Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s6.31
Indische Paläographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s6.31
- Language
- German
c48.s6.31.1
§ 99. (h) **The Sān tribes** (4,600). The portion of this great race which has found a home in British India is but small, and, with one exception, of comparatively recent settlement. The break-up by the Burmese of the Mau Ṣān dominion on the upper Irawadi, about 1760, obliged several small bodies of different tribes to cross the Patkāi, and settle east of Sadiya, on the Brahmaputra. Amongst these are the Khāmti, Tūrung, Nōrā and Phakiāl. The Khāmti were originally connected with the Āhōm, who will be mentioned later, and it was with the permission of the Āhōm Chief that the former obtained a foothold in Assam. They encroached, however, got into trouble about their practice of raiding for slaves, and were finally scattered about 70 years ago, many returning across the hills to the Irawadi. A few years later another colony appeared and settled in the same tract, where they now are. The Phakiāl also belonged to the Mogaung kingdom, and had to leave when the Burmese overran their country. They did not make direct for Assam, but halted on the way. Being probably pressed by the Singphō, or Kacēn, they accepted the invitation of the Āhōm to settle along the Dihīng, and afterwards near Jorḥāt, from which, however, they withdrew when the Burmese entered Assam. The Nōrā belong to one of the tribes of the Āhōm which elected to remain on the east of the range when the main body crossed into Assam. They are also called Khamjang, from one of their halting places in the north-east.
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From this they were ejected about a century ago by the Singphō, and came into Assam for safety. It is said by the Tūrung, another tribe of the same origin, that the Nōrā, having settled in the valley, sent for them to join the colony, and as they were oppressed by Kacēn, they came. On the way, however, they were taken prisoners and enslaved by the Singphō, and were only released on the arrival of a British expedition in 1825. They intermarried with their captors and are accordingly looked down upon by the Nōrā, still more by the Khāmti, who stand at the head of the Ṣān community of Assam. Tūrung brides are taken by the others, but none are given in return. All the above tribes are Buddhist and have their own priests. The Aitōn, a small band of refugees from the Ṣān court of Mungkong, settled in two bodies, one near the others of their race, and the other in the Nāgā hills. Both, though professing Buddhism, are gradually becoming Brāhmanised, alike in creed and language. The Census figures for these small communities are anything but accurate, as many are set down simply as Ṣān, and others as Buddhist, without any tribal title. Finally, there are the Āhōm, the only tribe of long settlement and political importance. They have been mentioned more than once in connection with tribal religion and language, having abandoned their tradition and practice in regard to both. They have preserved, however, a very complete series of histories of their career.
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From these it appears that they left Mogaung on the Irawadi about 1228, in consequence of a dynastic dispute, and crossed the Patkāi into the north-east corner of the province which now bears their name. By 1500 they had subjugated the Cūtiyā; and forty years later, the Kacāri or Bōdo dominion fell to them. They recovered from a severe defeat at the hands of the Kōc, and repulsed on several occasions an invasion by the Muslim, getting possession of the valley as far west as Gauhāti, and later, to near Goālpāra. Their decline set in on the conversion of the Chief to Brāhmanism. Discontent arose amongst those who would not follow his example. Some rebelled; the seat of government was withdrawn down the valley; the Burmese were called in, and ended in absorbing the whole kingdom, until the British took possession. It seems that the Āhōm were divided into classes but whether these were endogamous or not is uncertain. The highest class comprises the Chief's family and six or seven others of rank. The middle class is divided functionally, and the third comprises all who are bound to render services to the Chief. There were also Levitical or priestly families. In the present day the distinctions based on occupation and on service formerly rendered are dying out. The whole tribe has become to a greater or less extent Brāhmanised; that is, the spiritual authority of a Gōsāī is acknowledged, and some changes in diet are gradually adopted.
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The priests, as in the case of the Cūtiyā, stood out for some time longer than the rest, but have now conformed. It is curious that whilst the little that remains of the sacred writings of the Āhōm is in a language closely resembling that of the Khāmtī, the Āhōm were never Buddhists. It may Nēpāl, and incorporated the Kirāta land with their new acquisition, after a stout resistance from the Limbu. The latter take rank amongst the Kirāta tribes after the Khambu and before the Yākha, though, as above remarked, in Nēpāl the order may be different as regards the Yākha. A certain number of the Limbu have entered into close relations with the Lepca, intermarrying with them and eating their food, a course which amongst the other Kirāta places them outside their fellows. At the same time, it appears that the Lepca, Mūrmi and other Himālayan Mongoloids are admitted into the Limbu ranks after certain ceremonies, whilst the Khambu and Yākha may be adopted without such formalities. The Limbu have their own priests as well as using the exorcists, or Bijua, common to all the tribes of the neighbourhood. They indifferently profess S'aivism when amongst Brāhmanic castes and employ the Lāma at a higher altitude. Probably their real creed is that of old Tibet.
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Their kinsfolk and neighbours, the Khambu, live on the southern range of the Himālayan system, where those who own land call themselves Jimdār, so that this title has been merged in the general tribal designation at the Census, without reference to the claims of the Yākha mentioned above. They profess Brāhmanism, but employ no Brāhmans, and serve an ancestral deity through Homē, priests corresponding to the Bijua of the other Tibetan communities. They seem to have some faint reminiscence of Buddhism in portions of their worship, and may once have passed through a phase of that creed, like many of the Himālayan tribes. They intermarry with a beef-eating tribe of Khambu from the north of the main range, and on that account, irrespective of the quarrel about nomenclature, are kept at arm's length by the Kirāta of the west. These last, as well as the lower tribes of Kirāta, such as Hāyu, Thāmi, and Danuār, of the Tarāi, are only sparse and occasional residents in British India. The Lepca probably represent two different immigrations from Tibet or its eastern frontier, but the sections are now amalgamated. Amongst the clans, however, two stand above the rest, and do not intermarry with other Lepca or with Limbu, and it is possible that these are the descendants of the semi-Chinese band introduced along with one of the Sikkim Chiefs from across the Tsān-pu.
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In the present day, the Lepca is working a little more steadily than he was accustomed to do before the British occupied Dārjiling, but he still objects to remaining more than a few years in one locality, and after a season or two of careless cultivation, moves off to fresh woods, in which he can burn enough vegetation to manure his patch of rice or maize. Buddhism is professed by the whole tribe, and their Lāmas are all from Tibet; but against the more actively malevolent spirits the aid of the Bijua or Ojhā is invoked. Their religion is very much that of the Limbu, behind a veil of Buddhism of the Himālayan type. The Tibetan strain is much more marked in the Mūrmi than in most of the tribes hitherto mentioned; indeed, the usual name for the tribe is Tamang Bhōtia, and the subdivisions are almost all Tibetan in their titles. The Mūrmi have been long in their present locality, and have half-assimilated a good deal of Brāhmanism which is obscuring the Buddhism they brought with them. But though the Brāhman officiates for them at the festivals of his creed, and the Lāma is called in for marriages, stones, trees and village gods are not neglected, and if a Lāma be not at hand, their worship is carried on by any layman who has mastered the procedure. They rank as a pure caste in Nēpāl, but will eat with the Kirāta and Lepca. The majority of those enumerated in British territory are probably labourers in the tea gardens of Dārjiling.
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In their native place the Mūrmi are an agricultural class.