Laguri Killi

What “Killi” means for the Ho

Among the Ho of Kolhan a killi is a clan passed from father to children; a wife joins her husband's killi. Majumdar (1937) found that many killis bear the name of an animal, plant or thing, but that the one rule the Ho kept about them was that members of one killi do not marry. A killi is not a gotra and names no rishi.

Name and Origin

Majumdar does not give the meaning of the name or a story of how the killi began, and no other book on disk mentions it. Many Ho killis are named after an animal, plant or thing, and others after a place or a person (Majumdar 1937, p. 55); which kind the Laguri name is, is not recorded.

Historical Journey

Majumdar's study of Ho marriage used the Laguri killi of the village of Konslaposi as its example. When he traced the marriages of the Laguri there, all of them had been made with only two other killis, so that the Laguri, Simko and Babonga killis of the Bantra and Kotgarh pirs formed a group that married among themselves, though no rule forbade marriage outside it and the elders remembered none (1937, p. 89). He saw the same tendency, less consistently, in other killis, and found that marriages in older generations stayed within a few neighbouring villages and spread wider in later ones (pp. 56-57). In religion he names the Laguri, with the Simko, Babonga, Chatomba, Chata, Kora, Jirai and Herai, as killis whose god is Katumarang, which he gives as a name of Marang-buru, and who do not worship Marang-bonga (p. 136).

How the Killi Is Kept

A Ho may not marry within his own killi (Majumdar 1937, pp. 53-55). The killi passes from father to children, and a wife joins her husband's killi at marriage (p. 57). The Laguri of Konslaposi married mostly into the Simko and Babonga killis, by habit rather than rule (p. 89). The killi's god is Katumarang (p. 136). No other family deity is tied to the Laguri killi in the sources checked.

Presence Across Regions