Zo legend asserts that the Zo were originally from a cave called Chinnlung, which is given different locations by different clans. The legend cannot be accepted as a fact, because it is contradictory to known facts of how man originated.

The physical features of Zo people, yellowish or brownish skin, brown eye. black hair, slanted eye, prominent cheekbone, wide nose, and flat face suggest their relation to the Indonesian-Malay subrace of the Mongoloid Race. By analysing Zo language and comparing with other languages anthropologists concluded that Zo language is related to the Tibeto-Chinese languages and therefore their cultural affiliations with them. The Tibeto-Chinese group of people are subdivided into several groups (see Table 2) and Zo people are placed together with Burman, Meitei (Manipuris), Naga. Kachin. Lolo, Tibetans, etc. as the Tibeto-Burmans. who at one time or the other must have shared common cultural or political affiliations or both. This leads one to believe that Zo people originated in China and that they might in some way be related to bones found in the caves of Chou k’outien south of Peking— the bones of “Peking Man”. Peking Man is earliest known man in China and surrounding areas, and anthropologists believe that Peking Man possessed certain characteristics peculiar to the Mongoloid race.

Traces of human existence are attributed to as long ago as a million years. and Peking Man may have flourished in 500.000 B.C. In the Ordos region of China stone implements and a few bones of hunting people have been found, suggesting a time frame about .50.000 B.C.

By about 4.000 B.C. a Mongolian people with a neolithic culture appeared, but instead of being hunters they were animal breeders. Their tools included finely polished rectangular axes with keen cutting edges. By about 2500 B.C., according to Eberhard”. there were eight principal historical cultures in China. The Ch’iang tribes. ancestors of the Tibeto-Burmans, were found in western China in the province of present day Szechwan and in the mountain regions of Kansu and Shensi. Their economy was based on sheep herding and the raising of yaks, ponies and some pigs. Cultivation appears to have resulted from alien influence and mainly involved wheat and buckwheat.

During the Shang dynasty, (1600-1028 B.C.) the Ch’iang tribes were neighbors of the Shang people, with whom they were in a more or less constant state of war. They lived in the southwest region of Shansi and Shensi. During the Chou dynasty (722-481 B.C.), Ch’iang tribes were found in northwest China. between the sources of the Yangtse and Wei. Hall writes ……these people had been mountain dwellers, originally living in the northwest of China. The earliest Chinese records coming from the latter half of the second millennium B.C. called them the Ch’iang. Chinese hostility forced them to take refuge in northeast Tibet.”

During the Han dynasty the Ch’iang tribes appeared as the Tanguts— the Tibetan Tribal Federation. The Tanguts attempted to block Chinese access to Turkistan, which the Chinese had conquered in 73 A.D. Heavy fighting ensued and the Chinese got the upper hand. driving the Tanguts to the South. Whether this was the reason for the Tibeto-Burman’s migration to the south can only be guessed. Hall-‘ gives an earlier time, the first millennium B.C., for the Tibeto-Burman southward migration. He writes

 “….they were pursued by the Chinese rulers to Tsin (Chin) through the mountains towards the south.”

The Ch’iang tribal structure was always weak, as leadership arose among them only in times of war. Their society had a military rather than a tribal structure, and the continuation of these states depended entirely upon the personal qualities of their leaders. They were fundamentally sheep breeders, not horse breeders, and therefore showed an inclination to incorporate infantry into their armies.’

The absence of writing among most of the Tibeto-Burmans suggests that their separation must have begun at a very early date perhaps before the Chou dynasty, whose rulers were Tibetans. Except Tibetans none of the Tibeto-Burman group had writings. The Chou dynasty came to an end around 200 B.C. During the third century A.D. Buddhism was introduced into Tibet and China but none of the Tibeto-Burman group except the Tibetans were effected. They had been shifting their villages often in connection with their slash and burn method of cultivation. Civilization therefore did not penetrated them.

The southward movement of the Tibeto-Burman people took many years perhaps several centuries. Recent migration of Zo people to the Kale-Kabaw-Valley has taken a century and there is no sign that migration is completed. The same pattern was very likely the case with the Tibeto-Burman group. The Kachin, for example, were still moving towards the south until very recently. As they slowly moved through the hilly regions some settled in one location and some moved on. The result was their separation as different groups. Those who separated last remain closely related, for example, Zo and Meitei.

In moving toward the present Burma. Zo people separated into two groups. One group moving southwards between the Chindwin and the Irrawaddy. The other group moved south to the west of the Chindwin and reached Zo country and Arakan before 1000 A.D. According to G.H. Luce the Naga were in present Nagaland when the Zo-Meitei group passed through on the move south. One demonstration of this was a village in Nagaland whose inhabitants never married with other tribes. but who retained the original Zo language and culture. The villagers said they had lived in that village for several centuries. These villagers and some other Zo-Meitei groups remained in Nagaland as others moved to the south, and these people such as the Tangul Nagas, are linguistically and culturally closer to the Zo than to other Nagas. In the Somra Tracts the Pongniu, Sawlaw, Kayou and Heni clans, who speak the Kalaw dialect, are closely related to the Laizo of Falam. Zo people, and perhaps also Meitei slowly moved through the Hukawng Valley. When they came to the confluence of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin Rivers they settled there, the two big rivers giving them security and protection from enemies. One reason of their settlement could have also influenced by their inability to cross the two big rivers. Legends told us that Zo people found out building rafts only after they saw a rabbit floating on logs.

The ancient history of the Chindwin Valley was told by a chronicle found in Kale. The “Gazetters- speak of a ruined palace, and the chronicle of the town Yazagyo traces its history back to the time of Buddha, when Indian princes from Magadha ruled local Sak Kantu people. Even today the carved walls of the ancient town of Yazagyo can be appreciated at a place twenty miles north of Kalemyo, in the Kabaw Valley west of the Chindwin. The chronicle says that about A.D. 639 the palace was destroyed by combined forces of Manipuris and Zo According to the Gazetteer the Kale area was closely linked to ancient Magadha. Yazagyo is a corruption of Rajagriha, the residence of Buddha and capital of Magadha. Webula, a mountain a few miles west of Kalemyo, was named after Wepulla of the Pali history of modern Buipula.

Of all Tibeto-Burman peoples the Meitei of Manipur were the people linguistically closest to the Zo, and they settled together as one group in the Chindwin Valley. Historical materials of the Meiteis have shown the presence of Zo people in the Chindwin Valley after the beginning of the Christian era. Lehman” puts the Zo’s occupation of the area well into the middle of the first millennium A.D., in which period the Meiteis conquered the Andro-Sengmai group of people, who were inhabitants of present day Manipur.

Hodson” said that the Manipuris (Meitei) were descendents of surrounding hill tribes. Their traditions have remained similar and even today they retain many customs of the hill people. He wrote, in 1900, that the organization, religion, habits and manners of the Meitei of two hundred years before were the same as the hill people (Zo and Naga) of his own era.

There are legends and traditions which tell of early relationship between Meitei. Naga, and Zo. A Tangkul (Naga) tradition says that Naga, Meitei and Zo dscended from a common ancestor who had three sons. These were the progenitors of the tribes. This tradition puts the Zo as the eldest and the Meitei the youngest. Hodson wrote, “The Tangkul legend is to the effect that one day a sow, heavy with young, wandered from the village of Hundung and was tracked to the valley by the younger of the two brothers who had migrated from the village of Maikel Tungam, where their parents lived, and had founded the village of Hundung. Oknung, the pig’s stone, where the sow was eventually found, is situated on the banks of the Iril River. The sow littered there and the young man stayed to look after her; and as he found the country to his liking. he decided to settle there. For a time he kept up friendly relations with his brother in the hills, who made a practice of sending him every year gifts of produce of the hills and in turn received presents of the manufacture of the plains. The younger brother became well-to-do and proud, and abandoned the custom of sending presents to his brother in the hills, who promptly came down and took what he had been in the habit of getting.”

Hodson also told a Mao Naga legend, which connects the Naga, Meitei, and Zo. “Once upon a time there was a jumping match between the three sons of the common ancestor. The Kuki leapt from one top of one range of hills to the crest of the next, while the Naga, nearly as good, cleared the intervening valley, but his foot slipped and touched the river. Hence the limit of his ablutions. while the stronger Kuki to this day avoids all use of water. The Manipuri tumbled headlong, which explains his fondness for bathing. Another variant says that the father of them was a Deity named Asu who had three sons, Mamo, Alapa, and Tuto. From Mamo are descended the Kukis and the Nagas, while the Gurkhalis are sprung from the loin of Alapa and the sons of Tuto are the Manipuris.” This and many similar legends of Zo, Meitei, Naga. and Kachin tell stories of their early relations. Most of the legends attempt to explain how they separated or lost track of each other.

Grierson told a Thado legend which tells of the Khungsai (Thado) and Meitei separation. “Our forefathers have told us that man formerly lived in the bowels of the earth. The Khuangzais and the Meiteis were then friends. One day they quarreled about a cloth, and their mother took a dao and cut intopieces. From then on the Meitei and the Thado went separate ways. The Meitei, who had gone to cut haimang trees. left fresh footprints. so that many people followed them and the Meitei became numerous. The Khuangsais went to cut plantain trees from where they ascended to the earth. When people looked at the footprints of the Khuangsai they looked rather old and therefore few people followed them. which explains why there are only a few Khuangsai.

” Kachin legend says that they were separated from the Zo people, who had gone out in front. and they spent many days Irving to trice the way the Zo people had gone. As they could not find the trial they called the Zo people khang. meaning footprints, because they were looking for footprints of the Zo people. (As there are Khang tribes in the Hukawng valley, the identification of the Zo as Khang could be of modern interpretation.)

Khami legend says that the separation was due to the women and children. who could not walk fast and remained behind. where they cultivated the land and followed the others later.

Sizang legend is similar to the Khuangsai legend, but it does not specify from whom their group was separated. They went in front of the others and to mark their trial cut down plantain trees. The plantain trees grew up immediately after being cut, so that the people following them assumed they had lost the trial and went no further. There was another party, however, who marked their trail by cutting off tree bark. The people finding these still fresh cuttings followed them. Thus there were fewer Zo people.

There are also Meitei or Manipur legends that record the relationship between Zo. Naga, and the Meiteis. Tombi Singh, (1972), a Meitei writes. “If we have an element of truth in our legends and historical records, one thing is established: that the ancient forefathers of the Manipuris had their origin in the hill areas of Manipur. This period of forefathers reigning in hilltops is too remote from our memory and understanding to grasp it in its fullest details. As time passed, a super human being performed almost a miraculous feat to drain the water collected in the valley, boring a hole through a hill rock with a spear-like weapon. Even now the outlet is known as chingnunghut. As the result of the drainage provided for the water of Manipur, the population of Manipur moved down to the valley. . . special mention are seven clans, who established stable kingdoms in the different areas of the state.

” Little is known about Meitei history. In 777 the Shan prince Samlong found the Meiteis to be very poor. After a thousand years, during the region of King Pamheiba. Manipur became a strong nation. Conversion to Hinduism during the late eighteenth century and contact with Indians and Chinese widened the gap between the highlanders. Zo and Naga, and plainsmen, the Meiteis. There had been little contact except for warfare, and different cultures. customs, and modes of life were developed. Table 2. Modern mythology interpretation of Zo relationships to other peoples, and a list of Zo main clans.

Source : Zo History