The Lushei Kuki Clans

by John Shakespear

The term Old Kukis has long been applied to the clans which suddenly appeared in Cachar about 1800, the cause of which eruption I have explained when dealing with the history of the Lushais, but Dr. Grierson in the Linguistic Survey has included in this group a number of clans which had long been settled in Manipur territory, and my enquiries all go to prove the correctness of this classification. It appears practically certain that the ancestors of the Old Kukis and the Lushais were related and lived very close together somewhere in the centre of the hills on the banks of the Tyao and Manipur rivers. The Old Kuki clans of Manipur seem to have been the first to move, as records of their appearance there are found in the Manipur chronicle as early as the sixteenth century, and, though the chronology of the chronicle is not beyond suspicion, I think this may be taken as proof that these clans appeared in Manipur a good deal earlier than their relations the Bete and Rhangkhol entered Cachar. What the cause of this move was it is impossible to say. Probably quarrels with their neighbours, coupled with a desire for better land, combined to cause the exodus, and the movement, once started, had to continue till the clans found a haven of rest in Manipur, as their relatives did centuries later in British territory; for they were small, weak communities, at the mercy of the stronger clans, through whose lands they passed.

All these Old Kuki clans are organised far more democratically than the Lushais or Thados. Lieut. Stewart in his Notes on Northern Cachar says:—“There is no regular system of government among the Old Kukis and they have no hereditary chiefs as among the New ones. A headman called the ‘ghalim’ is appointed by themselves over each village, but he is much more a priest than a potentate, and his temporal power is much limited. Internal administration among them always takes a provisional form. When any party considers himself aggrieved, he makes an appeal to the elders, or the most powerful householders in the village, by inviting them to dinner and plying them with victuals and wine.”

Among the clans which settled early in Manipur, each village has been provided with a number of officials with high-sounding titles and little power, in imitation of the Manipur system. Among those who have settled in British territory the ghalim has been transformed into the “gaonbura”—i.e., head of the village—and has acquired a certain amount of authority, whilst among the Khawtlang and Khawchhak clans, which after various vicissitudes, including a more or less lengthy sojourn among the Lushais, recently entered Manipur territory, the ghalim has become a feeble imitation of a Lushai lal.

The Old Kuki Clans of Manipur.

Under this heading I propose dealing with the Aimol, Anal, Chawte, Chiru, Kolhen, Kom, Lamgang, Purum, Tikhup, and Vaiphei, who are now found in various parts of the hills bordering the Manipur valley, and who resemble each other in very many respects. In spite of this resemblance, the clans, while acknowledging their relationship to one another, keep entirely apart, living in separate villages and never intermarrying.

In the Manipur chronicle the Chiru and Anal are mentioned as early as the middle of the sixteenth century, while the Aimol make their first appearance in 1723. They are said to have come from Tipperah, but at that time the eastern boundary of Tipperah was not determined, and the greater part of the present Lushai Hills district was supposed to be more or less under the control of the Rajah of that State. A short distance to the east of Aijal there is a village site called Vai-tui-chhun—i.e., the watering place of the Vai—which is said to commemorate a former settlement of the Vaiphei. It seems probable, therefore, that the Aimol and Vaiphei left their former homes in consequence of the forward movement of the Lusheis. The remaining tribes all claim to have come from various places to the south of Manipur—the Anal from the Haubi peak, the Chiru from “the Hranglal hill far away in the south,” the Kom from the Sakripung hill in the Chin Hills; the other clans can give no nearer definition of the home of their forefathers than far away to the south. Like the Lushais, they all assert that they are descended from couples who issued out of the earth, the Chhinglung of the Lushais being replaced by “Khurpui”—i.e., the great hole.

The Anal assert that two brothers came out of a cave on the Haubi peak, and that the elder was the ancestor of the Anals, while the younger went to the valley of Manipur and became king of the valley. Another tradition says that the Manipuris, Anals, and Thados are the descendants of three men, whose father was the son of Pakhāngba, the mythical snake-man ancestor of the Manipuri royal family, who, taking the form of an attractive youth, overcame the scruples of a maiden engaged in weeding her jhum (compare Hodson’s “Meitheis,” page 12). These legends were probably invented after the clans had come in contact in order to account for the resemblances between them. The Chiru claim to be descended from Rezar, the son of Chongthu, the ancestor of the clan of that name still found in the Lushai Hills, whose name also appears in the Thado pedigree. The Lamgang tell the following tale:—On the Kangmang hill, away to the south, there is a cave. Out of this came a man and a woman, and were eaten up by a tiger which was watching. A god who had two horns, seeing this horrible sight, came out and drove away the tiger, and so the next couple to emerge escaped and became the ancestors of the Lamgang. The Purum claim to be descended from Tonring and Tonshu, who issued from the earth. It is said that “Pu rum” means “hide from tiger,” which connects them closely with the Lamgang legend. The Kolhen’s ancestors were a man and woman who sprang out of Khurpui provided with a basket and a spear, and lived at Talching, and had a son and daughter called Nairung and Shaithatpal, the direct descendants of whom are said still to be found among the Kolhen.

The Chawte told me the tale of the peopling of the world out of a hole in the ground, adding the graphic touch that an inquisitive monkey lifted up a stone which lay over the opening, and thus allowed their ancestors to emerge.

It is not quite clear whether these clans are eponymous. The Chiru say that their clan is named after an ancestor, but can give no pedigree. The Aimol say that there is no general name for the various families, and that Aimol is the name of the village site. It is probably Ai-mual. “Ai” is the Lushai name of a berry and also means crab, and appears in Ai-zawl or Aijal. “Mual” is the Lushai for a spur of a hill. It is a very common, in fact almost a universal, custom to call a new village site, if it has no recognised name, after the site of the old village, and probably the original Aimual would be found in the centre of the Lushai Hills.

All these clans have come much under Manipuri influence, and the Chiru, Aimol, Kolhen, Chawte, Purum, and Tikhup have abandoned the ancestral architecture, and now live in houses built on raised earthen plinths like the Manipuris.