A History of Assam c9.17

c9.17

The Chutiyas now number about a twelfth of a million, and are found chiefly in Lakhimpur and the adjacent part of Sibsāgar. Their language, which is still known to the Deoris, or priestly section of the tribe, is unmistakably Bodo, but their appearance suggests that they have in their frames a considerable infusion of Shān blood. They occupied a tract not far removed from the home of the Shāns, and the probability is that they absorbed considerable numbers of the earlier immigrants of that race, just as in more recent times they have intermarried with the Ahoms, to such an extent that, at the census of 1891, one-third of those who recorded their sub-tribe described themselves as Ahom-Chutiyas.