abstract - Zomi Online Library

1
THE ZO PEOPLE OF BANGLADESH, BURMA AND INDIA: AN INTRODUCTION(VIII)
1.0 INTRODUCTION
I would like to explain in a few lines why I decided to prepare this paper. Since mid - 1988 - and
especially after Daw Aung San Su Kyi was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize for Peace - every now and
then I happened to meet people who showed some interest in the people to whom I belong - that is,
Chins or Chin-Kuki-Mizo as we are often designated by outsiders. So I began searching for books,
journals, booklets, articles, traveler‘s guides, etc. on my people in public and university libraries and in
book stores. After years of intensive searchings I had to conclude that even in serious academic
publications, prestigious encyclopaedia and almanacs, and information leaflets published by various
Christian churches from the West that have followers in Chinland for decades, either no mention is made
at all about us, or even if any mentions are made, the facts are mostly misleading.
Although there are already a number of books written by Zo scholars on our people, their works are
mostly either purely academic or the combination of academical approaches and Christian theological
outlooks. So personally I think their works do not really reflect the current and core essences of the Chins‘
identity as a separate and distinctive ethnic unit. My main simple reason therefore for preparing this paper is
to give outsiders - and the Burmans and the Zo people themselves as well - at least a slightly different
picture of us from what all the Burmans and outsiders have written about us until today. For this reason this
paper may sound more like a simple information paper than an academic one. And it indeed is just a simple
information paper!
As we did not have a modern script until the American Baptist missionaries created it for us in the early
1900s we had had only orally transmitted “historical records“. I shall, therefore, have to heavily quote from
the few existing sources, especially that of British colonial records, to render the facts in this paper more
creditability and authenticity. I shall even quote entire paragraphs on several occasions. Although many of
these colonial records contain a number of false information, we simply do not have any other better
documents other than these records. The so-called documents and records that have been produced and
kept by the Burmese state institutions themselves are not much better than our own “oral history“ either,
because these documents and records are badly manipulated by the Burmans to suit their own historical
context. In fact, the history of the Chin/Zo people first begins in the mid 18th century when scholars and
colonial officials from the West started making researches and keeping records on them.
The book from which I shall quote mostly is that of The Chin Hills by Carey & Tuck. According to the list of contents
of it this book seems to have been arranged in chronical order, but, in reality, it is not. And since my Paper is prepared
topically, it could indeed be very confusing for the reader at first glance. So, in order to enable him to get an idea about
what I mean - and the reader certainly may be curious about the full contents of this book as well - I am enclosing here
a 5-page Appendix(APPENDIX X).
And not as the title implies, in reality this paper covers overwhelmingly about events that have taken
place in East Zoram. It is due mainly to the fact that I‘ve got fewer materials on the Zo people inside India
and Bangladesh. And also in cultural matters I deal only with the traditions of the Tedim/Paite, Sizangs,
Suktes, Zous and Thados from the Tedim and Tonzang townships in northern Chin State, Burma. The
simple reason is that I am more familiar with traditions from these regions. (For more statistics on West
Zoram visit Wikipedia under Mizoram.)
Originally, the ZO people did not call themselves either Chin or Kuki. These two alien words are believed
to have originated in Burmese and Bangali respectively. They called and still call themselves in any of the
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Note: As the reader will see I put all the notes/remarks either immediately after the passages to which they refer, or as footnotes, according to the
Chinese method, for the reader‘s convenience. Author