Sarang Leishangthem Salai
Meitei
At a glance
- Called a
- Salai
- Community
- Meitei
- Found in
- Manipur
About
Sarang Leishangthem, also called Chenglei, is one of the seven Meitei salai of Manipur, with Mangang, Luwang, Khuman, Angom, Moirang and Kha Nganba. Hodson listed it as Chenglei in 1908, named Nungaoyumthangba as its tribal deity, and printed a list of its 41 yumnaks made for the 1901 census. It is a Meitei clan in its own system, not a Vedic gotra, though the 1901 list entered it under the Bharadwaj 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, p. 100) named Nungaoyumthangba (written Nungou Yumthangba in modern accounts) as the tribal deity of the Chenglei, and explained that the clans' tribal deities were in general their eponymous ancestors. Both names, Chenglei and Sarang, Salang or Salai Leishangthem, are in use. In his book on the Naga tribes of Manipur (1911, p. 72) Hodson suggested that Chenglei may mean 'dweller in the hills', from ching, hill, and lei, to be or to dwell; the sources checked do not explain the name Leishangthem.
Historical Journey
Hodson (1908, p. 73) recorded a tradition that the Meitei once had ten clans, of which two or three had died out, and thought the clans once held separate parts of the valley. He found no Naga clan in the hills that bore Chenglei or Moirang as its Manipuri name, although clans called Ningthaja, Kumul and Luang were common there (1911, p. 72). The sources checked give no firm date for the end of Chenglei independence. The number of yumnaks differs by source: 41 in the 1901 list printed by Hodson, 35 in the account of the Manipur Science and Technology Council, and 45 to 65 in recent Meitei compilations (Khomdon Lisam 45, N. Monihar 62, the Manipur Mirror list 65).
How the Salai Is Kept
The Meitei are exogamous by salai, so a Sarang Leishangthem may not marry within the salai. Hodson (1908, p. 75) recorded one further bar in his time: one or two families of the Chenglei salai were forbidden as wives to the Moirang. He also recorded the general rule that a man may 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 Chengloi, Bharadaj gotra', that is Bharadwaj. No kuldevi or kuldevta in the Hindu sense is named in the sources checked.
Stories and Legends
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 Chenglei came from his nose. In the version a Bengali clerk wrote for him, the clans came from the left and right eyes, ears and nostrils and the teeth, the Chenglei from the right ear. Hodson thought the neatness of the second version suspect. Meitei texts give each clan its own ancestor.