LEPCIIA, a Mongolian tribe forming a large part of the population of Sikkim. The country of Sikkim and Harping is the land of the Lepcha, a Bhot race who are hemmed in between the Newer and other Nepal tribes, and the Lhopa of Bhutan, the Lepcha area being barely GO miles in breadth. His physiognomy is markedly Mongolian, stature short, from 4 feet 5 inches to 5 feet ; face broad and flat, nose depressed, eye oblique, chin beardless, skin sallow and olive, with a little moustache on the lips; broad chest and strong armed, but small-boned legs, with small wrists, hands, and feet. The Lepcha is honest, timid, and peaceful, with mild and frank features. The Lepcha throws over him loosely a cotton cloak striped with blue, white, and red, and uses an upper garment with sleeves in the cold weather ; a broad umbrella-shaped hat of leaves, and a pent-house of leaves in the rains. The women dress in silk skirt and petticoat, with a sleeveless woollen cloak. The Lepcha man carries a long, heavy, and straight knife, serving for all purposes to which a knife can be applied. They drink the Murwa, the fermented juice of the Eleusine coracana, which gives a drink, acidulous, refreshing, and slightly in toxicating, and not unlike hock or sauterne in its flavour. Their songs and the music of their bamboo flute is monotonous. They marry before maturity, the brides being purchased by money or service. The Lepcha, like many other races, kindle a fire by the friction of sticks. Mountain spinach, fern tops, fungi, and nettles are used as food. Their ailments, small-pox, goitre, remittent fevers, and rheumatism. Their language assimil ates to the Tibetan. Some of the Lepcha tribes
call their country Dijong. Amongst themselves they divide into two tribes, the Hong, also Arrat, and Kham-ba. The long has no tradition of immigration ; but the Kham-ba appear to have come about 200 years ago from Khatn, a province of Tibet on the borders of China. The present Sikkim raja is a Kham-ba. The Lepcha have no caste distinctions, but they speak of themselves as belonging to one or other of the following sections :— Burphoong phoocho. I Sundyang. I Lucksom.
Lidding Sugoot. Therim.
Thurjokh „ Tung ycld. Songmo.
Captain J. D. Herbert, when writing of the Lepcha race, says that they are the same people whom he had seen at Nialang, at Jahnabbi, at Shipchi on the Sutlej, in Hangarang, and at Lan in Ladakh.
Chastity in adult girls previous to marriage is not very rigidly insisted on. The Lepcha bury their I dead, as is the custom generally of the Buddhists.
The house of the Lepcha is generally square, roomy, and comfortable, built on posts, with a stage in front of the door, and low-eaved thatch of bamboo stems, split and laid flat. The walls are of bamboo wattle-work. In all respects it resembles the Bhoteah house. The Limbu and Murmi build smaller houses, often on the ground, but more frequently raised ; the roof is of grass thatch, or occasionally of a species of bamboo work matting.—Dalton, Ethnol. of Bengal, p. 102 ; Hooker, Him. Journal; Dr. Thomson in Eth. Soc. Journ. ; Beng. As. Soc. Jour. No. xxix. p. 20; Capt. Herbert; Laiham's Ethnology.