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‎The Meiteis: Introduction

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'''THE MEITHEIS'''
T. C. HODSON
Late Assistant Political ..."

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This article is an extract from 

'''THE MEITHEIS''' 

T. C. HODSON 

Late Assistant Political Agent In Manipur 

And Superintendent Of The State 

Fellow Of The Royal Anthropological Institute 

With An Introduction 

By SIR CHARLES J. LYALL 

K.C.S.I., C.I.E., LL.D., M.A. 

Published under the orders of the Government of Gastern Bengal and Assam 

Illustrated 

LONDON 

David Nutt 

57, 59, Long Acre 

1908 

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[[Category:India|M]]
[[Category:Communities|M]]
=The Meiteis: Introduction=

A Recent writer on the tribes of the Brahmaputra Valley * has
asserted in forcible language that, " unfortunately for science, no steps are being taken to record the rare vestiges of prehistoric
society which still survive here, but which are now being
rapidly swept away by advancing civilization. . . . This unique
mass of material which is available for solving important
problems, lying at the very base of civilization and culture, is
being allowed to disappear unrecorded. This regrettable fact
has been repeatedly represented during the past few years,
without practically any result."

The complaint is unjust; the bibliographies appended to
the series of Ethnographical Monographs, of which the present
volume is one, will show that there exists a large mass of
materials dealing with a considerable proportion of the Indo-
Chinese tribes of Assam.

It is true that some of the most
important of these are " buried away " in Gazetteers, Census
reports, and contributions to the Journals of learned societies.
But those who make it their business to investigate anthropo-
logical problems may surely be expected to search among such
obvious sources for the information they desire. In India
Gazetteers and Census reports are the appointed places for
recording the results of inquiries into the characters and
institutions of the various elements of the population. Such
literature is scarcely likely to command a wide circulation in
any country, and writers who deal with it are necessarily con-
fined to the means open to them of perpetuating the results of
their investigations in the official publications of the Govern-
ment. Nor is it true that " no steps have been taken " since
1872, when Col. Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal was
published, to extend our knowledge of these tribes.

In 1881
Sir Charles Elliott, shortly after assuming the government of
the Province, issued instructions for the compilation, not only
of grammars, vocabularies, and phrase-books of the languages
of all the leading tribes of Assam, but also of records of their
customs and institutions. The result is a series of works
dealing with the tribal languages of which the Province is
justly proud, and records of customs and usages which, though
doubtless capable of further extension (which they are now
receiving), are of great anthropological value. The linguistic
work done is indeed the principal fruit of the orders of 1881 ;
but this is by no means, as Lieut.-Col. Waddell asserts, *' of
secondary importance." Without an understanding of the
language of a tribe there can be no adequate investigation
of its institutions ; the speech is the expression of the mind
of the people who speak it, the measure of their culture and
outlook upon the world around them.

It is, moreover, more
especially in Assam, with its vast diversity of ethnic stocks,
the only safe index to the affinities of a tribe with its neigh-
bours, and, in the almost complete absence of historic record or
remembered tradition, to the migrations which have brought
the various units to their present sites.

So far as concerns the subject of the present monograph,
the Meitheis or dominant race of Manipur, Lieut.-Col. Waddell
is least of all justified in his complaint of insufficiency of
record. We first became well acquainted with the Meitheis in
the Burma war of 1824-26. On the conclusion of hostilities,
the inhabitants of the reconstituted State of Manipur (which
had been overrun and annexed by the Burmese, and recovered
its independence as the result of our operations,) were carefully
described by Captain E. B. Pemberton in his excellent Report
on the Eastern Frontier of British India ^ printed at Calcutta in
1835. A dictionary of English and Manipuri, compiled by
Captain Gordon of the Manipur Levy, was published in 1837.

But the most exhaustive presentment of the State and its
peoples is contained in the Account of the Valley of Munnipore,
and of the Hill Tribes, with a comparative vocabulary of the
Munnipore and other languages, by Major William Mcculloch,
printed at Calcutta in 1859. Major, afterwards Lieut.-CoL,
Mcculloch was a man of culture and literary ability, and his
work (of which Lieut.-Col. Waddell makes no mention in his ,
brief notice of the Meitheis *) has ever since its publication
been the chief authority on its subject. Col. McCulloch, who
was the son of the well-known political economist Dr. J. E.
McCulloch, was born in 1816, and went to Manipur as Assistant
Political Agent in 1840 ; he became Political Agent in 1845,
and held that post, with a year's intermission, until 1867. In
this long period of twenty-seven years he acquired a most
intimate knowledge of the State and its inhabitants ; he married
a Manipuri lady, of the family of Raja Nar Singh; and he
exercised supreme authority over the Kuki tribes subject to
the State, who inhabit the hills to the south and west of the
valley of Manipur. After his retirement he settled at Shillong,
where I enjoyed the privilege of his acquaintance, and died
there, in his seventieth year, in 1885.

Colonel Mcculloch's account of Manipur is not unknown
even to British anthropologists. It is referred to by Mr.J.F.
McLennan in his work on Primitive Marriage, and has been
cited by Lord Avebury in his book on The Origin of Civilization
and the Primitive Condition of Man, He was succeeded as
Political Agent by Dr. E. Brown, who was the author of a
Statistical Account of Manipur^ printed by Government at
Calcutta in 1874. This work incorporates most of McCulloch's
information, with useful additions by Dr. Brown himself.

It is an accessible book, and was widely distributed by Government on its publication; Lieut. -Col. Waddell does not mention
it. Another contribution to the ethnography and history of
the State was made by Mr. G. H. Damant of the Indian Civil
Service, whose papers were published in the Journals of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Eoyal Asiatic Society.* Mr.
Damant was greatly interested in the archaic literature of
Manipur, and in the problem of the relation of the various
Indo-Chinese races one to another.

He met his death at Khonoma in the Naga Hills in 1879. The terrible events of
1891, which brought the little State prominently before the
British public, led to a fresh development of descriptive litera-
ture in the books of Sir James Johnstone (for several years
Political Agent in Manipur) and Mrs. Grimwood. These are
not important contributions to scientific ethnography, but they
especially the former— contain interesting information as to
the characteristics of the people.

It will thus be seen that the Manipuris have received no
small share of attention in the past, and that the interest
shown in them by investigators compares favourably with that
aroused by the inhabitants of many other more accessible parts
of India.

The author of the present monograph has wisely taken as
his basis the accounts of Colonel McCulloch and Dr. Brown,
and has noted where they need supplementing and completing,
and the changes which have occurred during the past half-
century. From his practical acquaintance with the adminis-
tration of the State and its subject tribes, and his intimate
knowledge of the Manipuri (as well as of the Thado Kuki)
language, he has been able greatly to enlarge the field of our
information ; and the latter half of the book, dealing with the
traditions, folk-lore, and folk-tales of the Meitheis, and with
their linguistic affinities, will be found to contain a mass of new
and interesting matter.

It was my fortune to visit Manipur only once (in February,
1888) during my service in Assam, and I am thus acquainted
with the subject chiefly by hearsay. But I have always taken
a lively interest in this singular oasis of comparative civilization
and organized society, set in the midst of a congeries of barbarous
peoples, over whom its rulers exercise an authority which, if
scarcely approaching the settled polity of more advanced com-
munities, is at least in the direction of peace and order.

The valley of Manipur in several respects resembles in miniature
its neighbour, that of the Irawadi. In both the civUized people
who occupy the central settled and organized region are nearly
akin to the wild folk who inhabit the hills which enclose the
alluvial plain. But while Burma has accepted the mild and
gentle religion of Buddha, and thus profoundly modified the
original animistic cult, Manipur has been taken into the pale
of Hinduism, and has imposed upon itself burdensome restric-
tions of caste and ritual from which its greater neighbour is
happily free.

In both countries, however, the older religious
ideas still survive beneath the surface of the philosophical
systems borrowed from India, and in reality sway to a large
extent the lives and sentiments of the people. The State has
recently, after sixteen years of British administration, been
committed to the government of the Prince who was chosen to
fill the vacant throne after the events of 1891 ; and it is greatly
to be hoped that its future may be happy and prosperous, and
that it may exercise an increasing influence in winning to
civilization the wilder tribes which recognize its authority.

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:23, 11 May 2023
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	that it may exercise an increasing influence in winning to		that it may exercise an increasing influence in winning to
	civilization the wilder tribes which recognize its authority.		civilization the wilder tribes which recognize its authority.
		+	=See also=
		+
		+	[[The Meiteis: Introduction]]
		+
		+	[[The Meiteis: Preface]]
		+
		+	[[The Meitei Language and Grammar]]
		+
		+	[[The Meitei: Laws And Customs]]
		+
		+	[[The Meitei: Religion]]
		+
		+	[[The Meitei: Traditional economy]]
		+
		+	[[The Meiteis Habitat, Appearance]]
		+
		+	[[The Meitei community after 1947 ]]
		+
		+	[[Category:Communities\|M
		+	MEITEI COMMUNITY]]
		+	[[Category:India\|M
		+	MEITEI COMMUNITY]]
		+	[[Category:Name\|ALPHABET
		+	MEITEI COMMUNITY]]
		+
		+	[[Category:Communities\|MMEITEI COMMUNITY
		+	THE MEITEI COMMUNITY AFTER 1947]]
		+	[[Category:India\|MMEITEI COMMUNITY
		+	THE MEITEI COMMUNITY AFTER 1947]]
		+	[[Category:Name\|ALPHABETMEITEI COMMUNITY
		+	THE MEITEI COMMUNITY AFTER 1947]]
		+
		+	[[Category:Communities\|M
		+	THE MEITEIS: INTRODUCTION]]
		+	[[Category:India\|M
		+	THE MEITEIS: INTRODUCTION]]

The Meiteis: Introduction - Revision history

Pdewan: /* The Meiteis: Introduction */

Pdewan: Created page with "{| class="wikitable" |- |colspan="0"| This article is an extract from '''THE MEITHEIS''' T. C. HODSON Late Assistant Political ..."

Pdewan: Created page with "{| class="wikitable" |- |colspan="0"|
This article is an extract from
'''THE MEITHEIS'''
T. C. HODSON
Late Assistant Political ..."