Chomangkan

The Karbis, who were still recently known as the Mikies, are a major hill tribe of Assam. They also call themselves Arling which mean à man. Although they are found to inhabil mainly the Karbi Anglong District of Amn, some scattered Karbi inhabitated pockets are found in the North Cachar Hills, Sibsagar, Nowgong and Darrang Districts. Racially the Karbis belong to the Mongoloid group, while linguistically they belong to the Tibeto Burman Group

Their folklores indicate that during the long past once they used to live on the banks of the rivers the Kalang and the Kapili and the entire Kaziranga area, the famous National Game Sanctuary of Assam, was within their habi tation. During the reigns of the Kachari Kings they were driven to the hills and some of them entered into Jaintiapur, the erstwhile Jaintia Kindom and lived under the Jaintia suzerainty.

The Karbis had their own kingdom also adjacent to the Jaintia Kingdom. Socheng and Niz Rongkhang ware their capitals. Their traditional king still lives in Niz Rongkhang Each Karbi village under the erstwhile Karbi kingdom was beaded by the village headman called Sarburs. There was an officer called Haval over one Longri constituted with a cluster of contiguous villages. There were altogether 12 such Longris. These 12 Longris were constituted into 4 Artas and each Artu was governed by an officer called Lingdok Above the four Lingdoks was the king called Becho.