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Concept
Kuki people
Summary
The Kuki people are an ethnic group in the Northeastern Indian states of Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, as well as neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar. The Kuki constitute one of several hill tribes within India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. In Northeast India, they are present in all states except Arunachal Pradesh.
Some fifty tribes of Kuki peoples in India are recognised as scheduled tribes, based on the dialect spoken by that particular Kuki community as well as their region of origin.
The Chin people of Myanmar and the Mizo people of Mizoram are kindred tribes of the Kukis. Collectively, they are termed the Zo people.
The term "Kuki" is an exonym: it was used by Bengalis to refer to the tribes inhabiting Lushai Hills, the easternmost branch of Himalayas running north–south between India and Burma. 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 and "Lushais" by the British. The modern term that encompasses all the groups is "Zo" or "Zomi" (meaning "Zo people").
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 immediately to the south of the Imphal Valley. The other Kuki tribes in the interior of Manipur were still called "Kukis" (or sometimes "old Kukis").
Ethnologist C. A. Soppitt argued that the Kuki tribes must have settled in region west of Irrawaddy river from at least the 11th century, based on the fact that they had no traces of Buddhism, which was already prevalent in Burma by that time.
Official source
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