Marriage System of Mao Tribe of Manipur: Its Changes

Abstract

The Mao tribe is one of the indigenous tribes of North-East India. They are inhabited in the hill ranges to the extreme north of the Senapati district of Manipur. This article portrays the Marriage System of Mao, ‘Mao' means North and 'Mei' means People and the term ‘Maomei' which refer to the people living in the North. At present, they settled in Manipur and Nagaland States. This paper gave importance to the Mao's of Manipur. They are the inhabitants of the origin and dispersion place of many Naga tribes called as Makhel or Makhrefii in Mao. The traditional customs, practices and other related issues of this tribe had not been explored systematically. The Mao tribe passes down their history from generation to generation through oral traditional practices. It witnessed the changes and demise of most rich cultural and traditional practices and the replacement by modernize Christian practices in the region. The Mao traditional marriage system is seen very rarely in the present context and this paper attempts to preserve and propagate their traditional marriage system of the Mao tribe and its change. The method of data collection is based on primary sources (mainly meeting/interview) as well as secondary sources (published as well as unpublished books/articles).