With regard to the ethnological entity and racial affinities of the Koch people Scholars are not unanimous (Roy Sanyal, 2004). There are divergent views regarding the origin of the Koch-Rajbongshi population. H. Risley in his work, “The Tribes and Castes of Bengal” describes the Koches, unquestionably “non-Aryan and non-Hindu” were “a large Dravidian tribe of northeastern and eastern Bengal among whom there were grounds for suspecting some admixture of Mongolian Blood” (Risely, cited in Nath, 1989). According to Sir Edward Gait, “True Koches were a Mongoloid race, very closely allied to the Meches and Garos; and we find that in Jalpaiguri, Koch Bihar and Goalpara, the persons now know as Rajbanshi are either pure Koches who, though dark, have a distinctly Mongoloid physiognomy, or else a mixed breed, in which the Mongoloid element usually preponderates” (E. Gait; 2008, rpt, 48).
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 16:54:31 +0000
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