Haokip Clan
Thadou
At a glance
- Called a
- Clan
- Community
- Thadou
- Found in
- Manipur, Myanmar
About
Haokip is a Thadou clan of the hills of Manipur, one of the four main families that Shakespear (1912) named, with the Doungel, Sitlhou and Kipgen. It traces its descent from Haokip, a grandson of Thadou. In Shaw's account (1929) the Haokip lived on all sides of the Manipur valley but mostly to the north-east, and were almost a separate group among the Thadou. It is a Thadou clan in its own system, not a gotra.
What “Clan” means for the Thadou
Shaw (1929) writes in English of clans, branches and sub-clans and gives no Thadou word for them; Shakespear (1912) counts the Haokip among the four main families of the Thadou. Descent is through the father, and a person marries outside his or her clan.
Every clan of the Thadou, with how the clan system works: the Thadou page.
Name and Origin
Shaw (1929, p. 32) and Shakespear (1912, p. 191) tell the same story. Thalhun, son of Thadou, killed his first wife in a fit of anger and, in grief and shame, left his son Elmun and crossed the Gun river to live in the house of Pumtupa, whose daughter he married. She bore him two sons, Kipgen and Haokip. When she too died, Thalhun took Kipgen home with him, but Haokip was too young for the journey and was brought up by his grandfather Pumtupa. So, Shaw writes, the Haokip are to this day almost a separate group of Thadou, while the Kipgen for the most part live among the Sitlhou.
Historical Journey
Shaw (1929, p. 11) found the Haokip on all sides of the Manipur valley but mostly to the north-east, and named Lhukhomang, of Chasat village in the Ukhrul subdivision, as the head of the Haokip branch (p. 34). Hutton, editing Shaw, added that there were many Kipgen in north-east Manipur and in the Somra tract, mixed with the Haokip (p. 32 note). Shakespear (1912, p. 191) named two branches of the Haokip family, the Chongput and the Hawlthang, as still of some importance: their chiefs held sites in the hills west of the Manipur valley that had been assigned to them about 1850 and ruled some 190 houses. Later writers note that Haokip families differ in whether they call themselves Thadou or Kuki; this page follows the grouping of Shaw and Shakespear.
How the Clan Is Kept
The Thadou are patrilineal and exogamous, and a man's proper marriage is with his mother's brother's daughter (Shaw, p. 140). Shaw records one Haokip practice that differed from the Sitlhou practice he mainly describes: where other households paid their village chief a measure of paddy each year for the right to cultivate, among the Haokip only a jar of rice beer was paid, called helpeng (p. 64). No family deity in the Hindu sense is named in the sources checked.
Presence Across Regions
Somra tract (Myanmar)
Tribal - Thadou
Hutton, in a note to Shaw (p. 32), found many Kipgen in the Somra tract mixed with the Haokip.
Stories and Legends
Haokip left with his grandfather
In the story Shaw and Shakespear record, Thalhun's second wife bore him Kipgen and Haokip and then died. Thalhun went back across the Gun river to his first son Elmun and took Kipgen with him, but Haokip was too small to travel and stayed to be brought up by his mother's father, Pumtupa. The story is told to explain why the Haokip stand somewhat apart from the other Thadou clans.