Origin, migration and settlement: The Zeliangrong of NE
- Part 2 -

Budha Kamei *

A Scene from 'The Zeliangrongs' :: Provided by Director - Ronel Haobam

To quote R. C Majumdar, "The Indians also proceeded to the Far east (South-East Asia) by land routes through Bengal, Manipur and Assam. They reached Lower Burma through Arakan, and Upper Burma through ravine passes in the Patkoi range or Manipur Hills. As already noted Chinese walls passed through land routes from Yunan and Szechuan to northern India in the second century B. C. There are good grounds to hold that this route though difficult was frequently used in the olden time."

G. E Harvey also states, the trade routes with China: "Two routes were along the Irrawaddy and Salween rivers, the third down the Chindwin River and through Manipur, took the caravans a three months journey to Afghanistan where the silk of China were exchanged for the gold of Europe." R. B. Pemberton gave a description of four routes, two from India to Manipur and two from Manipur to Burma. These must be the ancient trade route.

According to Rama Chakravati, "Manipur was one of the land routes on the Eastern frontier of India through which Indian culture passed into upper Myanmar. Likewise Manipur was one of the gates through which Mongoloid tribes, their languages and beliefs poured into Eastern India." Indeed, the above trade routes were also used for human migration in olden days.

According to Gangmumei Kamei, as the Meiteis, the Nagas, and Kuki-Chins-Mizo are Tibeto-Burman, they must have lived with other groups of the same family in South West China before 1000 BC and migrated to eastern Tibet, upper Burma, then moved into the Irrawaddy valley, Malaysia and Indonesia, and they returned northward and entered North east India through Manipur River, and some tract of Indo-Burma border to present their habitat.

Recent genetic evidence on Y chromosome haplotype distributions outlines a picture about the origin and dispersion of Sino-Tibetan populations. A total of 31 indigenous Sino-Tibetian populations were studied by typing 19Y chromosome biallelic and 3 Y chromosome microsatellite markers in 607 male individuals including Naga. The ancestors of the Sino-Tibetan population were originally from southern East Asia. Around 20,000—40,000 years ago, a population with dominant MI22C Y chromosomes finally arrived at the upper and middle Yellow River basin. However, the exact geographic location of the first settlement of Sino-Tibetans is not known.

According to the archaeological findings, the earliest Neolithic cultures in East Asia happened around 10,000 years ago, and one of them is located at the upper and middle Yellow River region of China, the so called the Yang-Shao culture. The significance of this culture is highlighted by the event of millet agriculture; it is believed to be the mother culture of Sino-Tibetans. In other words, about 10,000 years ago, the Neolithic culture began to proliferate in this area with the event of millet agriculture. The other two contemporary cultures are Long-Shan in the northeast and Hemudu in the southwest.

During the Yang-Shao epoch, the proto-Tibeto-Burman, were the dominant population living in the Upper River basin and formed a culture called Ma-Jia-Yao. This culture was found to bear a strong similarity to the typical Yang-Shao culture, which is considered one of the three major cultures that led to the birth of Chinese civilisation.

Population growth actuated the need for exploring new habitats. The splitting of the two language sub-families occurred about 5000-6,000 years ago. A sub-group of the Proto-Sino-Tibetan, now called the proto-Tibeto-Burman people did leave their Yellow River homeland, marching westwards and then southward, leading to the inhabitation of the Himalayas. The ancient migrations of the Proto-Tibeto-Burman people probably did follow the well-known route, called the Zang (Tibet)-Mien corridor, the most frequently used route to enter the Himalayas from the east.

This route starts in the upper Yellow River region, moves westward to Qinghai province and then southward to the Himalayas. The Baric, a branch of Tibeto-Burman subfamily moved its way southward, crossing the Himalayan Mountains, and reached the southern Himalayan area, resulting in the peopling of Bhutan, Nepal, north-eastern India and northern Yunnan. The Tibeto-Burman subfamily can be further divided into four branches, including Baric, Bodic, Burmese-Lolo and Karen.

Subsequently, after having a substantial admixture with a population carrying YAP+, possibly from central Asia/southwest Siberia, the Bodic branch entered the Himalayas and eventually expanded all across Tibet. The Burmese Lolo and Karen branches went southward into north-western Yunnan and finally reached Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in the middle of the first millennium. In the past 5000 years, the Chinese subfamily expanded mainly to the east and south, and eventually inhabited all of China.

The Zeliangrongs till today use the sea coast objects such as cowries and conch shells in their cultural usages. This gives hint that they must have come from sea coast or at least crossed some islands or the seas as shells are not found anywhere in the hills. Colonel L. W. Shakespear suggests that "the Nagas fancy for marine shells may point to a bygone home on the sea." W.C. Smith, a Christian missionary as well as a sociologist from America and J.H. Hutton, the great anthropologist point out the resemblance of the culture and social customs of the Nagas with those tribes living in Burma, Indonesia, and Philippines.

Smith is of the view that the Naga Tribes belong to the same blood which is found in the people of Burma, Sikkim, Bhutan and other hill areas of North east India. As a matter of fact, it is not easy to ignore these highly authoritative speculations due to lack of solid evidence. About the origin of the Nagas, M. Horam also traced the Naga origin to the Southern seas. He writes, "There can be little doubt that at one time the Nagas must have wandered about before they found their permanent abode; from their myths and legends one gathers that there is a dim relationship with the natives of Borneo in that the two have a common traditional way of headhunting; with the Philippines and Formosa through the common system of terrace cultivation; and with the Indonesians, as both use the loin loom for weaving cloth. The embroidery on the Naga cloths resembles the kind done on Indonesian cloths."

History supplies no clear information about the factor of the migration of the Mongoloid people from their original homeland. It is generally believed that they might have been turned out from their places by advanced and stronger power or they might have left their original home in search of virgin/fertile land. In other words, when the inducement to migrate is an ecological push, such as the exhaustion of natural resources or a famine, or when a group abandons its homeland voluntarily under the pressure of enemies.

The trend in pre-Christian era was represented by the warring Chinese states, upheavals followed by Hun military expeditions and Han colonisation of Kansu (North-west China), as a result of which the Tibeto-Burman speaking peoples did venture their exodus. According to D. R. Sardesai, after establishing full political control across the Yangtse, the Han dynasty pushed out the other ethnic groups of peoples from the area.

In fact, some migrations had been happening for nearly two millennia before the political consolidation in the third century B. C. It was during the late period that ancestors of the people of Malaysia, Burma, Indonesia and Thailand did migrate under the Chinese political and military pressure along the source of rivers to the fertile plains and islands of Southeast Asia. The fertility of the land of Manipur, which was one of the ancient trade routes between India and South East Asia even China, attracted different groups of Tibeto-Burman to Manipur from pre-historic times.

"At one time South-East Asia was treated as a vacant land for the more densely populated Mongolians of China. Pressure of population created demand for newer cultivable land and hordes of people left their ancestral land in search of new land." Suniti Kumar Chatterjee states that the Mongoloid groups of people from Western China had been pushing south and west from their original home from pre-historic times but certain large scale movements had begun in early part of the first millennium B. C.

Julian Jacob observes, "The general expansion of the Mongoloid peoples throughout South East Asia including North East India, may have begun as much as 10 or 12000 years ago, possibly from a region of North China."

The Nagas, the Meiteis and Kuki-Chins-Mizo along with other groups of Tibeto-Burman family from their original home land South West China or North West China migrated to North East India through various routes in batches and at different periods. Therefore, the ancestors of the Nagas including the Zeliangrong people must have taken many centuries in moving down from the mountainous South west China to the equally rugged Myanmar through its river valleys to the vast islands of South-East Asia and then moving into their present habitat (Manipur).

To be continued...