THERE are on the same page, some short inscriptions, which I cannot decypher. One of them, however, is partly legible, and appears to be in the Hindustání language. It contains the name of SULTAN IBRAHIM, and wishes him a long life.

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VI.

> ACCOUNT of the KOOKIES or Lunctas. By JOHN MACRAE, Esq.

COMMUNICATED BY J. H. HARINGTON, Esq.

MR. HARINGTON has the pleasure of laying before the society, an account of the Kookies, or Cúcìs, respecting whom a paper communicated in Persian by Mr. RAWLINS, was translated by Sir WILLIAM JONES, and printed in the 2d Volume of the Researches.

THE paper now communicated was written by Mr. JOHN MCRAE, Surgeon in the Honourable Company's Service, at Chittagong; and from in formation given to him by a native of Runganeeah, who had long resided among the Cúcìs as their captive. It was originally intended as a private communication only; but conceiving that the description of manners contained in it, of a people little known, on the frontier of the British Territory, would prove acceptable to the Society, the author was solicited to permit its being read to them; and they will probably consider it sufficiently interesting for publication in their Researches.

January 24th, 1799.

THE Kookies are a race of people that live among the mountains to the north east of the Chittagong province, at a greater distance than the Choomeeas from the inhabitants of the plains; to whom therefore they are little known, and with whom they very rarely have any intercourse, except when they occasionally visit the hauts, or markets, on the borders of the jungles in the Runganeeah and

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Aurungabad districts, to purchase salt, dried fish,

THE following account of them was taken from a native of the Runganeeah district, who, when a boy, was carried away, in one of their predatory excursions, and, after a captivity of twenty years, found means to return to his family.

THE Kookies, or Lunctas, (as they are also called,) are the least civilized, of any of the people we as yet know, among these mountains: like all mountaineers, they are of an active, muscular make, but not tall; they are stouter, and of a darker complexion than the Choomeeas*, and, like them, have the peculiar features of all the natives of the eastern parts of Asia, namely the flat nose, small eye, and broad round face.

THE tradition of the Kookies respecting their origin is, that they, and the Mugs, are the offspring of the same progenitor, who had two sons, by different mothers. The Mugs, they say, are the descendants of the eldest, and the Kookies of the youngest son. The mother of the youngest having died during his infancy, he was neglected by his step-mother, who, while she cloathed her own son, allowed him to go naked; and this partial distinction being still observed, as he grew up, he went by the name of Luncta, or the naked. Upon the death of their father, a quarrel arose between the brothers, which induced the Luncta to betake himself to the hills, and there pass the remainder of his days. His descendants have continued there ever since, and still go by the name of Lunctas; though, properly speaking, the term is only applicable to the male part of them, as the females wear a short apron before, made of cloth of their own manufacture, and which falls down from the loins to the middle of the thigh; and both sexes occasionally throw a loose

sheet

* Choomecas are the inhabitants of the first range of hills bordering on the plains to the north and east of the province of Chittagong and are tributary to the Honourable Company; their villages are called

Chooms.

sheet of cloth over their bodies, to defend them from the cold.

This tradition of their origin receives much support from the great similarity of the Mug and Kookie languages, many words of which are exactly the same, and their general resemblance is such that a Mug and Kookie can make themselves understood to each other.

THE Kookies are all hunters and warriors, and are divided into a number of distinct tribes, totally independent of each other, though all of them acknowledge, more or less, the authority of three different Rajahs, named THANDON, MANKENE, and HALCHA, to whom the various tribes are attached, but whose power over them is very limited, except in that tribe with which the Rajah lives, where he is absolute. The rajahships are hereditary, and the Rajahs, by way of distinction, wear a small slip of black cloth round their loins; and, as a farther mark of superior rank, they have their hair brought forward, and tied in a bunch, so as to overshade the forehead, while the rest of the Kookies have theirs hanging loose over the shoulders. The females also of the Rajah's family wear an apron of black cloth, with a red bor der, which falls down to the knee, -a colour and fashion prohibited to the rest of the sex, black being the royal colour.

THE Rajahs receive a tribute in kind from the tribes, to support their dignity; and in cases of general danger, they can summon all the warriors to arms; but each tribe is under the immediate command of its own particular chief, whose word is a law in peace and war, and who has the power of life and death in his tribe. The chieftainship is not hereditary like the rajahship, but elective, though in general the nearest relation of the last chief succeeds him, if deemed by the tribe a proper person for the trust, and the Rajah cannot remove a chief once elected, should he disapprove of him.

THE

THE Kookies are armed with bows and arrows, spears, clubs, and daws, an instrument in common use among the natives of this province, as a hand hatchet, and exactly resembling the knife of the Nyars on the Malabar Coast, which is a most de structive weapon in close combat. They use shields, made of the hide of the Gyal, (a species of cow pe culiar to their hills;) and the inside of their shields they ornament with small pendulous plates of brass, which make a tingling noise, as the warriors toss about their arms, either in the fight or in the dance. They also wear round their necks large strings, of a particular kind of shell found in their hills; about their loins, and on their thighs, immediately above the knee, they tie large bunches of long goat's hair, of a red colour; and on their arms they have broad rings of ivory, in order to make them appear the more terrifick to their enemies.

THE Kookies choose the steepest and most inaccessible hills to build their villages upon, which, from being thus situated, are called Parahs, or, in the Kookie language, Khooah. Every Parah consists of a tribe, and has seldom fewer than four or five hundred inhabitants, and sometimes contains one of two thousand. Towards our frontiers, however, where there is little apprehension of danger, a tribe frequently separates into several small parties, which form so many different Parahs on the adjoining hills, as may best suit their convenience. To give further security to the Parahs, in addition to their naturally strong situation, the Kookies surround them with thick bamboo pallisade; and the passages leading into them, of which there are commonly four or five in different quarters, they strictly guard, day and night, especially if there is any suspicion of danger; but whether there is, or is not, they are at all time extremely jealous of admitting strangers within the Parah: they build their houses as close to each other as possible, and make them spacious enough to ac