Lakra Gotra
Oraon
At a glance
- Called a
- Gotra
- Community
- Oraon
- Found in
- Jharkhand
About
Lakra is a clan of the Oraon (Kurukh) of Chota Nagpur. Its totem is the tiger: lakra is the Oraon word, and Roy (1915) notes that Bagh, the Hindi word, names the same clan. Roy records more about this clan's rules than about most: men of the Tiger clan also keep rules about the wolf and the squirrel, and in some places do not marry in the month of Magh. The Oraon call the clan a gotra, but it is a totemic clan that marries out, not a Vedic gotra.
What “Gotra” means for the Oraon
Oraon families call their clan a gotra (Roy 1915, pp. 325, 335): a totemic clan passed from father to children, within which no one may marry, though a man may marry into his mother's clan. It is not a Vedic gotra and names no rishi.
Every gotra of the Oraon, with how the clan system works: the Oraon page.
Name and Origin
The clan is named after its totem, the tiger. Roy records no story of how the clan took the tiger, but an Oraon tradition he heard, which he thought was worked out after the fact, says that people who lived in tiger-infested forests took the tiger as their totem, and that the Tiger clan began at Hundru Ghagra and Arsipokhra on the Chota Nagpur plateau (1915, pp. 309-310). He also records a belief that in olden times a tiger would not kill or harm a man of the Lakra clan, until men began to lie and anyone who met a tiger claimed to be a Lakra; then tigers, unable to tell a true Lakra from a pretender, stopped sparing any of them (pp. 336-337).
Historical Journey
No written history of the Lakra clan is known, but Roy's account of 1915 shows the clan in village life. In some Oraon villages the emblem carried to the jatras, the gatherings where villages meet to dance, was the totem of the Bhuinhars, the families of the first settlers. The Bhuinhars of Jamgai in Lohardaga thana, and of a village in Mandar thana, belonged to the Tiger clan, and each village carried a wooden tiger to the jatras. People were allowed to ride the wooden horses and elephants some villages carried, but not the tigers, which were regarded as the guardian deities of their villages (pp. 339-340). Roy thought such emblems had been on their way to becoming totem deities when the process stopped. He lists Lakra (tiger) among the beast totems of the Oraon (p. 325).
How the Gotra Is Kept
Members of the Lakra clan do not marry each other, though an Oraon may marry into his mother's clan (Roy 1915, p. 330). The clan passes from father to children, and Oraon clan names are now used as surnames. Roy records that, besides the usual rules about the tiger, men of the clan keep rules about the wolf and do not eat the squirrel, because its skin is striped like the tiger's; and that in some places a man of the Tiger clan, also called the Bagh clan, may not marry in the month of Magh, because Magh rhymes with Bagh (p. 332). No family deity is tied to the Lakra clan in the sources checked.
Presence Across Regions
Lohardaga, Jharkhand
Tribal - Oraon
Roy (1915, pp. 339-340) found that the Bhuinhars of Jamgai in thana Lohardaga belonged to the Tiger clan; the village carried a wooden tiger to the jatras.
Mandar, Ranchi district, Jharkhand
Tribal - Oraon
A village in Mandar thana whose Bhuinhars were of the Tiger clan also carried a wooden tiger, treated as its guardian (Roy 1915, p. 340).
Hundru Ghagra and Arsipokhra
Tribal - Oraon
Places on the Chota Nagpur plateau where an Oraon tradition recorded by Roy (1915, p. 310) says the Tiger clan began.
Stories and Legends
When tigers spared the Lakra
Roy heard from older Oraons that a tiger would once never kill or harm a man of the Tiger clan. But men stopped telling the truth, and anyone who met a tiger would claim to be a Lakra. The tigers grew suspicious, and since they could not tell a true Lakra from a pretender, they stopped sparing even the men of the Tiger clan.