Singsit Clan
Thadou
At a glance
- Called a
- Clan
- Community
- Thadou
- Found in
- Manipur, Nagaland
About
Singsit is a Thadou clan of the hills of Manipur. In the genealogy Shaw recorded (1929), Singsit, his Shingshit, is the father of four sons who gave their names to branches of the Thadou: Phohhil, by his first wife, and Shingshon, Shihkil and Thomshong, by his second. Shaw places these branches in south-western Manipur and the Naga Hills. 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. 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. 38) writes that 'Phohhil, Shingshon, Shihkil and Thomshong are all sons of Shingshit. Phohhil is by the first wife and all the others by the second.' He gives the line in two genealogical trees, one for the Phohhil (p. 37) and one for the Shingshon (pp. 38-39), and counts the Phohhil and the Shingshon among the branches of the Thadou line, each with its own living head (p. 34).
Historical Journey
In Shaw's day the Shingshon lived to the south-west of the Manipur valley; their senior living descendant, Mangpu, lived at Tolbung village in the Churachandpur subdivision (pp. 11, 38). The head of the Shihkil branch, Bungkhothang, lived at Khopuibung in the same subdivision, while the senior descendant of the Thomshong was not known and was said to be in the Naga Hills (pp. 38-39). The Phohhil were headed by Tongkhohen of Chongjang village in the Naga Hills, and were themselves divided into the Goungoh, Lhuhao, Douhong and Hangmang branches, each with a head in villages of the Manipur hills and the Naga Hills (p. 37). Shaw's informants mainly belonged to the Sitlhou, and Hutton warned that the notes lean to the Sitlhou point of view.
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). Shaw illustrates the indoi, the bundle of charms that Thadou houses keep on the front verandah, from one made for him in the Shingshuan (Shingshon) manner (Appendix G). No family deity in the Hindu sense is named in the sources checked.
Presence Across Regions
Churachandpur, Manipur
Tribal - Thadou
Shaw names Tolbung and Khopuibung, in the Churachandpur subdivision, as the villages of the heads of the Shingshon and Shihkil branches.
Naga Hills (Nagaland)
Tribal - Thadou
The head of the Phohhil and some heads of its branches lived in Naga Hills villages in Shaw's day.