Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s6.31.6

c48.s6.31.6

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.