Kipgen Clan
Thadou
At a glance
- Called a
- Clan
- Community
- Thadou
- Found in
- Manipur, Myanmar
About
Kipgen is a Thadou clan of the hills of Manipur, one of the four main families that Shakespear (1912) named, with the Doungel, Sitlhou and Haokip. It traces its descent from Kipgen, a grandson of Thadou and the elder brother of Haokip. Shaw (1929) found the Kipgen mainly to the west of the Manipur valley and, for the most part, living among the Sitlhou. 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 Kipgen 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 how Thalhun, son of Thadou, after the death of his first wife, crossed the Gun river and married the daughter of Pumtupa, who bore him Kipgen and Haokip. When she too died, Thalhun went home to his first son Elmun, ancestor of the Sitlhou, and took Kipgen with him; Haokip, too young for the journey, stayed with his grandfather. Shakespear gives this as the reason the Kipgen and Haokip have always differed slightly from the Sitlhou.
Historical Journey
Shaw (1929, p. 11) placed the Kipgen mainly to the west of the Manipur valley, and wrote that they live for the most part among the Sitlhou (p. 32). Hutton, editing Shaw, added that there were also many Kipgen in north-east Manipur and in the Somra tract, where they were mixed with the Haokip (p. 32 note). Shaw named Lhunjapao of Leikot village, in the Churachandpur subdivision, as the head of the Kipgen branch in his day (p. 34). Shakespear (1912, p. 190) counted the Kipgen as one of the four main families of the Thadou, each divided into many branches named after their founders.
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, while a girl may not marry her mother's brother's son (Shaw, p. 140). The Kipgen keep their genealogy back through Thalhun to Thadou, and Shaw records that among the Thadou a share of every animal killed passed from each family head up the line of seniority, through the head of the branch, to the head of all the Thadou. 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 there, mixed with the Haokip.
Churachandpur, Manipur
Tribal - Thadou
Shaw names the head of the Kipgen branch in his day as living at Leikot village in the Churachandpur subdivision.
Stories and Legends
The two sons of Pumtupa's daughter
In the story Shaw and Shakespear record, Thalhun lived for years in the house of Pumtupa across the Gun river and married his daughter, who bore him Kipgen and Haokip. After her death Thalhun went home to his son Elmun and took Kipgen with him, leaving the small Haokip to be raised by Pumtupa. The Kipgen, the story says, therefore grew up beside the line of Elmun, the Sitlhou.