Are Maring, Chiru, Thangal... Nagas?

" The Naga tribes in Manipur with whom this volume is concerned, are (1) the Tangkhuls who inhabit the hills immediately to the east and north-east of the valley of Manipur; (2) the Mao and Maram Nagas who inhabit the hills north of the valley and to whom the title quasi-Angami Nagas has been given by some writers on the ground that they are more closely connected with the Angamis than with their fellow subjects the Tangkhuls and the Kabuis; (3) the Kolya, Khoirao or Mayang Khong group in the hills south of Mao and Maram' (4) the Kabuis who inhabit the hills to the west and north-west of the valley and (5,6 and 7) Quorengs, Chirus, Marrings, smaller tribes, who are to be found in the hills bordering the valley."

"The village of Mao, a Meithei name, or Sopvoma as it is called by the Nagas themselves, lies on the western spurs of Kopamedza, on the cart road from Dimapur to Imphal. Close to it and almost contiguous are the villages of Robugnamei and Pudugname who form part of the Mao leaguer. Its kindred villages stretch to the east as far as Jessami ( Phundrak in Meithei), which is build on an apex of land between the Lanier and the river which rises below Mao, and looks towards Melome and Lapvome. Svemi ( Chinjaroy in Meithei), the scene of one of the most bloodthirsty raids...is now inhabited by Mao people and by Tangkhuls with the result that the typical customs of both tribes are here being subjected to modification owing to the syncecism that has taken place. Oinam and Purum belong to the Mao group but are so far removed from the direct influence of Mao that they present many features of interest, enough to differentiate them from Mao. On the west of the Manipur-Kohima road the group extends to Uilong, the village in whose vicinity is a collection of stone monoliths of rare symmetry, and to Yang and Bakema, villages more connected with Mao or Maram than with the Kabui Nagas or with the Katcha Nagas."

"The Kolya Nagas or Khoirao Nagas, or, as I prefer to call them, the Mayan Khong ( a corruption of the name Mayangkhang, a Thangal Naga village), inhabit nine villages in the hills south of Maram and Kairong. They are now almost indistinguishable, in so far as customs and appearances are concerned, from Mao and Maram, and I was informed that they were descended from Maram. "

" The Kabui Nagas are now restricted to the hills immediately north of the Cachar road... There is ample evidence, historical and traditional, to show that their expulsion from the hills to the south is comparatively recent. I have stumbled across ruins of large villages in the jungles south of Nongba, and learnt that they were the ruins of Kabui villages that had been destroyed... in the early part of the last century. "

"The Quorengs now consist of but nine small villages in the country just south of the great Barail range, which forms the north-western boundary of the state."

" The Chirus inhabit some thirteen villages situated on the slopes of the hills on the western side of the Manipur valley, and are not numerous"

" The Marrings have a few villages in the Hirok range of Hills, in the south-west of the valley" 

* From The Naga Tribes of Manipur by T.C. Hudson, (First published in 1911). pp.2,3,4 &5.