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the Siemi, a former civilization |
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Chapter sixteen. The Lost Folk |
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(121) All through the Barail area, tucked away behind ridges, on precipitous spurs, at the heads of hidden ravines, were the lost villages of a vanished people. |
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The Zemi said they were the relics of the jungle-folk, the Siemi, who had preceded them in the occupation of the country. Tradition had it that the Kacharis had wiped them out; certainly the sites were, one and all, in places easily concealed and easily defensible, and most of them had, on the one spur or neck by which they could be approached, double or triple ditches, banks, and even complicated defences and walls of dry stone. Whoever built those villages had enemies. |
