Note 3 — Characteristics, Physical and Moral; Origin, Distribution and Historic Summary, etc.

Final Separation of Northern and Southern V. It may perhaps be asked how a people so clannish and united as the Kacháris are well known to be, should ever become so widely separated as the Western (Bara) and Southern (Dimásá) sections now undoubtedly are. The separation would seem to be almost final and complete. The writer, e.g., has often tried Sections of the race. to ascertain if the Kacháris of the Northern Duars retained any tradition of ever having been subject to the Raja of Dimápur; but up to the present time no trace of any such tradition has come to light. Intermarriage between the two sections of the race is apparently quite unknown; indeed, the barrier of language would of itself probably go far to prevent such intermarriage: for although the two languages have much in common, yet in their modern form they differ from each other nearly as much as Italian does from Spanish; and members of the two sections of the race meeting each other for the first time would almost certainly fail to understand each other’s speech. Perhaps the following tradition,3 which apparently describes one of the closing scenes in the prolonged struggle between the Chutiyá Kacháris and the Ahoms, may go some way to account for the wide separation between the Northern and Southern sections of the race. The story is as follows:—Long, long ago the Dimásá fought against a very powerful tribe (the Ahoms), and being beaten in a great pitched battle, the king with all his forces retreated. But presently further retreat was barred by a wide and deep river, which could in no way be crossed. The Raja, being thus stopped by a river in front and an enemy behind, resolved to fight once more the next day, unless the problem of crossing the river could be solved. With this determination he went to sleep and had a dream in which a god appeared to him and promised to help him. The god said that early next morning the king with all his people must boldly enter the river at a spot where he would see a heron standing in the water, and walk straight across the river, but no one must look back. Next morning a heron was found, sure enough, standing in the water near the bank; and the king, remembering his dream, led his people to the spot and went into the water, which they found had shoaled enough to form a ford and allow them to wade across. In this way he crossed with a great part of his people. But still all had not crossed. There were some on the other bank and some in the middle of the river, when a man among the latter wondering whether his son was following him, looked back, with the result that the water at once got deep and every one had to save himself as best he could; while the men on the other bank, having no chance of crossing, dispersed. They who were caught in the middle of the river had to swim for their lives, and were washed down to different places. Some saved themselves by catching hold of Khágris (rushes) growing on the bank, and are to this day called Khágrábária. Others caught hold of nals (or reeds) and are thus called Nalbárias. The Dimásá are the people who crossed in safety.