Chothe people
 Image of a Chote Tribal Girl | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 3,585 (2011 census)[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Manipur (mainly Bishnupur district, Chandel district and Tengnoupal district) | |
| Languages | |
| Chothe language (L1) Meitei language (L2)[2] | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity (majority); traditional veneration of Pu Lungchungpa (Dragon-Python God) historically | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Meitei people, Anal, Lamkang, Monsang, Moyon, Purum, Chiru |
The Chothe are an indigenous ethnic group of Manipur, India. They are listed as a Scheduled Tribe under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders (Amendment) Act, 1976,[3][4] and at the 2011 census numbered 3,585 persons.[1] They speak the Chothe language, a Tibeto-Burman tongue of the Kuki-Chin branch, with Meitei (Manipuri) widely used as a second language for inter-community communication.[2][5] The Chothe are concentrated principally in Bishnupur district, Chandel district and adjoining areas of Tengnoupal district,[6][7] with the village of Lamlanghupi near Moirang in Bishnupur district being the principal Chothe settlement in the valley periphery.[6]
Name and classification
[edit]The Chothe identify themselves as a distinct indigenous tribe of Manipur with their own social, religious, economic and political institutions, despite being among the smallest of the recognised tribes of the state.[5] The name Chothe is generally derived from the term Kachohte, glossed in local tradition as "to bring or hold a boy".[8]
Early colonial and post-colonial census records sometimes conflated the Chothe with the Purum of Chandel district, a confusion that influential studies of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage by Edmund Leach (1951), Floyd Lounsbury (1962) and Frank B. Livingstone (1959) inherited from earlier ethnographic sources. Subsequent fieldwork, notably by Cheithou Charles Yuhlung, has argued that the two are historically distinct communities with different traditions of origin, and that "Purum" was a place name applied to the Chothe by neighbouring Meitei speakers rather than the tribe's own ethnonym.[5][9]
The Chothe are most often classified by anthropologists working on the Manipur hills as part of an "intermediate" or "Old Kuki" cluster of tribes, alongside the Aimol, Chiru, Koireng, Kom, Anal, Lamkang, Koirao/Thangal, Purum, Maring, Monsang and Moyon; these communities are said to have "linkages of identity with both" the larger Naga and Kuki-Chin groupings.[10] In practice, the Chothe today identify themselves as a Naga tribe and are listed as one of the Naga peoples of Manipur in both academic and indigenous compilations,[11] while their linguistic affiliation continues to place their speech within the Kuki-Chin sub-branch of Tibeto-Burman.[2]
History
[edit]According to oral tradition recorded in the chapter "Festivals of the Chothes" in M. Horam's compilation Naga Festivals, the Chothe migrated into Manipur from Burma around the sixteenth century AD.[11] J. Shakespear, writing in 1912, recorded two small "Chawte" (Chothe) hamlets near Tamu in Burma, which he linked to the wider Manipur community;[7] and the Manipur historian Gangmumei Kamei similarly placed the Chothe among the "bridge and buffer tribes" who entered Manipur from the Kabaw Valley of upper Burma in the wake of earlier Naga and proto-Meitei movements.[7]
In Chothe oral tradition the community is closely associated with the precolonial principality of Moirang in the southern Manipur valley, of which they are remembered as among the earliest settlers; according to the same tradition they once occupied large tracts of what is now Bishnupur district before being progressively displaced into the surrounding foothills.[6] A clan called Chawhte inhabiting south-western Mizoram is regarded by both Chothe and Mizo informants as a kindred people now largely assimilated into the wider Mizo population.[6]
Demographics
[edit]At the 2011 census the Chothe population in Manipur was 3,585 persons.[1] Yuhlung's 2017 ethnographic survey identified about eighteen Chothe villages, with a total community population of around 3,000 and an adult literacy rate of approximately 40 per cent.[5] The community is grouped for internal organisational purposes into three regional clusters, conventionally described as the Eastern, Central and Western groups, distributed mainly across Bishnupur, Chandel and Tengnoupal districts.[5][6]
The principal Chothe settlement in Bishnupur district is the village of Lamlanghupi, located near Moirang; nine of the largest Chothe villages lie in Chandel district.[11][6]
Society and clans
[edit]Manipuri historians Khelchandra (1975) and A. Tomba Meitei (1996) have observed that the Chothe are organised into seven exogamous clans, a structure that they compare with the seven salai of the Meitei.[7][8] The community has long attracted anthropological attention for its distinctive system of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage, which was first documented in detail through the (often Chothe-Purum-confused) ethnographic record by Tatsuo Hayashi, T. C. Das and others, and which was discussed in successive theoretical debates by E. R. Leach in 1951, by Floyd G. Lounsbury in 1962 and by Frank B. Livingstone in 1959 on the relationship between such kinship rules and the wider theory of alliance.[9]
The Chothe traditionally practise both shifting (jhum) and wet-rice cultivation, and are also known for blacksmithing, basket-making and weaving. Men work largely in cultivation, the construction of bamboo baskets and the rearing of livestock, while women contribute substantially to agricultural labour, the collection of firewood and the sale of household products in markets at Pallel, Tengnoupal and the Loktak Lake periphery.[8]
Religion
[edit]The traditional religion of the Chothe centred on the worship of Pu Lungchungpa, a Dragon-Python supreme deity, who was held to manifest periodically in the form of legendary kings.[6] The Chothe sacred manuscript Chothe Thangwai Pakhangpa, preserved in the village of Lamlanghupi in the ancient Meitei (Meitei Mayek) script, is held by the Chothe to record the deeds of King Thangwai Pakhangpa, whom Yuhlung argues is identical with the legendary Nongda Lairen Pakhangba taken by the Meitei tradition as the first historical king of Manipur.[6] The argument, drawing on the Chothe Thangwai Pakhangpa, the Cheitharol Kumbaba and the Moirang Ningthourol Lambuba, has been advanced as evidence that early Meitei political and religious institutions were partly of Chothe origin.[6] The sacred grove of Chothe Thangwai Pakhangpa at Lamlanghupi was notified as a Protected Historical Monument and Archaeological Site by the Governor of Manipur on 16 June 2007.[6]
The community is today predominantly Christian, having largely converted in the twentieth century under the influence of Protestant missionary activity in the Manipur hills; the change is described by Romeo Chothe as having brought "structural changes" to Chothe culture and tradition, with several pre-Christian festivals having either lapsed or been substantially adapted.[11]
Language
[edit]The Chothe language is a Tibeto-Burman language conventionally placed within the Kuki-Chin sub-branch.[2][5] Meitei, is used by virtually all Chothe as a second language for inter-community contact, school instruction, and trade.[2] Chothe oral and ritual literature, including the Chothe Thangwai Pakhangpa manuscript, is recorded in the historical Meitei script (Meitei Mayek).[6]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 "Census of India 2011". Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Meitei | Ethnologue". Ethnologue. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
- ↑ "The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950". Archived from the original on 20 September 2017. Retrieved 31 July 2016.
- ↑ "Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders (Amendment) Act, 1976" (PDF). Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 October 2016. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Yuhlung, Cheithou Charles. "The Chothe: A Misnomer of Chothe with Purum tribe". North East India Studies. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Yuhlung, Cheithou Charles (2017). "The Identity of Pakhangpa: The Mystical Dragon-Python God of Chothe of Manipur" (PDF). The Asian Man. 11: 1–11.
- 1 2 3 4 Kshetri, Rajendra (2017). "The Chothe of Manipur: History, Myth and Memory". GUINJ: Gauhati University Interdisciplinary Journal. Gauhati University.
- 1 2 3 "A Glimpse of the Indigenous Tribes of Manipur (Part 1)". MyGov Blogs. Government of India. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
- 1 2 Yuhlung, Cheithou Charles (2007). "Matrilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage among the Chothe of Manipur". Sociological Bulletin. 56 (1): 46–64. JSTOR 23620699.
- ↑ "Distribution of Ethnic Groups in Manipur Hills" (PDF). Journal of North East India Studies. 2018.
- 1 2 3 4 Chothe, Romeo (2015). "Festivals of the Chothes". In Horam, M. (ed.). Naga Festivals (Lui Ngai Ni). New Delhi: Sunmarg Publishers.
Further reading
[edit]- Yuhlung, Cheithou Charles (2007). "Matrilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage among the Chothe of Manipur." Sociological Bulletin 56(1): 46–64. JSTOR 23620699
- Yuhlung, Cheithou Charles (2017). "The Identity of Pakhangpa: The Mystical Dragon-Python God of Chothe of Manipur." The Asian Man: An International Journal 11: 1–11.
- Horam, M., ed. (2015). Naga Festivals (Lui Ngai Ni). New Delhi: Sunmarg Publishers (contains "Festivals of the Chothes" by Romeo Chothe).
- Kshetri, Rajendra (2017). "The Chothe of Manipur: History, Myth and Memory." GUINJ: Gauhati University Interdisciplinary Journal.
- Parratt, S. N. A., and Parratt, J. (1997). The Pleasing of the Gods: Meitei Lai Haraoba. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. (background on Meitei-Chothe ritual exchange)
External links
[edit]- Manipur: Population & Development Archived 1 October 2020 at the Wayback Machine
