Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s6.31.5

c48.s6.31.5

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.