Kinship Systems of Three Chittagong Hill Tribes (Pakistan) Author(s): Claude Lvi-Strauss Reviewed work(s): Source: Southwestern Journal

of Anthropology, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring, 1952), pp. 40-51 Published by: University of New Mexico Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3628553 . Accessed: 05/02/2013 05:37
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KINSHIP SYSTEMS OF THREE CHITTAGONG HILL TRIBES (PAKISTAN) CLAUDE L1iVI-STRAUSS SHORT VISIT to the ChittagongHill tribeson the Bengal-Burma border in September1950, while on a missionto Pakistan for the UNESCO Departmentof Social Sciences,enabledus to collect a few documentson these little known populationsl including three lists of relationshipterms pertainingrespectively to the Cakma,the Kuki, and the Mog. These lists will be submittedin this informationon related subjectssuch as social paper together with miscellaneous structure,preferentialmating, and the like. Unfortunately, the kinship systems remainedincompleteon accountof the briefnessof our stay in the native villages and the corresponding impossibilityof checkingon the lists of terms and filling in some obvious gaps with the help of genealogies.Imperfect as they are, they may be found to be a useful addition to the existing literatureon neighboring or relatedtribesin Assamand Burma.
(AKMA RELATIONSHIPTERMS*

1. baba 2. ma 3. aju 4. nanu 5. borobaba 6. boroma 7. pua

father mother father's father, father'smother mother'sfather, mother'smother great-grandfather great-grandmother son; 8. da4gar: first born; 9. nukd6m: second born; 10. honet: third born

1 C. Levi-Strauss, Le Syncretisme religieux d'un village mog du Territoire de Chittagong (to appear shortly in Revue de l'Histoire des Religions). Except for a sprinkling of short papers and notes, most of them outdated, our main source for the Chittagong Hill tribes remains T. H. Lewin's three books: The Hill Tracts of Chittagong and the Dwellers Therein (Calcutta, 1869); Wild Races of SoutheasternIndia (London, 1870); A Fly on the Wheel (London, 1885) which contain approximatelythe same information.See also R. H. Sneyd Hutchinson, "Chittagong Hill Tracts" (in East Bengal and Assam District Gazetteers,Allahabad, 1909). * Orthographic note: Because certain special type are not available,substitutions have been made in the author's scheme of transcription. ( is substituted for s with hook below (the sound tch); a z with a circling tail has been used for 2; with inverted caret above (dj); j substitutes for z with inverted caret above (dz); w for u with breve below (the semi-vowel u)EDITOR.

40 VOL. 8, 1952

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11. mila 12. natim

13. ddrJgada
15. 17. 19. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. beiput pei bhagina geta kaka getatobai kurtotobai getatobun kurtotobun mama mami mamatobai mamatobun pici pisa piftotobai piftotobun maci maftotobai maftotobun bo foor yori borofala 5ala gegat sali bu$i bebo bonai bogjami nek mu;a aIbwoifogun

36. mu;i

daughter son'sson,son'sdaughter, son,daughter's daughter daughter's brother (younger) (older);14.fikinda:brother brother's brother's son;16.begi: daughter sister(older);18.bun:sister(younger) sister's sister's son;20. bhagini: daughter father's olderbrother father's brother. younger father's son olderbrother's brother's son father's younger father's olderbrother's daughter brother's father's daughter younger brother mother's wife mother's brother's mother's brother's son brother's mother's daughter father's sister father's sister's husband father's sister's son father's sister's daughter mother's sister(olderandyounger) husband mother's sister's mother's son sister's sister's mother's daughter wife wife'sfather wife'smother wife'solderbrother wife'syounger brother wife'seldersister wife'syounger sister wife elderbrother's wife brother's younger eldersister's husband husband sister's younger husband sister's husband husband's menmarried to sisters between reciprocal

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53. 54. 55. 56.

;edi kaki. ogiami pudobo

father'selder brother'swife wife father'syoungerbrother's husband daughter's son's wife

OBSERVATIONS ON THE USE OF CAKMA TERMS

The Cakma kinshiptermsare, on the whole, Bengali, but the origin of a few terms remains doubtful, for instance aju and nanu (perhaps Urdu) for the grandparents;nukd6m and honet for the second and third sons; gegat, wife's elder sister;labwoi fogun, two men marriedto sisters (to be compared,however, with Bengali sotin, sopotni:co-wife). in relation to current On the other hand, there are noticeablediscrepancies is Sanskrit use. Thus, mila, daughter, mahila, woman;the termsfor greatBengali are different from general Bengali though they consist in a comgrandparents binationof the Bengali terms for father and mother plus the qualificativeboro: can be made on the terms for brother (younger big, much. A similarobservation and elder). While nek: husband,is probablyBengali nayak:master,the term for wife: bo is shifted away from its normal Bengali connotation:sister.2The term for youngersister: bun is rarelyused, this relativebeing called by her name. The youngerbrother'swife bebo and the wife's elder sister gegat are prohibitedrelatives. One cannot either joke with them or address them. The opposite is true with the elder brother'swife busi and the wife's youngersister fali with both of whom one enjoys a joking relationship.There is a close connection between labwoifogun, two men marriedto sisters,who work togetherand help each other.
MARRIAGE AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Theoretically, marriage is prohibited within seven generations.In practice it is allowed when no traceablerelationshipexists within the precedingthree or four generations,and some informantsstated that marriagecan take place with father's sister's daughter, mother's brother's daughter, and mother's sister's daughter. There seems to be a certainamount of avoidancebetweenparents-in-law and we not within but could the short of our trace son-in-law, find, span stay, any
2 We are indebted to Prof Jules Bloch of the College de France for checking on cakma terms of doubtful origin. T. H. Lewin has quoted some other terms which may not be Bengali. These are lyngia, "lover"; langonee, "mistress"; sowalta, "best man"; sowullee, "bridesmaid" (cf. T. H. Lewin, Wild Races, pp. 167-168).

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of the bashful bridegroomattitude which has been described,in the past, for the Cakma.3 In case of marriageby elopement (siygala or deigena), the guilty couple is fined (zorimana) cash and a pig. The pig-fine is called fokor. But should the couplerepeattheir action three times and pay on each occasionthe corresponding fine, the marriagebecomesfinal and the girl's parentsmust abide by their daughter's choice.4 Ordinary marriage is by purchase, the bride-priceincluding money, ornaments, cloth, pigs, rice, and rice-beer. Marriage is ordinarilypatrilocalexcept if a father "likes his daughter very much."In that case he insists on a special type of marriage (gamaiutha) where, house for the first year or two, the husbandshould reside at his parents-in-law's is then considerably lower. and work for them; the bride-price Political power belongs, among the Cakma, to a patrilineal lineage, where it is transmittedfrom father to first-bornson. There are about thirty such lineages, which our informants called gusti.5 Formerlyonce every year, now once every four or five years (on accountof the heavy expense), each gusti celebrates an offering feast to the ancestors(morabaddena) during which possessionscenes take place.6Membersof the royal gusti are endowedwith a magicalpowercalled fi. This powermakes them and everythingthey may come in contact with highly dangerous for people of lesser status, especially commoners.As our informant (himself a memberof the royal family) put it, this is "on account of all the load is that while on a journey, gods we carry."7The result of this supernatural a princely individual cannot rest in or even enter a commoner'shouse lest he bring upon it all sorts of calamities.Thus, he is obliged to remainoutside in the heat and sun while his coolies enjoy the freshnessand the shade. There are only two ways to escape from that awkwardsituation, the first one being to ennoble
3 T. H. Lewin, Wild Races, p. 178. 4 Already describedin Hutchinson, "Chittagong Hill Tracts" p. 97. 5 The term gusti, which was the only one used by our informants, correspondsto the term goza (Sanskrit gotra) given by Lewin with the meaning "clan," "family." There were thirtythree goza among the cakma plus seven for the Toungjynya, a subdivision of the tribe (cf. Lewin, Hill Tracts, p. 73). 6 Levi-Strauss, op. cit. 7 This seems the appropriate place to express our gratitude to Mr Rai Bahadur Kumar Birupaksha Roy, a member of the cakma royal family, who, through the kind offices of Col L. H. Niblett (at that time District Commissionerfor the Hill Tracts), consented to become our companion and interpreter and without whose help the material of this and other forthcoming articlescould not have been collected. Thanks should also be directed to Mr Aziz Ahmed, Chief Secretary,Government of East Bengal, and Asgar Ali, District Magistrate of Chittagong, who made our trip possible and altogether delightful.

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ableto bearcontact withtheperilous of thehouse; theowner thus,he becomes fi. theprince to enter of the of on the Another owner, inviting consists, part process timesand comply his house.The lattershouldrefuseseveral onlywhengivena will his host he return double lateron. The fi would-be which sumof money by of the originalrelationship to be neutralized by this doubleinversion appears andcommoner. between prince
TERMS KUKI RELATIONSHIP

1. pa 2. nu 3. u 4. pu 5. pi 6. nau

12. linu

father mother elder father's husband's father,eldersister's husband, brother mother's father, great-grand-father, great-grandwife'sfather. mother, father's mother's wife'smother mother, mother, son, elderbrother's son; 7. umi:firstson; 8. naumi: second son; 10.nlika:fourth son; son;9. tomi:third fifthson. 11.drnaka: 13. rolmi:firstdaughter; 14. milai:second daughter; 15. third daughter; tujka: daughter;16. nlika: fifthdaughter fourthdaughter; 17.grnaka:
son's son

18. topa 19. atu

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

atunu un sopwi sopwipa,sapa upanau sopwipanau ,arnu nute papwi pate kapapwinau kapatenau kapapwisenu kdpatesenu pute

son daughter's son'sdaughter, daughter's daughter brother (elder),sister(elder) brother brother husband's (younger), younger son brother's younger elderbrother's daughter brother's daughter younger sister younger
sister'sson father'selderbrother father'syoungerbrother son father'selder brother's father'syoungerbrother's son father'selder brother'sdaughter father'syoungerbrother'sdaughter mother'sbrother,wife's brother,wife's brother'swife

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wife brother's mother's 35. pite husband's mother father's 36. ni sister, husband's father sister's father's 37. maraiJg husband, sister's son father's 38. kaninau sister's father's 39. kanisenu daughter mother's eldersister 40. nupwi mother's sister 41. nute younger son mother's eldersister's 42. kunupwinau son sister's mother's 43. kunutenau younger mother's eldersister's 44. kunupwisenu daughter sister's mother's 45. kunutesenu daughter younger wife 46. dog wife'sbrother's son 47. putenau wife's brother's 48. putesenu daughter wife'seldersister 49. kodojgunu wife'syounger sister 50. kodo6jgsopwinu men term between 51. kodoiJgsopwinupasalwife'ssister'shusband, reciprocal
52. kunu 53. kaswapoipadau 54. sopwinupasal 55. kasarnupasalupa 56. kasarnupasalnaupa 57. samakpasarnu 58. kasarnupasalmrwi 59. pasal 60. kopunaimrwi 61. kasamapa 62. amaunu

to sisters married wife elderbrother's wife brother's younger sister's husband younger brother husband's eldersister's brother sister's husband's younger sister sister's husband's relatives husband's (woman sp.) husband wife'srelatives (mansp.) husband daughter's
son's wife

OBSERVATIONS ON THE USE OF KUKI TERMS

son or mother's brother's There seem to be no termsfor eithermother's with the This may be connected brother's positionof the latter as daughter. nearrelabrother's of fact,the termsfor mother's mate.As a matter preferential tives are very close to those for wife's family,e.g. pu: mother's father,wife's usedas a termof respect, father,and moregenerally pu-te (-te, diminutive): wife's brother's wife'sbrother; mother's son;pi: grand-mother, brother, pu-te-nau:
wife's mother;pi-te: mother'sbrother'swife. On the other hand putesenu:wife's

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brother'sdaughter appears to be the object of a strong prohibition,a feature excludingany secondarypreferentialmarriageof the Miwok type. Kod5ogunu: between wife's eldersister,is equallyprohibited,but thereis a joking relationship a man and his kodoejgsopwinu, wife's youngersister. The termsquotedabove show a generaltrendtowardraisingmatrilinealrelatives through males one generation.There is in Lushai a corresponding trend to lowering by one or two generationsthe patrilateralrelatives through females, mergingthem underthe generalname of tu which in both systemsis used for the Our Kuki materialdoes not show the latter tendencyon account grandchildren.8 of the use of special terms for father's sister's husband and patrilateralcrosscousins. A remarkable feature of the system is the developmentof descriptiveterms. Even if some of these were made up by the informantsin order to answerour queries,the ease with which they were able to describeimpromptuany kind of relationshipby creating new terms would be by itself striking. For instance ka; relation to the speaker;doig: wife; sopwi: removed; kodor3gsopwinupasal: nu: feminine; pasal: husband, i.e. wife's sister's husband, or two men having marriedsisters. Again, kasarnupasalnaupa: ka: relation to the speaker; sarnu: sister;pasal:husband;nau: male; pa: father, i.e. sister'shusband's brother,etc.
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

The Kuki of the Chittagong Hill Tracts are divided in moieties called reand Ban;ogi. Men belonging to each moiety wear their hair spectivelyPar3kho (which is usually left long) differently: with a bob on the forhead (makter somor) for the Ban;ogi, and with a bob on the nape of the neck (nulter somor) for the Paukho. The natives state most emphaticallythat these moieties are not exogamous. The only function of which they seem to be aware is that chiefs are generally chosen from among the Par3kho.However, villages are exogamous,and there is preferentialmarriagewith mother'sbrother'sdaughter, while father's sister's daughter is avoided. Polygyny is allowed, but stepdaughtermarriageis strictly prohibited.Since moiety affiliationfollows the father's line, the result is that moietiestend to be exogamousthough in an indirectway. Another consequence of the system (of which the natives seem to be equally unaware) is that, on account of village exogamy and patrilocalresidence,the adult male population of any village (and the childrenof both sexes) tend to be predominantly either
8 See for instance Lorrainand Savidge, Grammarand Dictionary of the Lushai (Shillong, 1898).

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or Bangogi. Forinstance in the villageof Dralaukhan-para Parikho (in Cakma: we where a few the unmarried adolescents' dance Bosonto), spent days, (lam) whichwe witnessed included twelveparticipants (threegirlsandnineboys) out of whichonly threewereBan;ogi (two boys and a girl) and all the others Paurkho. is highlyrespected, The mother's brother andthereseemsto be a period near whenuterine andboysoccupying the samestatushaveno other nephews puberty with flowers and to and ornaments duty thanto comband beautifythemselves In the case at their uncle's home. the role of attendants and cup-bearers play a position of that kindat the two boyswhowereoccupying whichwe observed, his brother's son and his sister's housewererespectively the villageheadman's
son's son.

of the village It maybe interesting to give the mainlinksof eachhousehold withthe headman: (sevenaltogether) 1. Headman, wife, daughters, son, son'swife and baby; elderdaughter andson-in-law; 2. Headman's sister's sonandfamily; 3. Headman's elderdaughter's 4. Headman's father-in-law; 5. Headman's brother, wife,andchild; younger brother's 6. Headman's son-in-law, wife,andchild; younger son andfamily. 7. Headman's brother's classificatory girls, Altogether, forty-six persons including16 men, 15 women,3 unmarried 4 unmarried boys,8 smallchildren. is approximately is by purchase. The pricefor a chief'sdaughter Marriage Buddhist fromBurmese Rs 250, lessthe valueof the gongs (darkwar; obtained in case to which be buffaloes would and any preferred money. monasteries) in the marriage sincebuffaloes arereckoned This is littlesurprising priceon the valueper headcan go as basisof Rs 50 per head,whiletheirordinary trading Rs as 300. high of clothesand ornaments The bride'sfathergives his daughter consisting silvernecklaces on the Burma andAssam necklaces amber borders, (sana)traded made of numerous in the and of Indiancraftsmanship bazaar, girdles bought as inducement to it was an tubes. of Thus, prospective perhaps rings copper were continuously two unmarried that the headman's daughters bridegrooms several of jewelry. wearing pounds is exceptif the girl'sfatherhas no son. In that casehe Marriage patrilocal

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in marriage a systemwhichis calledsamkuim matrilocally, gives his daughter alutk3. is disposed of in the following order:sonWhena woman dies,herjewelry daughter-husband-father. When a man dies, the son who is at the moment living in the homestead left it haveno rightwhatsoever. inherits it. Thosewhohavealready The widow but the son has the dutyto support doesnot inherit, her. In casethe firstthreesonshavemarried the fourth and left the homestead, withhis parents. son is obliged to remain He will alsoinherit the houseand the cattle.This fourthson'scompulsory inheritance is callednaucemmi. wasmadeduringourstayto a namingfeast,nau rmingp6. Somereference The child'sfather mustofferthreepotsof rice-beer a cock. (zupwi)andsacrifice He nominates an individual to act as name-giver (rming ojpo pera). When a hunter kills a deer,a boar,or a bear,he mustgive a feastof meat to the villageandprovide rice-beer and rice. An adulterer is fineda pig. Unlike the Cakma and the Mog, the Kukido not acknowledge marriage by In case an takesplace,the culprits arefinedRs 20 each. elopement. elopement
MOG RELATIONSHIP TERMS

1. aba,ada
2. aiun

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

napuse i6kma abo'`r sa sami

father mother father's father mother's father father's mother's mother mother,
son

8. mrij
9. samimamrij

10. 11. 13. 14. 15. 16.

mrirma kugri kugrisa kugrisami niensa niensemi

daughter son'sson (daughter's son) son daughter's son'sdaughter, daughter's daughter brother(elder);12. niense: brother (younger) elderbrother's father's brother's son son, elderbrother's father's brother's daughter, daughter brother's son younger brother's younger daughter

9 A few Mog kinship terms somewhatdifferent from our list may be found in Sten Konow, Notes on the Maghi Dialect of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (Nachrichten iiber Angelegenheiten der Deutschen Morgenlindischen Gesellschaft, vol. 57, 1903).

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17. megri 18. na'ma 19. tu 20. tuma 21. abagri 22. abese 23. mamu 24. arisa 25. iopa 26. mari 27. asaUgri 28. agrima 29. aiema 30. mia 31. sogoj 32. sogorjma 33. marise 34. krema 35. ako 36. nien 37. laj 38. aiari 39. oso5 40. sama 41. kuma

sister (elder) sister(younger), wife'sbrother's wife sister's wife's brother's son son, wife'sbrother's sister's daughter, daughter mother's father's elderbrother, sister's husband father's brother younger mother's father's sister's husband brother, sister mother's brother's wife, father's mother's brother's son,wife'sbrother father's sister's mother's brother's daughter, daughter father's sister's son mother's eldersister sister mother's younger wife husband's father wife'sfather, wife'smother wife'seldersister sister's sister husband's wife'syounger sister, wife'seldersister's husband brother wife'syounger sister's sister's husband's husband, husband mother husband's menmarried to sisters between reciprocal husband daughter's
son's wife
USEOFMOG TERMS ONTHE OBSERVATIONS

As with the precedingsystems,familiaritywith the wife's elder sister (marlse) is prohibitedwhile there is a joking relationshipwith the youngersister (krema). Throughoutthe systemone notices a consistentuse of a few terms as suffixes, e.g., -gri: elder; -se: remote or distant; -sa: son; .sami: daughter; -ma: female. The ending -r seems to be reservedto the third ascendingor descendinggeneration and to affinalkin. The nativesstate that the ideal spouse for a man is his mari, i.e. the bilateral a type of marriagewell grounded in the terminologyas shown in cross-cousin, the equivalencesof terms 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 34, 36, and in term 33: marisefor wife's elder sister. Such being the case, it is surprisingto find special terms for parents-in-law(31, 32, 38): the term for wife's mother is different

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from that for husband'smother (32 and 38) while the same term (31) applies to both wife's and husband'sfathers. This could perhaps be explained as the result of a conflict betweenmale and female terminology (comparea,fids: husband's mother and asajgri: father's sister's son, for speakersof both sexes), a of the social structurecould well support, feature which the main characteristics as will be shown.On the other hand, the shift t/k in kuma: son's wife, and tuma: sister'sdaughter,wife's brother'sdaughter,remainsunexplained.
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

The Mog, who call themselvesMorma,l1appearto be divided into numerous clans (gagaisa), patrilinealand agamic. The Chief Hladwai~g'svillage (on the right bank of the Karnafully River about two miles inland and twenty miles downstreamfrom Rangamati), where we spent a few days, included about one hundred eighty persons belonging to two clans, Rigiesa and Kioprusa. Other clans represented in southernvillages includedthe following: Ok'sa PalaiJsa Oiiujsa RaiJbrisa Kogderjsa Cerilgsa Polaksa Pararsja Sapregia Sain Rwakoinsa Lo'g'dusa Marosa The Kioprusaclan is said to be the oldest settled in the Hill tracts, while the to their rule. Rigiesa came later from Arakan and submittedtheir predecessors We were told that of the two Mog traditional chiefs, the "Bohmo6rg" chief chief to the Palaijsa. belongsto the Rigiesaand the "Mo5rg" Only two of the above clan names were mentionedpreviouslyin the literature. They are the Palairsa and the Kogde3jsa, transcribed by Lewinas Palaingtsa and Kowkdyntsa." The natives could not suggest any differentialfunction for their clans though they mentioned dialectal and other peculiarities (especially in the way of wearingthe turban) whichmadeit possiblein the past to distinguish one clan from the other. However,the clans remainsufficiently importantfor the first question, addressedto a newcomer,to be gatajsale, "Which clan do you belong to?" Although clans are patrilinealthere are several indicationssuggestingmatrilineal trends or remnantsin Mog society. It is said that Arakanese Mog are
10 Cf. E. Riebeck, The Chittagong Hill-Tribes: Results of a Journey made in the year 1882 (A. H. Keane, tr., London, 1885). 11 Lewin, Wild Races, pp. 146-149.

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matrilocal. This is not the case in the Chittagong Hill Tracts; however, inheritancerules still distinguishbetween"malegoods" (iokia wajn) includingthe house, goats, cattle, and land which go from father to son, and "female goods" (min ma wain) consisting in ornaments,jewelry, female dresses, spinning and weaving apparatus,fowl and pigs which go from mother to daughter. Usually the first-bornson is the main heir except if he has already left the homestead; in that case the male inheritance goes to the youngest son who is always favored brothers. in relationto his intermediate Girls appear to enjoy a great freedom in their choice of a husband.Should two young people lack their parents' consent and elope, they would be fined Rs 100 or more, but after this formality the marriageis held to be valid. Thereof elopefore the Mog go still farther than the Cakma in the acknowledgement ment as a normal way to contracta union.12 When we visited the Hill Tracts, the Moirg chief of Manicori was said to be an elderly woman who had been ruling for many years, her father lacking male descendants.However, this "lady-chief"had a son who it was understood, we were told, would succeed her. Since our informantswere quite positive that a man would be succeededby his brotherbefore his son, we have several converging indicationsthat the agnatic family may not exist among the Mog. On a more psychologicallevel, one is struck by the great freedom enjoyed by women, contrasting with both the Hindu and the Muslim patterns which have permeated(akma society to a greater extent. Mog women mix freely with men, and they do not even avoid foreign visitors. In the chief's house where we stayed lived a divorcedson, and another divorcedyoung man was living in the same village. In both cases divorce (kwair) took place at the woman'swish and without the husband'sconsent. The divorce fine (raguai) is simply doubled if one party'sconsentis lacking. In the last case, the wife was said to have remarried five times.
ECOLE PRATIQUE DES HAUTES SORBONNE, PARIS ETUDES

12 See above, p. 43.

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