The New International Encyclopædia/Assam

ASSAM'. A chief commissionship in thenorth-eastern part of British India, borderingon China, Burma, Manipur, and Bengal (Map:Burma, A 1) . Area, 52,078 square miles. Theinterior belongs chiefly to the valley of the Brahmaputra,while the territory on both sides of theriver is mostly mountainous. Among the mountaindistricts are the Garo, Khasi, and JaintiaHills. The streams are abundant and the lowerlands frequently suffer inundations. The climateis moderate as regards temperature. The annualrainfall in some sections is the heaviest on theglobe. The frequent occurrence of earthquakesis a great hindrance to the development of thecountry. A large portion of the country iscovered with jungle, in which elephants, tigers, leopards,and other wild beasts are found in abundance.Large deposits of coal, iron, and petroleumare known to exist, but only the first is exploitedto any extent. The soil is mostly very fertile, andthe extensive forests contain numerous usefulwoods. The tea-plant is indigenous and tea-cultureis making rapid strides. The area under teais now about 300,000 acres,and the tea plantationsare owned largely by Europeans. The greatstaple of agriculture is rice. The principalarticles of export are rice, tea, silk, cotton,rubber, ivory, and gold. The commerce is mostlyin the hands of the Jains. The populationin 1901 was 6,122,201, showing an increase of11.8 per cent. since 1891. Over 70 differentlanguages and dialects are spoken in Assam. Theseat of administration is Shillong.

The Assamese, or Ahoms, are probably aHindu-Shan (Mongolian) mixed stock, with theHindu element predominant. They are shortand thickset, with coarse, black hair andMongoloid face. Their language has some right tobe classed as a sister-tongue of Hindi, Bengali,etc., and not as a mere dialect of the latter. It isspoken by about 4,500,000 people, the standarddialect being that of Nowgong. The Assameseliterature is extremely scanty, although itemploys a special alphabet of its own. TheAssamese have a national festival called BaisakhBihu, a gay occasion, in which young womenespecially are prominent. Besides the Assamese,the country contains a number of more primitivepeoples (Lushai, etc.), whose language andfolktales have recently been studied by MajorShakespeare (1898-99). Over 50 per cent. ofthe population are Hindu in faith. TheMohammedans number about 1,500,000.

Consult: Cooper, The Mishmee Hills (London,1873); Hunter, Statistical Account of Assam(London, 1880); Reid, Chin-Lushai Land(Calcutta, 1894); Brown, Grammatical Notes on theAssamese Language (Nowgong, 1893); Bronson,Dictionary in Assamese and English (Sibsagor,1867).