Dimasa

Dimasa, people of great waters, are among north-eastern India's oldest peoples and the leading Bodo-Kachari tribe. They kept faith in Madai spirits and twelve Daikho groves.

After Kamarupa fell, the Dimasa, or Kachari, kingdom arose in the Dhansiri valley, with its capital at Dimapur. Ahom chronicles record wars from the late thirteenth century: in 1490 the Dimasa beat an Ahom incursion; King Suhungmung's renewed advance killed King Khorapha and ended with Dimapur's sack in 1536.

After an interregnum, the rulers re-established themselves at Maibong around 1558, where a clan assembly could elect and check kings. In 1745 they inherited Koch Khaspur by marriage and adopted Hindu caste. Burmese conquest overthrew them in the 1820s; the 1826 Treaty of Yandabo restored last king Govinda Chandra briefly; after his death the British annexed the plains in 1832 and hills after, though the Dimasa kept clan society and beliefs in North Cachar.