KACHARI.
Locality.—Between the Kasia county, with which it is conterminous on the east, and Manipur.
KASIA.
Locality.—Southern border of Lower Assam. Conterminous with the Kachari on the east and the Garo on the west.
A better knowledge of the wild tribes in these parts than we possess, will, probably, enable us to ascertain the nature of the most primitive Indo-Chinese religion. It seems in these parts to be the worship of Nats or spirits.
In the Kasia country the occurrence of erect pillars, evidently objects of mysterious respect, if not of adoration, is frequent. These are explained by similar ones in the Khyen district. They are depicted by Lieutenant Latter—accurate magis quam verecunde—and are lingams.
Stout legs, thick lips, and angular eyes, are marked characters in the Kasia conformation. They burn their dead. Their ceremonies are few or none. Like the Garo, they drink no milk. Like the Garo, also, they are said to have no beast of burden. Like many of the tribes around them they chew pawn; and like many of the tribes around them they obtain, for drink, a liquor fermented from millet. Millet or rice are the usual sources for the stimulant beverages of this section of the Seriform tribes; and, it may be added, that the art of distillation as well as of simple fermentation is widely spread. I am not aware that the former is practised by the present tribe; it is common, however, in the Sub-Himalayan range.—Lieutenant Yule, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, xiii. 3.
SINGPHO.
Locality.—A tract of about one thousand four hundred square miles in the north-eastern corner of Assam. Conterminous with the Khamtis and Mishimis on the north. Bounded on the south and east by the Patkoe range; which divides Assam from the Burmese empire.
Population.—Calculated in 1838 at six thousand.