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 Dalhousiae, 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.* [For an
account of the geography of these regions, and the relation of the
Sikkim Himalaya to Tibet, etc., see Appendix.] 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.
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 degrees (from north 30 degrees west
to north 50 degrees 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
degrees. 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 degrees 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 degrees 31 minutes 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 degrees 55 minutes above the
horizon; an angle which is quite inappreciable to the eye, when
unaided by instruments.* [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 Dalhousiae_ 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. Dalhousiae,_ 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.*
[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.] 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,*
[It is called "Ban," and serves equally for plough, toothpick,
table-knife, hatchet, hammer, and sword.] but never draw it on one
another: family and political feuds are alike unheard of amongst them.
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*
[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.]
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 _Scitamineae,_ 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.* [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.] 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.
In diet, they are gross feeders;* [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.] 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 _Scitamineae,_ 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.
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 4d. or 6d. 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 Aeolian, as are
the airs usually played, which fall by octaves: it seems to harmonize
with the solitude of their primaeval 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,* [May not the use of the head
instead of the shoulder-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.] 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.
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.* [Yet, during
the Ghorka war, they displayed many instances of courage: when so
hard pressed, however, that there was little choice of evils.] 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.
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* [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.] (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.
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,* [See "Dorjiling Guide," p. 89. Calcutta, 1845.] 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.
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* [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.] 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,* ["Journal of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal."] and when travelling in the districts of
Khasia and Cachar.
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.