Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 1.djvu/126

 MOAMURIAS OR MUTTUCKS.

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"HE Muttucks were originally a rude tribe settled in a district called Mooran or Muttuck, which, prior to the Ahom invasion of 1224, had learned the doctrines of the Hindoo religion from two Gosains named respectively Madho Deo and Sunkur Deo. These Gosains were followers of Krislm, and their doctrine differed from that of the other Hindoos of Assam, particularly in their refusing to worship the images of Doorga. The appellation of Moa Mureva arose from its being the name of a place where the Sinister was founded, and from which the doctrines of the Muttucks emanated." (Sketch of Assam, ut sup., p. 91.)

Persecution (by a succession of bigoted Hindoo rulers) failed, as usual, to eradicate the persecuted sect; the exasperated Muttucks frequently revolted, and were as often, after sanguinary conflicts, subdued by the Assam Rajahs.

On the conquest of Assam by the British Government, the chief of the Muttucks, the Bursenaputtee, acknowledged its supremacy, and engaged to furnish 300 soldiers in war time, in lieu of tribute. This obligation was soon commuted for an annual payment of £180, the revenue of the tribe being about £2000, and its population from sixty to seventy thousand. The chief and his family were eventually (in 1839) induced to abandon the state of semi-independence in which they had previously existed, and were pensioned off. Since that period the Muttucks have diligently pursued their favourite occupation of husbandrv; and, as then district possesses a fine fertile soil, and abounds in extensive rice plains, interspersed with large tracts of tree and grass jungle, it may fairly be expected that, in the course of time, this country will prove a valuable acquisition; unless, which is improbable, improvements are impeded by the inroads of the wild frontier tribes. The tea plant is indigenous in the Muttuck territory.