Luwang Salai
Meitei
At a glance
- Called a
- Salai
- Community
- Meitei
- Found in
- Manipur
About
Luwang is one of the seven Meitei salai of Manipur, with Mangang, Khuman, Angom, Moirang, Kha Nganba and Sarang Leishangthem. It was once a separate principality in the Manipur valley, and Hodson in 1908 named Poireiton as its clan deity. In his day its head bore the title Luang Ningthou, king of the Luang. It is a Meitei clan in its own system, not a Vedic gotra, though the 1901 list of its yumnaks was entered under the Kashyapa 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
Hodson (1908, pp. 99-100) recorded that each Meitei clan worshipped its eponymous ancestor as its tribal deity, called for this clan Luang pokpa, 'ancestor of the Luangs', and gave Poiraiton (Poireiton) as the deity's name. He quoted McCulloch (1859) that tradition brought the Meithei and the Looang into the valley from the north-west (p. 6). The Luang and the Kumul (Khuman) were held to be connected 'in some remote manner'; the Kumul text Hodson cites says that Luang Ningthou Punsiba, 'the long lived', became king of the Kumul, and that of his sons one became king of the Kumul and the other of the Luang (p. 75).
Historical Journey
The Luwang held their own principality in the valley before it came under the Ningthouja kings. Hodson (1908, p. 73) thought the clans once held definite areas of the valley, and in his day the heads (piba) of the Angom, Kumul and Luang clans still bore the title Ningthou, king, and led their clans' yearly rites (p. 110); the Luang Ningthou also sat on the Chirap, the chief court of the state (p. 65). Luwang Punsiba is remembered as a great king of the clan, in whose reign the royal boat Hiyang Hiren was famous, and in the version of the Khamba and Thoibi tale that Hodson printed, Punsiba builds a new palace and calls all the kings to the feast (p. 134). The number of Luwang yumnaks differs by source: 56 in the 1901 list printed by Hodson, 58 in the account of the Manipur Science and Technology Council, and 93 to 106 in recent Meitei compilations (Khomdon Lisam 93, N. Monihar 105, the Manipur Mirror list 106).
How the Salai Is Kept
The Meitei are exogamous by salai, so a Luwang may not marry another Luwang. Hodson (1908, p. 75) recorded further bars in his time: the Luang were forbidden to take wives from the Kumul (Khuman), for which tradition gave the reason that a Kumul minister once saved the life of a Luang man sentenced to death; and the Angom did not marry the Luang. 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 Looang, Kasshop gotra', that is Kashyapa. No kuldevi or kuldevta in the Hindu sense is named in the sources checked.
Notable Personalities
Luwang Ningthou Punsiba
legendary
Luwang king called 'the long lived'; in the Kumul text Hodson cites he also became king of the Kumul, and in Hodson's version of the Khamba and Thoibi tale he builds a new palace and feasts all the kings.
Stories and Legends
The Kumul minister and the Luang
Hodson (1908, p. 75) found that the Luang were forbidden to take wives from the Kumul (Khuman), and that this was the only one of the bars between Meitei clans for which tradition offered a reason: once upon a time a Kumul minister saved the life of a Luang man who had been sentenced to death. He added a passage from the Kumul chronicle in which the Luang king Punsiba becomes king of the Kumul and his two sons divide the lines.
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 Luang came from between his eyes. In the version a Bengali clerk wrote for him, the clans came from the eyes, ears, nostrils and teeth, the Luang from the right nostril. Hodson thought the neatness of the second version suspect. Meitei texts give each clan its own ancestor.