The Thadou Kukis

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Introduction Mr. Shaw, the author of these notes on the Thado is qualified to write of them by seven years residence as Sub divisional Officer of the North-west area of the Manipur State, which is there inhabited by scattered groups of Thado Kukis living among Kabui and Kachha Naga communities who were established in those hills long before the Thado intruded there. He was also in intermittent contact with Thado Kukis during five year’s service in the Naga Hills district. Of the Thado groups in these areas the Shitlho clan is the most important and claims to be the senior clan of the descendants of Thado, the ancestor of the race. There is an appreciable degree of divergence between details of custom in different areas and in different clans, and Mr. Shaw's account must be taken to refer primarily to the Shitlho practice. In other respects also his account has perhaps some bias towards the Shitlho point of view. Thus he describes the house of Dongngel, which is senior in origin to that of the Shitlho, as ingam or extinct in the male line, and represented only by the descendant of a slave. This is the Shitlho view and is so stated by them with some emphasis, but it is so far from being universally accepted, that Cheng- Japao, the present head of the Dongel clan, is accepted as the legitimate descendant of Dongngel by collaterals of unimpugnable pedigree who would be able to substantiate their own claims to represent Dongngel if Chengjapao's were rejected.

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