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Chapter one. The Beginning |
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Sub-divisions of Manipur and tribal groups |
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There wasn't long to wait. Alexa, unable to join the Ukhrul trip, had already arranged for the pair of us to go to (9) Tamenglong and the Barak River with Mr Jeffery, the State Engineer, on his next tour of bridge inspection. She broke the news to me almost as soon as I reached the house. |
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At that time the hill districts of Manipur fell into two sub-divisions. |
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Ukhrul was the headquarters of the eastern, and Tamenglong that of the west. Both areas ran from the Naga Hills border to the Chin and Lushai Hills on the south, and in both the tribes were of two groups, Naga and Kuki. |
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The former were an early migration, the latter recent arrivals akin to the Lushais and Chins. The southern half of both districts was wholly Kuki; to the north, where the full tide of their invasion had not reached, they were peppered here and there among the Nagas in scattered clans. To a certain extent they were still moving. Though their larger communities were static, the smaller tended to shift and break up, drifting from place to place in search of fresh land as though their migratory urge were not yet spent. The Nagas, on the other hand, were well-settled. Their last migration was several centuries behind them and they lived in clearly-defined tribal areas. To the east, round Ukhrul, were the Tangkhuls; on their fringes were a small pocket of Marrings and some Khoiraos; and there were border villages which shaded off into the Angamis of Naga Hills. On the west, at Tamenglong, there were three allied tribes, the Kabui, Zemi and Lyeng, which together formed the group known as the Kacha Nagas. |
