KINNAUR

There are any number of septs of Kanaits or Rajputs, but very few of Brahmins. Fraser did not find any Brahmins and observed that "No Brahmins have ever settled in this district nor will they go there; perhaps the poverty of the country, and the privations necessarily to be suffered during residences there, have deterred these holy men, who usually seem to prefer those places which afford them all the comforts of life Edward Thornton** observed," The religion of Koonawur is Brahminism in the south; in the north, Lamaic Buddhism; in the middle, a mixture of the two systems.

1.. Wilson, Andrew, Abode of Snow.

2. Gerard, A., An account of Koonawur in the Himalaya.

3.Gerard,Lloyd William Alexander, narrative of a journey from Caunpoor t the Boorendo pass in the Himalay Mountains.

4. Punjab State Gazetteer, Simla Hill States, 1910.

5.Hutton, Thomas Lieut, journal of a State tour Kanawar, Hungrung, and Spiti,1838.

6.Fraser, james Ballie, Journal of a Tour through part of the Snowy Range of the Himalay Mountain, and to the sources of the riviers Jamna and Ganges, 1820.

There prevails a regularly graduated transition from one to the other. Thus, Brahmins are not met with beyond Saharun, near the southern boundary, where they officiate at the shrine of the sanguinary female divinity Bhima Kali, to whom, at no remote period, they offered human sacrifices.

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