Campbell; it being eagerly sought. Cholera is
scarcely known at Dorjiling, and when it has been imported thither has
never spread. Disease is very rare amongst the Lepchas; and ophthalmic,
elephantiasis, and leprosy, the scourges of hot climates, are rarely
known. Goitre prevails,[40] though not so conspicuously as amongst.
Bhoteeas, Bhotanese, and others. Rheumatism is frequent, and
intermittent fevers, with ague; also violent and often fatal
remittents, almost invariably induced by sleeping in the hot valleys,
especially at the beginning and end of the rains. The European
complaints of liver and bowel disease are all but unknown. Death is
regarded with horror. The dead are burnt or buried, sometimes both;
much depending on custom and position. Omens are sought in the entrails
of fowls, etc., and other vestiges of their savage origin are still
preserved, though now gradually disappearing.
[40] oulder-strap in carrying loads be a predisposing cause of goitre,
by inducing congestion of the laryngeal vessels? The Lepcha is
certainly far more free from this disease than any of the tribes of E.
Nepal I have mixed with, and he is both more idle and less addicted to
the head-strap as a porter. I have seen it to be almost universal in
some villages of Bhoteeas, where the head-strap alone is used in
carrying in both summer and winter crops; as also amongst the
salt-traders, or rather those families who carry the salt from the
passes to the Nepalese villages, and who very frequently have no
shoulder-straps, but invariably head-bands. I am far from attributing
all goitre, even in the mountains, to this practice, but I think it is
proved, that the disease is most prevalent in the mountainous regions
of both the old and new world, and that in these the practice of
supporting enormous loads by the cervical muscles is frequent. It is
also found in the Himalayan sheep and goats which accompany the
salt-traders, and whose loads are supported in ascending, by a band
passing under the throat.
The Lepchas profess no religion, though acknowledging the existence of
good and bad spirits. To the good they pay no heed; “Why should we?”
they say, “the good spirits do us no harm; the evil spirits, who dwell
in every rock, grove, and mountain, are constantly at mischief, and to
them we must pray, for they hurt us.” Every tribe has a priest-doctor;
he neither knows nor attempts to practise the healing art, but is a
pure exorcist; all bodily ailments being deemed the operations of
devils, who are cast out by prayers and invocations. Still they
acknowledge the Lamas to be very holy men, and were the latter only
moderately active, they would soon convert all the Lepchas. Their
priests are called “Bijooas”: they profess mendicancy, and seem
intermediate between the begging friars of Tibet, whose dress and
attributes they assume, and the exorcists of the aboriginal Lepchas:
they sing, dance (masked and draped like harlequins), beg, bless,
curse, and are merry mountebanks; those that affect more of the Lama
Boodhist carry the “Mani,” or revolving praying machine, and wear
rosaries and amulets; others again are all tatters and rags. They are
often employed to carry messages, and to transact little knaveries. The
natives stand in some awe of them, and being besides of a generous
disposition, keep the wallet of the Bijooa always full.
Such are some of the prominent features of this people, who inhabit the
sub-Himalayas, between the Nepalese and Bhotan frontiers, at elevations
of 3000 to 6000 feet. In their relations with us, they are conspicuous
for their honesty, their power as carriers and mountaineers, and their
skill as woodsmen; for they build a waterproof house with a thatch of
banana leaves in the lower, or of bamboo in the elevated regions, and
equip it with a table and bedsteads for three persons, in an hour,
using no implement but their heavy knife. Kindness and good humour soon
attach them to your person and service. A gloomy-tempered or morose
master they avoid, an unkind one they flee. If they serve a good
hills-man like themselves, they will follow him with alacrity, sleep on
the cold, bleak mountain exposed to the pitiless rain, without a
murmur, lay down the heavy burden to carry their master over a stream,
or give him a helping hand up a rock or precipice—do anything, in
short, but encounter a foe, for I believe the Lepcha to be a veritable
coward.[41] It is well, perhaps, he is so: for if a race, numerically
so weak, were to embroil itself by resenting the injuries of the
warlike Ghorkas, or dark Bhotanese, the folly would soon lead to
destruction.
[41] Yet, during the Ghorka war, they displayed many instances of
courage: when so hard pressed, however, that there was little choice
of evils.
Before leaving the Lepchas, it may be worth mentioning that the
northern parts of the country, towards the Tibet frontier, are
inhabited by Sikkim Bhoteeas[42] (or Kumpas), a mixed race calling
themselves Kumpa Rong, or Kumpa Lepchas; but they are emigrants from
Tibet, having come with the first rajah of Sikkim. These people are
more turbulent and bolder than the Lepchas, and retain much of their
Tibetan character, and even of that of the very province from which
they came; which is north-east of Lhassa, and inhabited by robbers. All
the accounts I have received of it agree with those given by MM. Huc
and Gabet.
[42] Bhote is the general name for Tibet (not Bhotan), and Kumpa is a
large province, or district, in that country. The Bhotanese, natives
of Bhotan, or of the Dhurma country, are called Dhurma people, in
allusion to their spiritual chief, the Dhurma Rajah. They are a darker
and more powerful race, rude, turbulent, and Tibetan in language and
religion, with the worst features of those people exaggerated. The
various races of Nepal are too numerous to be alluded to here: they
are all described in various papers by Mr. Hodgson, in the “Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal.” The Dhurma people are numerous at
Dorjiling; they are often runaways, but invariably prove more
industrious settlers than the Lepchas. In the Himalaya the name Bhotan
is unknown amongst the Tibetans; it signifies literally (according to
Mr. Hodgson) the end of Bhote, or Tibet, being the eastern extreme of
that country. The Lepchas designate Bhotan as Ayeu, or Aieu, as do
often the Bhotanese themselves. Sikkim, again, is called Lhop, or
Lho’, by the Lepchas and Bhotanese.
Next to the Lepchas, the most numerous tribe in Sikkim is that of the
Limboos (called “Chung” by the Lepchas); they abound also in East
Nepal, which they once ruled, inhabiting elevations from 2000 feet to
5000 feet. They are Boodhists, and though not divided into castes,
belong to several tribes. All consider themselves as the earliest
inhabitants of the Tambur Valley, though they have a tradition of
having originally emigrated from Tibet, which their Tartar countenance
confirms. They are more slender and sinewy than the Lepchas, and
neither plait their hair nor wear ornaments; instead of the ban they
use the Nepal curved knife, called “cookree,” while for the striped
kirtle of the Lepcha are substituted loose cotton trousers and a tight
jacket; a sash is worn round the middle, and on the head a small cotton
cap. When they ruled over East Nepal, their system was feudal; and on
their uniting against the Nepalese, they were with difficulty dislodged
from their strongholds. They are said to be equally brave and cruel in
battle, putting the old and weak to the sword, carrying the younger to
slavery, and killing on the march such captives as are unable to
proceed. Many enlist at Dorjiling, which the Lepchas never do; and the
rajah of Nepal employs them in his army, where, however, they seldom
obtain promotion, this being reserved for soldiers of Hindoo tribes.
Latterly Jung Bahadur levied a force of 6000 of them, who were cantoned
at Katmandoo, where the cholera breaking out, carried off some
hundreds, causing many families who dreaded conscription to flock to
Dorjiling. Their habits are so similar to those of the Lepchas, that
they constantly intermarry. They mourn, burn, and bury their dead,
raising a mound over the corpse, erecting a headstone, and surrounding
the grave with a little paling of sticks; they then scatter eggs and
pebbles over the ground. In these offices the Bijooa of the Lepchas is
employed, but the Limboo has also priests of his own, called
“Phedangbos,” who belong to rather a higher order than the Bijooas.
They officiate at marriages, when a cock is put into the bridegroom’s
hands, and a hen into those of the bride; the Phedangbo then cuts off
the birds’ heads, when the blood is caught on a plantain leaf, and runs
into pools from which omens are drawn. At death, guns are fired, to
announce to the gods the departure of the spirit; of these there are
many, having one supreme head, and to them offerings and sacrifices are
made. They do not believe in metempsychosis.
The Limboo language is totally different from the Lepcha; with less of
the _z_ in it, and more labials and palatals, hence more pleasing. Its
affinities I do not know; it has no peculiar written character, the
Lepcha or Nagri being used. Dr. Campbell, from whom I have, derived
most of my information respecting these people, was informed,[43] on
good authority, that they had once a written language, now lost; and
that it was compounded from many others by a sage of antiquity. The
same authority stated that their Lepcha name “Chung” is a corruption of
that of their place of residence; possibly the “Tsang” province of
Tibet.
[43] See “Dorjiling Guide,” p. 89. Calcutta, 1845.
The Moormis are the only other native tribe remaining in any numbers in
Sikkim, except the Tibetans of the loftier mountains (whom I shall
mention at a future period), and the Mechis of the pestilential Terai,
the forests of which they never leave. The Moormis are a scattered
people, respecting whom I have no information, except from the
authority quoted above. They are of Tibetan origin, and called
“Nishung,” from being composed of two branches, respectively from the
districts of Nimo and Shung, both on the road between Sikkim and
Lhassa. They are now most frequent in central and eastern Nepal, and
are a pastoral and agricultural people, inhabiting elevations of 4000
to 6000 feet, and living in stone houses, thatched with grass. They are
a large, powerful, and active race, grave, very plain in features, with
little hair on the face. Both their language and religion are purely
Tibetan.
The Magras, a tribe now confined to Nepal west of the Arun, are
aborigines of Sikkim, whence they were driven by the Lepchas westward
into the country of the Limboos, and by these latter further west
still. They are said to have been savages, and not of Tibetan origin,
and are now converted to Hindooism. A somewhat mythical account of a
wild people still inhabiting the Sikkim mountains, will be alluded to
elsewhere.
It is curious to observe that these mountains do not appear to have
afforded refuge to the Tamulian[44] aborigines of India proper; all the
Himalayan tribes of Sikkim being markedly Mongolian in origin. It does
not, however, follow that they are all of Tibetan extraction; perhaps,
indeed, none but the Moormis are so. The Mechi of the Terai is
decidedly Indo-Chinese, and of the same stock as the savage races of
Assam, the north-east and east frontier of Bengal, Arracan, Burmah,
etc. Both Lepchas and Limboos had, before the introduction of Lama
Boodhism from Tibet, many features in common with the natives of
Arracan, especially in their creed, sacrifices, faith in omens, worship
of many spirits, absence of idols, and of the doctrine of
metempsychosis. Some of their customs, too, are the same; the form of
their houses and of some of their implements, their striped garments,
their constant and, dexterous use of the bamboo for all utensils, their
practice of night-attacks in war, of using poisoned arrows only in the
chase, and that of planting “crow-feet” of sharp bamboo stakes along
the paths an enemy is expected to follow. Such are but a few out of
many points of resemblance, most of which struck me when reading
Lieutenant Phayre’s account of Arracan,[45] and when travelling in the
districts of Khasia and Cachar.
[44] The Tamulians are the Coles, Dangas, etc., of the mountains of
Central India and the peninsula, who retired to mountain fastnesses,
on the invasion of their country by the Indo-Germanic conquerors, who
are now represented by the Hindoos.
[45] “Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.”
The laws affecting the distribution of plants, and the lower animals,
materially influence the migrations of man also; and as the botany,
zoology, and climate of the Malayan and Siamese peninsula advance far
westwards into India, along the foot of the Himalaya, so do also the
varieties of the human race. These features are most conspicuously
displayed in the natives of Assam, on both sides of the Burrampooter,
as far as the great bend of that river, beyond which they gradually
disappear; and none of the Himalayan tribes east of that point practise
the bloody and brutal rites in war that prevail amongst the Cookies,
Khasias, Garrows, and other Indo-Chinese tribes of the mountain forests
of Assam, Eastern Bengal, and the Malay peninsula.
I have not alluded to that evidence of the extraction of the Sikkim
races, which is to be derived from their languages, and from which we
may hope for a clue to their origin; the subject is at present under
discussion, and involved in much obscurity.
That six or seven different tribes, without any feudal system or
coercive head, with different languages and customs, should dwell in
close proximity and in peace and unity, within the confined territory
of Sikkim, even for a limited period, is an anomaly; the more
especially when it is considered that except for a tincture of the
Boodhist religion among some few of the people, they are all but
savages, as low in the scale of intellect as the New Zealander or the
Tahitian, and beneath those races in ingenuity and skill as craftsmen.
Wars have been waged amongst them, but they were neither sanguinary nor
destructive, and the fact remains no less remarkable, that at the
period of our occupying Dorjiling, friendship and unanimity existed
amongst all these tribes; from the Tibetan at 14,000 feet, to the Mechi
of the plains; under a sovereign whose temporal power was wholly
unsupported by even the semblance of arms, and whose spiritual
supremacy was acknowledged by very few.