NOIVGONG DISTRICT. 409 aboriginal tribes (Míkirs, Garos, and Kukis), +8,478, or 15.6 per cent. The ethnical division of the population shows 5° Europeans, Americans, and Eurasiaus; 9 Nepális ; 159,630 aborigines and semiHinduized aborigines; 138,467 Hindus sub-divided according to caste; 12,074 Muhammadans; and 349 'others,' principally native Christians, Brahmos, and Jains. The great bulk of the aborigines by race are composed of Mikírs, Lalungs, and Cacharis. The Mikírs, who number 47,497 persons, inhabit that part of the District known as the Míkir Hills, whither they are said to have inmigrated in recent times from the mountains farther south. They are a peaceable and industrious race, cultivating the hillside according to the primitive mode of agriculture known as jum. They form clearings in the jungle by fire, and raise crops of rice and cotton without any other implement of agriculture than the dúo or hill-knife. After three or four years' continuous tillage, they abandon their fields for fresh clearings. The Lalungs, numbering 41,695, and the Cacharis, numbering 12,555, are both reported to have immigrated from the hills of Cachar during the rule of the Aham kings. They now live in the plains, and have become more or less Hinduized in manners and religion, and are included among the Hindus of the Census returns, while the Mikirs still retain their aboriginal forms of faith. The other aboriginal tribes inhabiting Nowgong District areGáros, 837; Kukis, 143; and Nágá, 1. A few Uraons, Santáls, and Kols from Chutiá Nágpur, are employed as labourers on the teagardens. Of the semi-Hinduized aborigines of the Census Report, the most numerous tribe is the Koch (42,878), descendants of a people once dominant throughout the country, and identical with the Rájbansís of Bengal, who have rejected their original name. In Assam, however, the appellation of Koch is held in comparative honour, as may be inferred from the local dictum that aboriginal converts do not become pure Koch until seren generations after their admission into the Hindu caste system. The Ahams, the last race of conquerors, who have given their name to the Province, number only 5965 in Nowgong ; they have now sunk into the common cultivating class. The Chutiyás (8055) are a tribe of the same origin as the Ahams, and are said to have preceded them in their migration from the hills of Burma. The Doms (25,553) are a race especially numerous in Assam, where they py a much more respectable position than in Bengal or the NorthWestern Provinces ; they accept Kolitás in preference to Brahmans their spiritual guides. Among Hindus proper, the Brahmans are unusually strongly represented, numbering 7502 ; the Rajputs number only 77 ; and the Kayasths, 2312. The most numerous caste is the Kolitá (23,144), CIS .
