Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 2.djvu/11

 MECHIS.

HE Mechi people inhabit the forest portion of the Turai, stretchmg along the base of the mountains fr-om the Burrampooter to the Kanki river, which leaves the Nipal mountains about twenty miles to the west of the Mechi river. In this tract they are the subjects of the Nipalese, Sikhim, and Bhootan govenmients respectively, and occupy, along with the Dhimals (an allied tribe), and a few Garrows, a country of about 250 miles in length, having an average breadth of from twelve to fifteen miles. In the eastern portion of the Nipal Turai they are but recent settlers; at Nagol Bundi, on the right bank of the Mechi river, there are about twenty families; at Kalilvajhar about the same number; and, west from these places, in the thickest parts of the forest, there are several small colonies, amounting in all to about 150 to 200 families. In the Sikhim Turai, between the Mechi river and the Mahanuddy, there are about 400 families; to the east of the Teestah river, and in the Dooars of Bhootan, they are still more numerous; and to this latter portion of then habitat they point as the original seat of the tribe, although its name would indicate its derivation from the Mechi river. It is believed that Mechis are also to be found on the northern confines of Lower Assam. They never live on the hills at a higher elevation than 800 or 1000 feet, and scarcely ever settle in the cleared and inhabited parts of the Turai; but keep entirely to the forest in which they make clearances, cultivating crops of rice and cotton with the hoe, and grazing buffaloes. The malaria of the forest, so deadly to strangers, does not at all affect them; on the contrary, they are a remarkably healthy race, and dread visiting the plains, where they are subject to severe fevers. They have no towns, and rarely ever live in permanent villages, generally quitting a clearance after having raised two or three successive crops from the land, to take up their abode in a fresh portion of the forest. The cast of their countenance is strongly Mongolian, but of a softer outline than most Mongolian races, resembling mostly the Newars of Nipal.

The religion of the Mechis, in so far as they have any, is the Shivaite form of Hindooism, but goes no further than the occasional sacrifice—when they can