Kuki people
The Kuki people, or Kuki-Zo people, are an ethnic group in the Northeastern Indian states of Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, as well as the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar. The Kukis form one of the largest hill tribe communities in this region. In Northeast India, they are present in all states except Arunachal Pradesh. The Chin people of Myanmar and the Mizo people of Mizoram are kindred tribes of the Kukis. Collectively, they are termed the Zo people.
Some fifty tribes of Kuki peoples in India are recognised as scheduled tribes in India, based on the dialect spoken by that particular Kuki community as well as their region of origin.
Name
The term "Kuki" is an exonym: it was used by Bengalis to refer to the tribes inhabiting Patkai–Arakan Yomas, the eastern extension of the Himalayas running north–south between India and Myanmar. The term is witnessed in the chronicles of Tripura from the reign of Dhanya Manikya and fairly regularly afterwards. From even earlier, a couplet in Sanskrit is found mentioning a 12th century land grant in Kukisthana.The Tibetan Buddhist writer Taranatha wrote a description of the Kuki country, including in it almost the entire eastern hill range and beyond. The term also occurs in traditional Meitei hymns where the Kuki king is praised along with the Meitei king.
The term came into British usage in 1777, when the chief of Chittagong appealed to the British governor general Warren Hastings for help against Kuki raids from the hills.
The same collection of tribes were called "Chins" by the Burmese.
The British also used the term "Lushais" to refer to the tribes inhabiting the Lushai Hills region to the south of the Manipur valley, eventually dividing it into separate "Lushai Hills" in India and "Chin Hills" in Burma.
Over time, the British came to distinguish the tribes currently called "Kukis" from the remaining "Lushais". An Intelligence Branch report from 1907 listed Ralte, Paite, Thadou, Lakher, Hmar and Poi tribes among Kukis. It stated that each of these tribes had its own language, and these languages were unintelligible to the "Lushais".
The Manipuris used the term "Khongjai" to refer to the tribes to the south and southwest of the Imphal Valley, a usage witnessed from 1508. This appears to have been a geographical term. The "Old Kuki" tribes in Manipur were referred to by their individual names, which were also partly of geographical origin.
Some Kuki and Chin tribes reject both of these terms as being of colonial origin, and use the self-designation "Zo", which is a generic term that has variants in most Kuki-Chin dialects. "Zomi" is also used. The term "Kuki" is still enthusiastically adopted by the Thadou language-speaking clans. Thus, "Kuki" is sometimes used in this narrow sense to refer to the Thadou-speaking Kukis, with even the Thadou language referred to as the "Kuki language".
By 2023, a consensus seems to have developed among the Kuki tribes of Manipur to use the compound term "Kuki-Zo" to refer to themselves.
History
Early history
Ethnologist C. A. Soppitt argued that the Kuki tribes must have settled in region west of Irrawaddy River from before the 11th century, based on the fact that they had no traces of Buddhism, which was already prevalent in Burma by that time. He grouped the Kuki tribes into two broad classes: Hrangkhol along with the co-tribe Biate in one class, and Changsan along with the co-tribe Thadou in the other class. Each of them was grouped with several subtribes. Soppitt suggested that, by the 16th century, the Hrangkhols and Biate inhabited the Lushai Hills region. He believed that they were pushed out by Changsan, who moved in from the east along with Thadou, forcing them to move to the North Cachar Hills, Manipur and Tripura. Further, the Changsan–Thadou combine was believed to have been in turn forced out by newer tribes in the 19th century, and then followed the same routes as the earlier tribes. The first two groups were referred to as Old Kukis and New Kukis by the British administrators, which did not receive endorsement from Soppitt. Modern scholars also disapprove the terminology of "Old Kukis" and "New Kukis", but it does appear that the two groups followed different migration routes and thus developed significant cultural differences.Per the 1881 census, the Kukis are estimated to have numbered 20,000 in the North Cachar Hills, 15,000 in the Naga Hills, 30,000–40,000 in Manipur and 6,000 in Tipperah. In addition, the plains of Cachar had 6,000 people. The Gazetteer of Manipur, based on the same census, noted that the Kukis of Manipur wee composed of approximately 8,000 "Old Kukis" and 17,000 "New Kukis". Borders of Manipur were expanded after this date to include the Kuki-inhabited southern parts of the present Churachandpur and Chandel districts, adding further Kuki populations to the state of Manipur. During the Kuki Rebellion of 1917–1919, the Kukis in Manipur were estimated to number 40,000.
Manipur
Cheitharol Kumbaba, the court chronicle of the Manipur kings, mentions various Kuki tribes and clans from 1404 onwards. The largest of the Kuki tribes, the Thadous, lived in the southern hills of the present-day Manipur, which was ungoverned territory for most of the historical period.The Manipuris referred to them as "Khongjais". The naming was apparently based on a village called "Khongchai" in the Tuipui river valley, with the surrounding hills also referred to as Khongjai Hills. The Manipur ruler Bhagya Chandra made war on this region in 1786, and subjugated the Kuki chieftain in the central village. Other regions in southern hills remained relatively untouched until 1894 when the British defined the border of the Manipur state to include the southern hills.
The term "Kuki" to refer to these tribes was introduced by the British in the 1820s. By 1850s, they imported the terminology of "New Kuki" for the Khongjai tribes and "Old Kuki" for the other Kuki tribes such as Kom and Aimol. The scholars of Kuki Research Forum consider the terminology misleading because the historical record does not justify such a progression in time.
The British testimony regarding Kukis in Manipur was variable. British Commissioner Pemberton wrote in 1835 that the Khongjais stretched along the hills from the south of the Manipur valley to the Arakan Mountains.
British Residents, William McCulloch and Colonel Johnstone, wrote that Khongjais had long been subjects of Manipur, but "new immigrants" of them came through between 1830 and 1840. They "poured into the hill tracts" in large numbers, according to the Residents, driving away the older inhabitants. The Residents believed that these Khongjais were driven north by stronger tribes from the south, and hence settled all around the Imphal Valley.
Scholar Pum Khan Pau notes that, around 1830, when the British established a political agency in Manipur, the area to the south of present-day Manipur witnessed the rise of a powerful Sukte chieftain called Khan Thuam. Along with his son Kam Hau, he embarked upon a territorial expansion, pushing the less powerful tribes towards the border of Manipur. But many tribesmen also submitted to the Suktes, paid tribute, and participated in the expansion process. This period witnessed many raids from the south on the border of Manipur, which was roughly in line with the southern boundary of the Manipur valley. A popular folk song summarised the position of Khan Thuam:
After Khan Thuam's death, his dominion came to be divided between his elder son Kam Hau, based at Mualpi and the younger son Za Pau, based at Tedim. The combined tribe earned the name "Kamhau-Sukte" and became "one of the most dreaded powers in Manipur, Lushai Hills and the Kale-Kabaw Valley".
The domain of the Kamhau-Sukte tribes extended all the way to the south of the Manipur valley, encompassing major portions of the present-day Churachandpur and Chandel districts, driving the tribes in these districts further north. Their movement threatened the Naga tribes to the north, in particular the Kabuis to the west of the Manipur valley. McCulloch arranged for a line of Kuki settlements to the south of their area to serve as a buffer and armed the settlers. These villages came to be known as "sepoy villages".
According to McCulloch, sepoy villages were also set up along the southern frontier of the Manipur valley.
According to modern scholars, the British administrators overemphasized the Kukis' "migration from south", because they had inadequate knowledge of the Kukis already present in the hills of Manipur. In addition, some of the larger tribes such as Thadous are said to have been native to the southern hills that were later added to Manipur territory in the 1890s.
An important landmark in the history of the Kuki people was the arrival of missionaries and the spread of Christianity among them. Missionary activity had considerable social, cultural and political ramifications while the acceptance of Christianity marked a departure from the traditional religion of the Kuki peoples as well as their ancestral customs and traditions. The spread of English education introduced the Kuki people to the "modern era". William Pettigrew, the first foreign missionary, came to Manipur on 6 February 1894 and was sponsored by the American Baptist Mission Union. He, along with Dr. Crozier, worked in the North and the Northeast of Manipur. In the south, Watkins Robert of the Welsh Presbytery mission organised the Indo-Burma Thadou-Kuki Pioneer Mission in 1913. To have a broader scope, the mission's name was changed to North East India General Mission in 1924.
The first resistance to British hegemony by the Kuki people was the Kuki Rebellion of 1917–19, also known as the Anglo-Kuki War, after which their territory was subjugated by the British. Until their defeat in 1919, the Kukis had been an independent people ruled by their chieftains. The Dobashi, Lengjang Kuki was credited as responsible for preventing the Kukis of the Naga Hills from joining the Kuki Rebellion of Manipur.
During World War II, seeing an opportunity to regain independence, the Kuki fought with the Imperial Japanese Army and the Indian National Army led by Subhas Chandra Bose but the success of the Allied forces over the Axis group dashed their hopes.