MECII and Kachari, according to Colonel Dalton, are considered to be the same people, or at least of common origin. Buchanan calls them a tribe of Kamrup, who appeared to have under gone great changes. The large tract of country called Mechpara, in the Gowalpara district, no doubt took its name from them ; and its proprietor, Colonel Dalton says, is a Mech ; but he and most of his people repudiate this origin, and call them selves Rajbansi. The Mech aro to be found in the Bhutan Dwars, and they extend from thence in a westerly direction into the Nepal Tcrai, as far as the Konki river, subject respectively to the Ne palese, Sikkim, Bhutan, and British Governments. Their habits and customs are found much modi fied by the people with whom they come in contact, viz. the Pani Kocchi Rajbansi, Dhimal, Thaws, and Garo on one side, and the Limbu, Keranti, Lepcha, Murmi, and Bhutia on the other. They are fairer than the Kocehi, and have more markedly the Mongolian characteristics, but accom panied by a softness of outline which distinguishes them readily from the Mongoloid Lepcha, Limbu, and Bhutia. They are said also to resemble the Mug and Burmese, and to be, like them and like the Khasiya, greatly addicted to drinking spirits, smoking, and eating the betel leaf. It is said that when living beyond the pale of Ilindu influ ence they are as omnivorous a race as any in the world, but they will not eat the flesh of the elephant. They are very migratory, continually shifting their cultivation and abodes that they may have the full benefit of the virgin forests to which they cling. It is their love for such forests that retains them under Nepalese or Bhutan rule.
The Mechs are possessed of a physical constitution that enables them to live and flourish all the year through in a malarious tract which is absolutely fatal to strangers, and their rude methods of agriculture are gradually rendering the country habitable for successors of a superior race.
The Rajbansi tribe is identical with the Kocch of Assam and of Koch-Behar.
The Mech language is not written, and is parently of Bengali origin. They never live at elevations higher than from 800 to 1000 feet above the sea, and prefer cultivation in the clearances of the Terai. The Bhutan Mech are a quiet, inoffen sive, weak race ; they are precisely the same class as the men inhabiting the British Terai ; like them they appear to enjoy perfect immunity from the ill effects of malaria. They are, however, a finer and less sickly and sallow-looking set than the Mech of the Darjiling Terai, probably because the Bhutan Terai is more healthy and drier than the British Terai. They worship the Sij (Euphorbia) as the emblem of the supreme deity, like the Kachari, and they call themselves Bodo or Boro, which means a great people, and Rangta, a heavenly, and other designations in which the Kachari rejoice.
In the census report of 1881 tho Rajbansi are returned as 106,376 ; the Kachari, 281,611; and the Kocch, 1,878,804. The numbers of Bodo or Boro, Bhutia, Khasiya, Lepcha, Limbu, Mech, Mug, and Pani Kocch, and Rangta are not given.—Mr. (Sir) George Campbell, p.58; Dalton, Ethnol. of Bengal ; Imperial Gazetteer ; Census Report..