ABSTRACT
Thingkhuo-le-Malcha, both in academic and non-academic writings apropos the Anglo-Kuki War is mentioned a lot, albeit in a few paragraphs. This symbolic communication of the Kukis during the Anglo-Kuki War could not be ignored as it plays a crucial role in mobilising the Kuki tribes. Its role in mobilising the spatially scattered Kuki people is what attracts scholars from different disciplines to come up with their own interpretation of thingkhuo-le-malcha. Soon after the British colonial attack at Mombi (Lonpi), an emergency meeting popularly known as the Chassad Conclave attended by around 150 Kuki chiefs had taken a pledge to fight against the colonial army until the last bullet, soon after which thingkhuo-le-malcha was sent across the Kuki hills. The chapter unpacks what motivates the Kuki chiefs to rely on thingkhuo-le-malcha as a means to communicate their message and also interrogate the symbolic meanings embodied in it. Using phenomenological interpretation, the chapter treats thingkhuo-le-malcha not just as a carrier of message, but as an artwork and also as a site for understanding the Kuki being. The thingkhuo-le-malcha that stems from their pre-understanding of communicating through symbols helps them in the fusion of the horizons of the past to the present (the war period) and helps them maintain their society in times of impending crisis. Their ability to reconnect themselves back to the past becomes instrumental in understanding the meanings embedded to the thingkhuo-le-malcha that they immediately rise up as ‘one nation’ throughout the Kuki hills to the astonishment of the colonial rulers.
