Kuki (Indic people); Lushai (Asian people); Lushai language
As above remarked, it seems most probable that the country into which
the various Thangur chiefs moved, under pressure from the Chins,
was almost entirely occupied by small communities having no power of
cohesion. The greater part of these were absorbed, and now form the
majority of the subjects of the Thangur chiefs; but some fled north
and west into Manipur, Silchar, Sylhet and Tipperah, where they are
known as Kukis and where their appearance caused much trouble, as,
from the very nature of the cause of their migration, much ill-feeling
existed between them and the triumphant Lushais. In Stewart's notes
on Northern Cachar, it is stated that the Old Kukis made their
appearance in Cachar about the end of the eighteenth century. These
Old Kukis include the Biate (Beteh) and Hrangchul (Rhangkol) and
other cognate clans who are now known to us as Khawtlang. They claim
the hills round Champhai as their place of origin, and the sites
are still known by their names. We have seen that the Lusheis claim
to have sprung from a village south-east of Champhai, and that the
Zadeng passed through Champhai on their westward move, which ended
so disastrously for them. The advance of such tribes would be slow,
and would be largely regulated by the rate at which they exhausted the
cultivable land near their village sites; therefore the appearance of
the Biate and Hrangchul in Cachar at the beginning of the nineteenth
or end of the eighteenth century fits in well with the date I had
assigned for Thang-ura, the first Lushei chief, before I had read
Lieutenant Stewart's book. These Khawtlang clans to this day have
little power of cohesion, and they naturally gave way at once before
the well-organised Lushais, and fled north and north-west into Cachar
and Manipur, passing through the territory of the Thado clans and
suffering considerably at their hands. When the Thangur had firmly
established themselves, and the capable Sailo chiefs had come to
the front, they felt equal to fighting the Thado clans, which were
as highly organised as themselves. The Sailo chiefs triumphed, and
hence the eruption of the New Kukis, alias Thados, and cognate clans,
into Silchar about 1848.
In Colonel Lewin's "The Hill Tracts of Chittagong and the Dwellers
Therein," page 109, is given an account of the "Cucis or inhabitants
of the Tipperah mountains," written by J. Rennel, Chief Engineer
of Bengal in 1800. With very slight alterations, this account is
applicable to the Lushais of to-day, and I have no doubt that the
Cucis therein described were the Rivung, the advance-guard of the
great Lushai invasion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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