Thepfulhouvi Solo
II. Kuki Migration to Manipur and intrusion into Naga Hills
People usually migrate from lands of difficulty to lands of plenty; migration of People from place to place has always created difficulties between the old and the new populations.
Prior to the First World War, in the last decades of the 18th century and during the first quarter of the 19th Century, the Kukis under pressure from the Burmese in the south began to migrate north into Manipur and intrude into Naga Hills.
They did not settle in the fertile Manipur valley of the Meitei with much stronger Army than the martial Kukis who were at best equipped only with primitive Muzzle Loading Guns and Guns made out of dried hardened Buffalo Skins! The migrating Kukis overcame quite some Rongmei Villages in the hills. The Kukis pressed the Rongmeis season after season. This seeded the conflict between the Kuki and the Rongmei Naga communities in Manipur.
At this time there arose Jadoanang, a returnee of the Manipur Labour Corps to Europe and who took the leadership of the Rongmeis. With a few Magic Tricks learned while abroad, Jadoanang claimed himself the Messiah of the superstitious Rongmeis and talked of driving out all foreign rulers and to introduce new dispensation principally against the Kukis.
There arose great social unrest among the Rongmeis; and Jadoanang introduced new practices of worship not known indigenous.
Jadoanang made secret programs to eliminate all the Kukis from the Rongmei areas; this caused a lot of fear in the Kukis and some of them started to flee from the hill Villages to Imphal valley for security.
The Government sought to arrest Jadoanang for the social unrest. He fled to Cachar from where he was brought to Manipur and charged for inciting mob lynching and Murder of four Manipuris Traders in his village of Kambirong and was hanged in 1930.
The Kukis did not like to be drafted for the Labour Corps from Manipur and when the Raja’s Sarkar sought to contribute a second lot of Labour Corps, all the Kuki Chiefs met at Jampi on 17/03/1917 and raised rebellion for 3 years till the winter of 1919 known as the Kuki Rebellion of Manipur.
It was put down ultimately and 10 of the principal Kuki Chiefs were exiled to Pasighat in North East Frontier Agency and pardoned years after.
With the colonial Government’s tacit understanding, some 10 Kuki Villages, some jointly with Zeliangs: Tening, Paona, Tesangki, Kandung, Chamcha, Tolbung, Thenjol, Jolpi and Holkang in Naga Hill adjoining the North Kachar Area as a Buffer Zone to stop the Angami’s restless intrusion to the Company’s Territory of North Kachar in Assam.
Lenjang Kuki’s elder brother Lhoukhosei was the Mouzadar/ Hd GB of Henima/Tening for collection of House Tax and after him in 1908 Lenjang was made the Dobashi, later Hd. DB in 1926 till his retirement in 1946.
It was reported to the DC Kohima that Seirhima Village lies in abandonment and the DC asked Neisier (Niser) of Khonoma to go to the Area and see whether the Village is actually abandoned or not.
Nisier reported back to the DC that the Village is completely abandoned and vacant, and the other Chakhroma Villages have no objection in populating it again.
The Village is to be known as Seirhima and the boundary of it was set on the original Seirhima Village.
Seirhima-Kuki Village was perhaps one of the first Christian Villages in the Naga Hills! A small group of first Christian Angamis (Niser Meruno, of Khonoma, Sieliezhü and Kumbho of Kohima) Villages and a few other early Christians helped construct a small first Christian Church Hut of Thatch in one Week in the Village.
III. Kuki Settlement in South eastern Naga Hills
Part of the Kuki Migration to Manipur from Burma penetrated into Naga Hills through the controversial contested South East corner of the Naga Hills, known as ‘Cross Hatch Area’ North East of Somra Tract, now Puchuri Area and caused trouble with the indigenous inhabitants.
The Government decided to push the Kukis back to Burma and did so to the then “recent Kuki Emigrants” but a few small Kuki Villages like Kangjang, Akhen were there before also and allowed to stay. These few “Old Kukis” Villages were allowed to stay but the other “Resent Kukis” were all pushed back to Somra Tract of Burma.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Naga Tribes of Nagaland is that every Tribe has a Territory of its own and the people of one Tribe do not migrates to other territory without the consent of the original Tribe!
People do not migrate carrying their land to other places but the Naga of Nagaland doesn’t accept emigration of people from other States, be he or she a Naga or not, into the State of Nagaland without the emigrants sharing their land with Nagaland.
This is a strong traditional political stand of the Naga of Nagaland State; its violation is taken a grave violation of the Traditional Customary practice unacceptable in the Naga custom.
From time immemorial, primal Forest lands were traditionally regarded as belonging to the Tribe nearest it, to the Village, to its Thinuo/Khel, the Clan and the Family in descending order that actually owns the Land. The Government does not own Land in Nagaland. Every Tribe, Village, Khel and Clan respectively has the full authority over its traditional territory.
The colonial Government from the beginning respected this Land holding System of the Naga Hill Tribes and enacted Jhumland Act of Naga Hills that prevents the transfer of land from one Village to another, even within the tribe. The Right in the Village is rooted in the indigenous Membership of the Village of the Territory.
The colonial Government’s acceptance of this Naga Tribal Land Holding System during their administration affected the paucity of ‘conflict over Tribal Jurisdictions’ in the Naga Hills.
The inviolable Land holding System of the Naga of Nagaland was evolved naturally over time immemorial in the life of the People.
The Colonial Government rarely occupied land it needed for Government purposes but never appropriated the area it has not compensated and seized land only over War.
(The present famous WWII Memorial Cemetery at Kohima is the only Area the Colonial Power seized from Tsütuonuomia Khel of Kohima Village, for joining the Khonoma Siege of the Colonial Post at Kohima in the 1879)
