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KUTOCH AND PUTHANEEA RAJPOOTS. 
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The clans Kutoch and Puthaneea, of the hill tribes of Rajpoots, are settled principally in the Kangra district, in the north-eastern portion of the Punjab, and claim a very ancient and illustrious descent. Many other tribes affect to be Rajpoots, but their pretensions are not admitted by the royal clans, who will not intermarry or eat with them. These royal clans receive peculiar honours from their inferiors. They are addressed by the title of "Mecan," which, though a Mahomedan designation, has been adopted by them, or was probably conferred by one of the Mahomedan emperors. The Hindoo salutation of "jey Deva," "Victory to God," is also addressed to them, under royal or clannish privilege. These clans still maintain great exclusiveness. It is dishonourable to them to give a daughter to an inferior, or to take an inferior girl as wife for a son; to receive money for a daughter where marriage is contracted. They are agriculturists, but consider it a mark of degradation to hold the plough and perform manual labour. There is little in their dress or habits to distinguish them from other Rajpoot tribes which have been previously described. They seclude their women very strictly, and are not without suspicion of practising female infanticide. As soldiers they are spirited and brave, and their chiefs have maintained their independence and possessions throughout centuries of revolution and disorder. These Rajpoots do not, however, like their brethren of Nipal and Oude, enlist in the British service. Their objections to serving at any distance from home, and to discipline in any form, are too decided to be overcome. Some of them, however, take service with the native chiefs of the Punjab and Rajpootana. As a class they are haughty and intractable, but inoffensive among their own mountains; for while they have now little scope for the exercise of any martial spirit they possess, the prosecution of their former feudal and other quarrels has become impossible under English rule. Kutoch is the ancient name of the celebrated mountain fortress of Kangra, and the tribe takes its appellation from the place. The term Puthaneea is derived from Puthan Kot, where the tribe first settled after