The Kacháris

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Endle Sidney. The Kacháris

INTRODUCTION

SECTION I. Characteristics, Physical and Moral; Origin, Distribution and Historic Summary, etc

SECTION II. Social and Domestic Life

SECTION III. Laws and Customs

SECTION IV. Religion

SECTION V. Folk-Lore, Traditions and Superstitions

SECTION VI. Outline Grammar, Etc

APPENDIX I

APPENDIX II58

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Characteristics. I. 1. The people generally known to us as “Kacháris” differ in some material ways from their Hindu and Musulmán neighbours alike in things material and moral. They are certainly not a tall or handsome race, and in general appearance bear some resemblance to the Nepáli, being as a rule shorter and stouter than the people of North-west India, though well fitted to bear up against physical fatigue and hardship. PhysicalIn face and figure they show a distinct approximation to what is known as the Mongolian type, i. e., they have square set faces, projecting cheek-bones, with almond-shaped eyes, and scanty beard and moustache, the last-mentioned being often wanting altogether. In this way they are well fitted for all forms of outdoor (field and factory) labour that require strength rather than skill, and may very reasonably be regarded as the “navvies” of Assam.

Mental. 2. In mental and intellectual power they are undoubtedly far below their Hindu neighbours; for they possess neither the quickness of apprehension, nor the astonishing power of memory, &c., characteristic of the higher castes among the Hindus. On the other hand, what they do succeed in mastering, often with much toil and painful effort, they digest and retain with much tenacity. Among other social and mental features of character there are two which are seldom wanting to the “Kachári”: (1) he is an intensely clannish being. A fine imposed on one member of a village community is sometimes paid by the whole body of villagers together. When employed in any considerable numbers on a tea factory, the Kachári labourers so employed, resenting some real or fancied wrong done to one of their number, will often leave the garden in a body, even though there may be a month’s pay due to every one of them. Again they have (2) no small share of that quality so powerful for good or evil, according as it is guided into right or wrong channels, i. e., a certain strength of will, “what their friends might call firmness, and their enemies might term obstinacy.” If they once make up their minds, and they are abundantly capable of doing this, to act in a certain way, it is mere waste of time to attempt to reason them out of their resolution, for nothing short of absolute and overpowering physical force is of any avail to turn them from the course they have once for all resolved to adopt and act upon.

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Final Separation of Northern and Southern V. It may perhaps be asked how a people so clannish and united as the Kacháris are well known to be, should ever become so widely separated as the Western (Bara) and Southern (Dimásá) sections now undoubtedly are. The separation would seem to be almost final and complete. The writer, e. g., has often tried Sections of the race. to ascertain if the Kacháris of the Northern Duars retained any tradition of ever having been subject to the Raja of Dimápur; but up to the present time no trace of any such tradition has come to light. Intermarriage between the two sections of the race is apparently quite unknown; indeed, the barrier of language would of itself probably go far to prevent such intermarriage: for although the two languages have much in common, yet in their modern form they differ from each other nearly as much as Italian does from Spanish; and members of the two sections of the race meeting each other for the first time would almost certainly fail to understand each other’s speech. Perhaps the following tradition,4 which apparently describes one of the closing scenes in the prolonged struggle between the Chutiyá Kacháris and the Ahoms, may go some way to account for the wide separation between the Northern and Southern sections of the race. The story is as follows: – Long, long ago the Dimásá fought against a very powerful tribe (the Ahoms), and being beaten in a great pitched battle, the king with all his forces retreated. But presently further retreat was barred by a wide and deep river, which could in no way be crossed. The Raja, being thus stopped by a river in front and an enemy behind, resolved to fight once more the next day, unless the problem of crossing the river could be solved. With this determination he went to sleep and had a dream in which a god appeared to him and promised to help him. The god said that early next morning the king with all his people must boldly enter the river at a spot where he would see a heron standing in the water, and walk straight across the river, but no one must look back. Next morning a heron was found, sure enough, standing in the water near the bank; and the king, remembering his dream, led his people to the spot and went into the water, which they found had shoaled enough to form a ford and allow them to wade across. In this way he crossed with a great part of his people. But still all had not crossed. There were some on the other bank and some in the middle of the river, when a man among the latter wondering whether his son was following him, looked back, with the result that the water at once got deep and every one had to save himself as best he could; while the men on the other bank, having no chance of crossing, dispersed. They who were caught in the middle of the river had to swim for their lives, and were washed down to different places. Some saved themselves by catching hold of Khágris (rushes) growing on the bank, and are to this day called Khágrábária. Others caught hold of nals (or reeds) and are thus called Nalbárias. The Dimásá are the people who crossed in safety.

It is fairly obvious that the Oriental love for the grotesquely marvellous has had no small share in the development of this tradition; but whilst making all due allowance for this, the writer ventures to think that the tradition itself is not altogether without a certain historic value. It probably represents the closing scenes in the protracted struggle for supremacy between the Ahoms and the Chutiyás (Kacháris) when the latter, finally beaten, endeavoured to escape their foes by crossing the Brahmaputra to the South bank, using for that purpose whatever material was at hand, e. g., rude dug-out boats (khel náu), extemporised rafts (bhel), &c. The student of Assam history will remember that a like mishap befell Mir Jumla’s expedition for the conquest of Assam; Rangpur, Ghergaon, &c., when a violent storm or sudden rise in the river carried away or sunk the boats containing his ammunition and other stores, and he was compelled to come to terms with the Ahom rulers. A sudden storm or rapid rise in the river may have prevented many of the fugitives from crossing, and these would perforce have fallen into the hands of the Ahoms. The latter, acting on the principle “Divide et impera,” may have forced their captives to take up their abode in the unhealthy (Terai) country now known as the “Kachári Duárs,” and further may have prohibited any communication between the two severed fragments of the conquered race, which would thenceforth naturally drift further asunder, until the separation became as complete as it remains to this day.

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