KOUPOOEE, a tribe near the source Of the Irawadi, comprises two clans, the Songpoo and Pooeer-on. The Koupooee occupy the hills be tween Caehar and Munipur in their whole breadth, a direct distance of about 40 miles ; and from lat. 25° N. they formerly extended over nearly an equal distance to the south. The whole of the tract was formerly thickly studded with villages, and Songpoo tradition gives, as the place of their origin, the mountain towards the south of the valley named Thung-ching. They and all the other races of hill people congregate in communities, composed usually of families connected with one another by blood ties. Before the subjugation of the Songpoo tribe to Munipur, almost every village was at war with its neigh bour, and they would break out afresh were the restraining hand of Munipur withdrawn. A state of active feud appears to be the one natural to all the tribes from Cape Negrais to as far north as we have any knowledge. The Koupooee
are much attached to their villages, and when they have been obliged to desert their village, they express their wish to return to it as being the grave of their ancestors. The spot cultivated this year is not again cultivated for ten years. Every village has three hereditary officers, namely, Kool-lak-pa, Loop-lak-pa, and Lum-poo, and officers besides these are elected. The Koupooee aro also subdivided into families, Koomul, Looang, Angom, and Ning-than-ja. A member of any of these families may marry a member of any other, but intermarriage of members of the same family is strictly prohibited. Though not attended to with the same strictness, this prohibition in regard to marriage, and this distinction of families under the same designation, exists among the Munipuri race.—Dalton's Ethnology, p. 51.