Zou people
A Zou girl in traditional costume
|
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Chin Hills (Burma) | ca. 31,000 |
| Manipur (India) | c. 22,000 |
| Languages | |
| Zou language / Zouham/Zokam | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Tedim Chin;Paite | |
The Zou people or Zomi (Burmese: ဇိုလူမ်ိဳး; also spelled Yo or Yaw or Jo or Jou or Zo) are an indigenous community living along the frontier of India and Burma, they are a sub-group of the Zo people (Mizo-Kuki-Chin). In India, they live with and are similar in language and habits to the Paite and the Simte peoples. In Burma, the Zou are counted among the Chin people. They are a hill people ("Zou" being translated as "lofty hill ranges" or "complete" or "finished").
In India, the Zou are officially recognized as one of the thirty-three indigenous peoples within the state of Manipur, and are one of the Scheduled tribes. According to the 2001 Census, the Zou/Jou population in Manipur is around 20,000, less than 3% of the population. The community is concentrated in Churachandpur and Chandel districts of Manipur in North-East India.
The early history of the Zou people is lost in myths and legends; they claim an origin somewhere in the north, and some claim that they are originally the same as the Paite and were only separated at the end of the British Raj. Linguistic and racial evidence suggest the Indo-Chinese origin of the people. Linguists classified the Zou language as Tibeto-Burman, with only small differences between Zote and Paite.
The American Baptist missionary, J.H. Cope, made an attempt to trace the pre-colonial history of the Chin Hills in a church journal, Tedim Thu Kizakna Lai. The journal (edited by Cope) provides a glimpse of the Zomis in Chin Hills before the arrival of British imperialism. Under the Manlun chiefs, the Zous had a bitter struggle with the Kamhau-Suktes over the control of the hill tracts between Manipur (India) and Chin Hills (Burma). Inter-village raids were frequent but they never resulted in decisive victory. The fortification of Tedim village by Kamhau finally gave him the upper hand over his Zou rivals. British records about the Zou tribe became available towards the end of the 19th century.
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Wikipedia