GARO.
Locality.—The Garo hills, at the south-western entrance of the valley of Assam.
No tribe hitherto mentioned is of the ethnographical importance of the Garo.
If we call them Indian, they are the most northern tribe that has been described as having Negro elements in their physiognomy.
If we call them Tibetan, or Burmese, they are equally remarkable for this peculiarity.
Taking their physical appearance as a test, it is the Garo that seem the likeliest to exhibit a transition between the type already illustrated, and the type of the aborigines of Hindostan, supposing such a transition to exist.
Taking their language into consideration, something of the same intermediate character is, perhaps, to be found. It has been referred to each class; by some to the monosyllabic tongues of Tibet, or the Burmese empire; by others to the Indian group of dialects and languages.
The first description of the Garo is to be found in the Asiatic Researches. Here it is where they are described as approaching the Negro type. Endued with great physical strength, at least as compared with the Bengali, they are pagans and savages: their manners, as stated above, agreeing in many points with those of the Kukis.
It is, however, by their language that their ethnographical position will best be determined.
The present writer, who had not then seen Mr. Brown's Vocabularies, placed this, in 1844, in the Tibetan division; being satisfied of its monosyllabic character.