Lieutenant Colonel G .B. Mainwaring lived among the Lepchas at Lebong and later, at a village called Poloongdong,near Darjeeling for many years and studied the Lepcha language and literature under a highly capable 'Mun', a Lepcha priestess. A Lepcha Mun or Priestess has an excellent command of the Lepcha language because of her profession. Her name was "Mun Dey Mem" [mNude meM]. "Mun" means a born Lepcha priestess and "Dey" means a destroyer. Most probably she was an "Aavaor" Mun, a class of born Lepcha priestess who possesses a supernatural power and can bring destruction if provoked. "Mem" was probably added to her name later when she was associated with Colonel Mainwaring. "Mem" is a short form of "Memsaheb" meaning a lady in Hindustani. It is said that she also learnt spoken English from the Colonel. Lieutenant Colonel Mainwaring, himself a gifted linguist, thoroughly mastered the language and, to this day, he remains unsurpassed and supreme amongst foreign writers, authors,linguists, scholars and anthropologists on the Lepcha language and literature.Lieutenant Colonel G .B. Mainwaring was promoted to the rank of full Colonel on 8 January 1873. Colonel Mainwaring published 'A Grammar of the Lepcha (Rong) Language as it exists in the Dorjeling and Sikkim Hills" in 1876. To keep the record straight, he was the first person to write and publish the first Lepcha Grammar. Although he based his Lepcha Grammar on the principles of Latin Grammar and not on the structure of the Lepcha Grammar itself, he used the Lepcha characters/scripts widely, to the delight of the Lepcha people;Roman letters were used for the learners of the language and simple and accurate explanations in English were given. He has also given a brief account about the powers of the Lepcha Letters called ' Lazoang' in Lepcha. Colonel G .B. Mainwaring was again promoted, this time to the rank of Major General on 1 January 1884 on the supernumerary list and finally to Lieutenant General on 1 January 1887. Dictionary of the Lepcha Language. General Mainwaring compiled the Dictionary of the Lepcha Language but it was only published after his death. Dr Albert Grunwedel, a German Tibetologist, was entrusted to revise, edit and publish the Dictionary. This Dictionary was first published in Berlin in 1898. This Dictionary consists of 552 pages and contains about 18,000 entries. The Lepchas, I believe, are the only people in the Indian Sub-Continent who have given the names for each and every butterfly that are found in the Darjeeling and Sikkim hills. The General has included the names of various butterflies in his Dictionary as well as the names of birds, animals, insects, plants etc. The second edition of the Dictionary came out in 1979 by Ratna Pustak Bhandar, Kathmandu, Nepal.

• published: 25 Nov 2013
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