Tiwa

The Tiwa, called Lalung in the Assamese chronicles, are a Tibeto-Burman people of central Assam and the adjoining Meghalaya hills, divided into hill and plains branches. Their traditions remember a migration westward from the upper Brahmaputra toward Nagaon, and their language belongs to the Boro-Garo group of Kachari speech.

In the seventeenth century Ahom chronicles note Lalung families settling in the plains alongside the Karbi. Tiwa life centred on the small principality of Gobha, whose Tiwa raja mediated trade between the plains and the Jaintia kingdom.

The Gobha ruler accepted Ahom overlordship under Jayadhwaj Singha in 1659, and Gobha later served Rudra Singha as a base for his invasion of Jaintia. A Tiwa attempt to throw off Ahom rule under Siva Singha was suppressed, and during the Moamaria rebellion the area fell back under Jaintia control.