Angom Salai
Meitei
At a glance
- Called a
- Salai
- Community
- Meitei
- Found in
- Manipur
About
Angom is one of the seven Meitei salai of Manipur, with Mangang, Luwang, Khuman, Moirang, Kha Nganba and Sarang Leishangthem. Hodson recorded Purairomba (Pureiromba) as its clan deity in 1908, and found that its head, the Angom Ningthou, was by custom the father-in-law of the Raja and was crowned a few days before him. It is a Meitei clan in its own system, not a Vedic gotra, though the 1901 list of its yumnaks was entered under the Kaushika gotra.
What “Salai” means for the Meitei
A salai (also called a yek) is one of the seven clans of the Meitei of Manipur. Hodson (1908) glossed salei as 'tribe' and yumnak as 'household': each salai is made up of yumnaks, the family names used as surnames, and belonging follows the father's line. Marriage within one's own salai is forbidden.
Every salai of the Meitei, with how the clan system works: the Meitei page.
Name and Origin
The sources checked do not explain the name Angom. Hodson (1908, pp. 99-100) wrote that the tribal deities of the Meitei clans were their eponymous ancestors, usually called by the clan's name with pokpa, 'ancestor', and that the Ningthaja and the Angom were apparent exceptions, their deities being Pakhangba and Purairomba. Purairomba (written Parairomba) was also one of the Umang Lai, deities of the land and crops, of the Loi village of Andro (p. 102). In Hodson's book on the Naga tribes of Manipur (1911, p. 72), Angom was found as a Naga clan name only in the Tangkhul village of Nungbi.
Historical Journey
Hodson (1908, p. 76) recorded a rule that the Meitei king should be closely connected by marriage with the Angom Ningthou, the head of the Angom: the two were generally son-in-law and father-in-law, and by custom the Angom Ningthou's formal coronation came a few days before the king's. In times of drought the king and 'his semi-sacred father-in-law, the Angom Ningthou' sat together in the stern of the royal racing boat as it was dragged through the empty moat (p. 108). The Angom Ningthou sat on the Chirap, the chief court of the state, next after the heir apparent (p. 65), and, like the heads of the Kumul and Luang, bore the title Ningthou, king, and led the clan's yearly rites (p. 110). Hodson added that the chronicles show the king appointing whom he pleased to the kingship of the Angom clan, so that it was not clear the holder was always an Angom (p. 83). The number of Angom yumnaks differs by source: 50 in the 1901 list printed by Hodson, 62 in the account of the Manipur Science and Technology Council, and 96 to 109 in recent Meitei compilations (N. Monihar 96, the Manipur Mirror list 103, Khomdon Lisam 109).
How the Salai Is Kept
The Meitei are exogamous by salai, so an Angom may not marry another Angom. Hodson (1908, p. 75) recorded further bars in his time: the Angom were not allowed to marry the Khabananba (Kha Nganba), the Moirang or the Luang (Luwang). The sources checked do not say whether these bars are still kept. A man might not marry a woman of his mother's clan, for one generation. The yumnak list of 1901 that Hodson printed (Appendix I) heads the clan 'Salei Angom, Goushik gotra', that is Kaushika. No kuldevi or kuldevta in the Hindu sense is attached to the Angom in the sources checked.
Stories and Legends
The clans born from one body
Hodson (1908, pp. 100 and 182) printed two versions of a genealogy that, in his words, 'the Hindu friends of the people' had found for the seven clans, in which they spring from the body of a sage or Guru. In the version a former court officer gave him, the Angom sprang from the sage's brain. In the version a Bengali clerk wrote for him, the clans came from the eyes, ears, nostrils and teeth, the Angom from the right eye. Hodson thought the neatness of the second version suspect. Meitei texts give each clan its own ancestor.