BORO or Bodo, a race chiefly found in the forest tract, 15 to 20 miles broad, between the Himalaya mountains and the plains. They entered from northern Assam along the southern side of the Brahmaputra to the Surma, and along the skirts of the Himalaya as far west as the Konki, and are also spread in large numbers over the eastern por tion of the space between these two diverging lands, that is, Middle and Lower Assam, outside the forest limits, between lat. 25° to 27° N., and long. 88° to 93° 30' E. It is the northern Cachari who are said to have occupied the eastern part of Assam, and to have conquered Kamrup about 1000 years ago, spreading over Assam, Cachar, Tiperah, and Sylhet, and it is presumed as far as the present western boundary, on• the north. The Rangtsa have for many centuries been intermixed with Nagas and Mikirs. The Hajong, who are found along the foot of the hills from Gauhatti to Sylhet, appear to preserve the same name. Mr. Hodgson considers that they and the Rabbas of the same tract are Bodo. The Rangtsa, accord ing to their own traditions, come from the N.E. of Assam, where they conquered Kamrup, and extended their sway over all Assam, Cachar, the Barak valley, and Tiperah, nearly four centuries before the Ahom invasion. The period falls within the era when Tibetans spread into the Sub Himalayas and Bengal ; and as the conquest or resumption of Kamrup by the Koch'h took place some time before the beginning of the 12th century, the event was probably connected with the decay of the Tibetan or Tibeto-Himalayan predominance. They seem to have been the principal Tibetanized tribe of Lower Bhutan. The ruling families in Hirumbha (Cachar) and Tiperah appear to have remained Cachari ; and it is probable that the Cachari retained a certain degree of independence along the skirts of the Himalaya. The Hirumbha tribe call themselves Rangtsa or Ramsa, and give the same name, Ramsa, to the languages of the Cacharis of the plain ; Bodo, their own tongue being called Hoje or Hojai. The Hojai, according to Mr. Grange, is totally different from that of the Cacharis of the plain.
The western branch of this tribe belongs to Behar and Bengal, and to the Sikkim and Bhutan frontiers ; the eastern branch occupies Assam and Koch - Bahar. They reside in villages of from ten to twenty huts; their clothing consists of cotton and silk materials. Fermented barley, rice, or millet is used by them as a slightly intoxicating beverage, which resembles the aji rnana of the Newar of Nepal. They do not occupy a locality permanently, clearing and cropping and moving again to clear and crop another spot. A Bodo and Dhimal will only touch flesh which has been offered to the gods by a priest. The bride groom purchases his bride either by money or labour. Polygamy is rare. There are professed exorcists among them.
The eastern Bodo in Cachar are called Borro, and are divided into the Cachari of the bill country and those of the plains. They are partly Hindu and partly pagan. Those in the plains in Assam are called Hazai, Hojai, or Hajong ; are of the Hindu creed, and speak a Hindi dialect. The hill Cachari is stouter, hardier, and more turbu lent, and lives in villages of from 20 to 100 houses. Like the Naga, their young men reside together in a large building. Chatgari, a frontier district between Desh During and the Bhutan hills, is the chief locality of the Borro of Cachar, the numbers there being about half the whole Boro population. Of the three separate people, the Koch'h, the Bodo, and the Dhimal, the faintly yet distinctly marked type of the Mongolian family is similar in all three, but best expressed in the Bodo features and form. When the Mahomedan power was estab lished in Bengal, the Koch'h (Kocth or Kavach) kingdom extended from long. 88° to 93° E., and from lat. 26° to 27° N., from the south-eastern extremity of Nepal along the southern extremity of Sikkim and Bhutan into Assam, with Koch Bahar as its capital ; and the people consisted of the present Koch'h, Dhimal, and Bodo. They dwell in the sal forests with impunity.—Latham's Descrip. Ethn.; 'Hodgson. See Cathar ;- India ; Kocch.