all cases willing to be known by this appellation. Bbot,
or, more correctly, Bod, is really the same word as
Tibet. In the records of the Tartar Liaos in the eleventh
century the name is written T’u-pot’e, in which the
latter syllable represents Bod. The Chinese character
for “ Po ” has also the sound “ Ean,” and with the
addition of “ Si,” or western, the portion of Tibet to
the north of Kumaon is called Si-fan, and the people
Tu-pote. The Tibetans give themselves the name of
Bodpá generally throughout Tibet, meaning thereby
“ inhabitants of Bod.” Further, they sometimes call
the country near Cashmere by the name To-Bod.
Now, this latter was the part of Tibet with which Europeans
first became acquainted, and, obtaining the
ñamé through the Cashmere word Tibbat, or Tebet, we
have accordingly given the name Tibet generally to
the whole territory. On the other hand, the hillmen
of Kumaon call the country inhabited by the Bhotias
of their hills Bhot, and Tibet itself Hundes, and the
Tibetans they call Huniyas. I t cannot be too carefully
pointed out that the term Bhotia, as applied in
this book, does not relate to the inhabitants of the
independent State of Bhotan, nor to the Bhotias of the
parts round Darjeeling, who are in reality Tibetans
but pass currently by this name, nor to Tibetans at
any time, although the term Bhotia is frequently
applied to them in Western Tibet by the general public
of Tibet.
The Bhotias of our hills are found in that very tract
of country which has been described above as being
so very sacred to the Hindus, viz., all along our Tibetan
border, from Nepal on the east to Tehri State on the
west, for a distance, roughly speaking, of thirty miles
south of the border-line. They are to be found at the
mouths of all the passes into Tibet. Those by the
Mana Pass, near the holy temple of Badrinath, and
those by the Niti Pass are known as Tolchas and Mar-
chas, whereas those by the Untadhura Pass, in Johar,
are Shokas (otherwise called Rawats), and amongst
them there are also some Tolchas and Marchas. All
these compose the western division of the Bhotias,
MEN OF EASTERN BHOT
who are in their own estimation superior to all other
Bhotias, with whom they will not eat or marry, and
whose ordinary language they cannot talk, as they
have forgotten it. South of the Johar Bhotias are
the Jethora Bhotias, who do not trade but are cultivators.
These have a Tibeto-Burman dialect of their
own (called Rankas or Shokiya Khun), and consider
themselves the first settlers (Jeth means elder brother),
and, as such, far superior to all other Bhotias, though,
as a matter of fact, they are severely left alone by the
others of their race for no apparent reason, as they
seem particularly harmless. Lastly, there are the