Even though Sukaphaa treated the people of the Patkai hills very severely on his way to the Brahmaputra valley, his approach to the population in Assam was conciliatory and non-confrontational. He married the daughters of Badaucha, the Matak Chief and Thakumatha, the Barahi chief and established cordial relations with them. As he began establishing his domain, he avoided regions that were heavily populated. He encouraged his soldiers as well as members of the Ahom elite to marry locally. A process of Ahomisation (whereby locals who adopted Ahom methods of wet rice cultivation and statecraft were accepted into the Ahom fold) bolstered the process of integration. The local Borahi and the Moran people, speakers of Tibeto-Burman languages, addressed Sukaphaa's people as Ha-Cham, that later on developed into Assam or Ahom (see Etymology of Assam), the name of the kingdom; and Ahom, the name of the people.