Deori

The Deori are a Tibeto-Burman people of the upper Brahmaputra valley, whose historic homeland lay around Sadiya and the Patkai foothills in eastern Assam. They call themselves Jimochãya, children of the sun, and are divided into four clans, the Dibongiya, Tengapaniya, Borgoya and Patorgoya.

Their folklore ties them to the Chutia kingdom, whose kings appointed their ancestors priests of the goddess Tamreswari at Sadiya; traditionally they follow Kundism, an animist and ancestor-worshipping faith centred on the supreme god Kundi-Mama.

Their language belongs to the Boro-Garo branch of Tibeto-Burman, though in time only the Dibongiya kept it as everyday speech while the others turned to Assamese. The Burmese invasions of 1817 to 1826 killed or carried off many Deori and drove the survivors south downstream to new settlements.