Meer Baboo

Chapter 1

From,

Captain Hugh Rees James

Deputy Commissioner

Peshawar

To,

Lieutenant Colonel H. B. Edwards CB

Commissioner Superintendent

Peshawar Division

Dated Peshawar the 26th March 1856

Sir,

During my proceedings towards the revised settlement of the Amonzai Tappa in Eusufzai, I have been checked by numerous claims which are of such importance as to require that I should at this stage solicit your advice and instructions, both on account of the interests affected by them and also that by carrying out your views, the arrangements may be more confidently entered into, for the litigation on these points has already extended over so long a period and by the force of party spirit has acquired such a virulent nature that it will be wise to ensure the measures now taken being as nearly final as practicable.

These questions are in some respects general but the target member of them are connected with the affairs of the late Meer Baboo and the quarrels of his sons and as the latter will embrace nearly all the points requiring notice elsewhere. I will detail the case as succinctly as I can. Forwarding the vernacular papers from which the abstract is drawn.

The Amonzai Tappa is held by two branches of that tribe of the Dowlutzai and the Ismailzai a line drawn from between Roostam and Bazar to Shahbaz Garhee and thence to Garhee Kapoor will suffice for general purposes to define the lands of these two branches all to the south and east of that line being in possession of Ismailzai and all to the west in that of the Dowlutzai, the village of Garhee Kapoor being divided between the two, the hills of Doda and Karamar and the villages and the villages about them which in lieutenant walker's map are erroneously excluded from this Tappa and assigned to other divisions are in Ismailzai. The chief branches of the Dowlutzai are the Bazeed Khail and Hussan Khail. This division is sufficient for the present purpose. The original seat of the Amonzai was the Garhee Kapoor. At Nadir Shah's invasion they fled to the north of the Karamar range returning when Zuman Shah succeeded to the throne. Some of them remained in the Sudoom valley whence they ejected the Kamalzai who were the former occupants of it. Their seat there was Chargooli and Roostam Bazar. These northern and southern settlers in course of time pushed their Bandas on the Merah and when the latter began to approach each other in the center, the Garhee Kapoor families being the strongest set a limit to the Sudoom encroachments. This boundary between the north and south lands of the Dowlutzai is now feuding in my court, the former is called Sudoom, the latter Mokam (from the stream which runs through it).

Meanings:

Tappa (pronounced, Tup; the u is pronounced the same way as in shut; pa as in grandpa):  Area

Bazar (pronounced, Baa Zaar): Market place

Eusufzai (pronounced without the E for it is silent, You Saf [like saffrons] Zai): The largest tribe in the Pashtun belt of Pakistan.