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{{Short description|Zo ethnic group found in northeast India}}
{{Multiple issues|{{More citations needed|date=June 2025}}
{{Original research|date=June 2025}}}}
{{Contains special characters|Meitei}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2023}}
{{Use Indian English|date=December 2023}}
{{Infobox ethnic group
|group = Chiru <br /> Chiru people
|image = "Chiru" written in Meitei script.jpg
|caption = ''Chiru'' written in [[Manipuri script]] ([[Meitei script]])
|population = 8,599 approx,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/PCA/ST.html|title=Census of India 2011|publisher=MHA, Govt of India}}</ref> Manipur
|languages = [[Chiru language]] ([[first language|L1]]) <br /> [[Meitei language]] ([[second language|L2]])<ref name="Ethnologue">{{Cite web |title=Meitei |url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/mni/ |access-date=2023-05-03 |website=[[Ethnologue]]}}</ref>
|religions = [[File:Christian cross.svg|12px]] [[Christianity]]
|related = [[Meitei people]], [[Chin-Kuki-Mizo people]], [[Hmars]], [[Naga people]]
|footnotes =
}}
{{Naga people}}

The '''Chiru people''' are a [[Naga people|Naga]] [[ethnic group]]{{cn|date=July 2025}} belonging to an ancestral kindred of the Rem Naga family or kinship of five tribes (Aimol, Kharam, Purum, Chiru, Koren) in the context of the [[Kangleipak Kingdom]] (Manipur Hills).{{Citation needed|date=August 2025}}

They are listed as a [[Scheduled Tribe]], in accordance with the [[Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes]] Orders Act 1950 of the [[Indian Constitution]].<ref>{{cite web |title=1 The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) |url=http://lawmin.nic.in/ld/subord/rule9a.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170920212634/http://lawmin.nic.in/ld/subord/rule9a.htm |archive-date=2017-09-20 |access-date=2016-07-31}}</ref>

== Ethnonym and kinship ==
The five tribes of [[Aimol Naga]], [[Chiru Naga]], [[Kharam people|Kharam Naga]], [[Purum Naga]], [[Koireng Naga]] remain distinctively a family under Rem kinship and nomenclature.

This Rem (alternative spellings: ''Reem'', ''Hriem'', ''Riem'') kinship precedes any other identity until in the 18th century, when the British brought the expression ''Naga'' into mainstream usage.{{Citation needed|date=August 2025}} The Chiru Rem Naga tribe mostly reside in [[Manipur]] and parts of [[Assam]], [[India]].

The term ''Chiru Rem'' emphasizes the Rem identity as used by the Chiru Rem Baptist Churches Association (CRBCA). In that context, it does not include the other fellow Rem tribe's Churches. The kindred term "Rem" never applied to the Thadou-Zo-Chin tribes.

== History ==
Their status quo as an indigenous Naga tribe of Manipur was recorded by the ''Royal Chronicles of Manipur'' or [[Cheitharol Kumbaba]] as early as the 11th Century AD. Earliest official records of the Manipuri King Loiyamba (1074-1122 AD)

In the 18–19th century, [[Western world|western]] [[Anthropologist|anthropologists]], researchers, and writers gained limited access to the Chiru Rem tribes.{{Clarify|date=June 2025}} Photographic and limited research conducted by [[Ursula Graham Bower]], J.P Hutton, [[T.C. Hodson]] and J. Shakespear, are the only corroborative evidence of their ancient way of life and existence, social, cultural and traditional set-up.{{Clarify|date=June 2025}}

Most recent research of the 20th century by professor [[Gangmumei Kamei|Gangmumei Kabui]], a Rongmei Naga historian and scholar, utilised academic liberty and research [[hypothesis]] identifying the Chiru Tribe as ''buffer tribes'' between the migratory history of the Nagas & Kukis, thereby substantiating the chronology of the term Old Kuki-Chin-Zo-Burmese linguistic belt.

Since the onset of the 21st century, the Chiru Union, North-East India (formerly Chiru Tribal Union) has largely begun to encourage credible research and scholarly incursion into the Chiru Rem moorings & bearings, with gradual accomplishments.{{Which|date=June 2025}}

== Culture ==
All Chiru Naga customs, cultures, and traditions are in tandem with Naga tribes as a whole,{{Citation needed|date=July 2025}} starting from the tradition of Male Youth Dormitory (''seer-inn'') and short haircut (''Saamren'') and ''rokor vit'' (ear-piercing with increasing size of piercings until old age). The last of the elders with almost hanging earlobes with old metal coins, decorative, smaller animal horns as earrings, were seen until the end of the 20th century.{{Citation needed|date=July 2025}}

== Religion ==
The term ''lu-tu'', or head severers/head hunters was completely denounced{{By whom|date=July 2025}} as a satanic or devilish cultural tradition after the early 20th century evangelization; early [[Christians|Christian]] leaders succeeded in complete eradication of its usage.{{Citation needed|date=July 2025}}

Rongmei Naga evangelists from Senpang Naga Baptist Church in Tamenglong District, baptised the first Christian converts as early as 1936 from Lamdangmei Chiru village (now Noney District).{{Citation needed|date=July 2025}}

== Language ==
The same Chiru Rem lingua franca (Rem Chawng), customs and traditions (Thoina-keina) are shared even with the Chirus of Assam ''(Budon Chirupunjee)'' despite centuries of separation.

They also use [[Meitei language]] as their [[second language]] (L2) according to the [[Ethnologue]].<ref name="Ethnologue"/>

==Population==
According to the 2011 census, the population of the Chiru tribe in Manipur was 8,599.

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://planningmanipur.gov.in/pdf/MSDR/Chapter%203_Demography.pdf Manipur: Population & Development] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201001144759/http://planningmanipur.gov.in/pdf/MSDR/Chapter%203_Demography.pdf |date=2020-10-01}}
{{Naga tribes}}
{{Hill tribes of Northeast India}}

[[Category:Scheduled Tribes of Manipur]]
[[Category:Naga people]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in Northeast India]]
[[Category:Tribes of India]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in Manipur]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in India]]

Chiru people - Revision history

TheHH at 02:16, 10 April 2026