Sitlhou Clan
Thadou
At a glance
- Called a
- Clan
- Community
- Thadou
- Found in
- Manipur, Assam, Nagaland
About
Sitlhou is a Thadou clan of the hills of Manipur, the line of Thadou's direct descendants through his grandson Elmun, and one of the four main families that Shakespear (1912) named. It takes its name from Sitlhou, seventh in the direct line from Thadou. William Shaw's Notes on the Thadou Kukis (1929) were written mainly among the Sitlhou of north-west Manipur and follow their practice. 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; Shakespear (1912) counts the Sitlhou among the four main families of the Thadou. 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
Shakespear (1912, p. 191) wrote that the direct descendants of Thado are known as Shit-hloh after a man seventh in the direct line from Thado: until his time the followers of the direct line had been fewer than those of the Kipgen and Haokip, but he was great in council and war and restored the fortunes of his family, so his name was taken by them. Both Shakespear and Shaw (1929, p. 32) trace the line through Thalhun, son of Thadou, and Thalhun's son Elmun, born of his first wife; the Kipgen and Haokip descend from Thalhun's second marriage.
Historical Journey
Shaw (1929, pp. 11, 34) placed the Sitlhou to the north-west of the Manipur valley, where their chief, Khutinthang, also called Kilkong, lived at Jampi in the Tamenglong subdivision; he was the senior living descendant of the Sitlhou branch and counted twenty-three generations from Thadou. Shaw gives the remembered sites of the chiefs' village in order (pp. 30-31), from Nanglengbung in Thadou's time by way of Lunglen in the Manipur hills, Lailenbung and Bollason in the North Cachar Hills, Saramba in Tamenglong and Insong, Laloh and Mechangbung in the Naga Hills, to Langparam and Jampi. Hutton, editing Shaw, warned that the notes refer primarily to Sitlhou practice and lean to the Sitlhou point of view, above all on the seniority of the Doungel line.
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's account of Thadou law, which Hutton says follows Sitlhou practice, has a share of every animal killed passing from each family head up the line of seniority to the head of all the Thadou, and the property of a line that dies out in the male line (ingam) passing to the next senior line (pp. 65-67). No family deity in the Hindu sense is named in the sources checked.
Presence Across Regions
Tamenglong, Manipur
Tribal - Thadou
Jampi, the village of the Sitlhou chief in Shaw's day, and Saramba, an earlier site, are in the Tamenglong subdivision.
North Cachar Hills, Assam
Tribal - Thadou
Lailenbung, near Maibong, and Bollason, near Baladhan, are remembered as earlier sites of the chiefs' village.
Naga Hills (Nagaland)
Tribal - Thadou
Insong, Laloh and Mechangbung are remembered as earlier sites of the chiefs' village.
Stories and Legends
Elmun and his half-brothers
In the story Shaw and Shakespear record, Thalhun, son of Thadou, killed his first wife in anger and, in grief and shame, left their son Elmun and went to live across the Gun river, where he married again and had two more sons, Kipgen and Haokip. When his second wife died he came home to Elmun, bringing Kipgen with him. Elmun's descendants are the Sitlhou, and the Kipgen, Shaw writes, mostly live among them.