Manipuri Meitei Culture And Its Impact On Women
- Part 2 -

Dr. M. Tineshowri Devi *

Phanek display at National Handloom Expo 2013, Imphal :: Pix - Deepak Oinam

2. Child birth:

The concept of purity and impurity especially to women are seen mainly at child birth. If a child is born in a family, then instead of sharing the good news, it will spread to all the clans that there is yum mangpa, (impure of houses), where the particular clan will not do any form of puja for 12 days. Once the baby is born, mother will also not be allowed to enter to kitchen and other places of house for almost 45 days.

But there won't be any restriction in food. According to Universal immunization programme, it is said that there should be exclusive breast feeding upto 6 months. But in Manipur, the culture of first feeding (chak-umba) is still prevailing that if the child is baby girl, chak-umba will do after completion of three months, but for boys it will be held after five months. It shows that since childhood girls are often neglected by the social norms. Among the meitei society, son preference is strongly seen, if a mother happens to have two girl children, parents, in-laws, and relatives will pressure the mother to go for another baby preferring son.

3. Puberty

Rituals of adolescence for boys and girls are seen. For boys Nokun thangba/Lokun thangba (Wearing of sacred threads): This ceremony (both traditional and religious) is compulsorily done for boys before marriage. This ceremony is also done by the bamons (brahmins). This is also called Laiming Louba (taking the name of God). After this ceremony, according to the tradition, boys should follow the code of conduct as a male in the society.

For girls Laimng Louba: When a girl attains the age of menstruation but before the menstruation starts, the mother will take her to the temple or will do the puja at home. This is mainly done for fertility and health. After this ceremony, girls should follow the code of conduct as a woman in the society. In most of the houses girls who have attained menstruation will not be allowed for doing puja and entering to kitchen.

The physiological changes occurring among the girls are not taken as their becoming of maturity rather they are treated as impurity. Thus, girls always remain the center of subordinate and inferiority. If a girl falls sick, girls do not want to go to government hospital because of the gossip within the neighbours and society at large.

Sometimes it creates problems in health seeking behaviour especially among the girls. If a girl is taken to government hospital with their family members which is far off, neighbours will suspect her that she must have undergone something like abortion. Thus the girls prefer going to private hospital which is nearby and easily accessible. Thus they are physically, emotionally and culturally deprived (Devi, 2010).

4. Death

Before 1724 i.e., during the reign of Garib Newaz, Meiteis used to bury the dead bodies. But after Hindunisation, Meiteis started cremating them. (T.C Hudson, 1908). If a family member died (father or mother), women are not allowed to light the pyre. All the clans will be announced as impure till yumsengba ( cleaning of house with holy puja). In fact, there are two important ceremonies that are performed after the death of a person. They are asti sanchey/ laihun and sorat/lanna thouram. They are briefly explained below:

On the sixth day of death, a ceremony called asti is performed. On the twelveth day, i.e., on the previous day of sorat, a small ceremony named 'yumsengba' (cleaning of the house with holy puja) is carried out. It is performed by a bomon (Brahmin). On the thirteen or fourteenth day (for aged people) the sorat is performed.

Throughout the process or sorat, women play a very important role in showing the pain and sorrow for the demise. Relatives from near and dear ones keep visiting the deceased family; the women of the family will attain the visitors by lamenting for the whole 13-14 days till the sorat is performed.

During the asti and sorat, there will be puja where all relatives will attribute flowers and money to the deceased photos. In this puja all the menfolk (more than 40-50 depending) will be allowed to do the attribute first followed by women folk including the elderly women at the end. This culture again shows the different discrimination against women of all ages.

5. Dress

It is generally believed that, the dress worn by the Meitei men were the kind of dress worn by the king of Manipur when He ascended the throne. Regarding female dress, it is said that phanek mayek naibi, the strip colour phanek with plain edge which was used by panthoibi is being followed by Meitei women till now. This phanek was actually used by the queen when she ascended the throne along with the King. Today, this phanek is seen worn by Meitei women. Meitei women started wearing shirts from the second week of October,1779, when Maha Rasa Lila started dance in Manipur.

Because of the advance in civilization, besides phanek women started wearing shirts, skirts, jeans, sarees and salwar kameez where the male counterpart wear shirt and pant. Unfortunately women do not enjoy the taste of different types of dresses because their dresses are being discussed, discarded and restricted to wear by different insurgency organizations.

In recent trend, in schools and colleges girls are not allowed to wear skirts so they have to compulsorily change their skirts into phanek. Regarding ornaments, most of the ornaments worn by the ancestors cannot be seen today.

However, as far as the dress and ornaments are concerned, most of them are seen in the traditional and religious occasions like Lai Haraoba festivals that are worn by women only. Women are the one who save the culture and at the same time this culture is again giving a very different picture in the status of women in the society.

6. Language

Language is such an influential force in shaping a society; it is obvious that those who have the power and strength will have their meaning in a privileged and in an advantageous position. Most of the abusive language is directed at female sexual behaviour that indicates the inferior position of women in the society.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that we all need to give a serious thought to this and focus our concern towards women empowerment as women have an active part socially, culturally, politically in all spheres. So it is therefore we cannot blame only males for the oppression caused to women but also the women themselves.

At the same time the role of the male to make sure that the wife has an equal voice within the family and society at large. Let us not forget that a female is no lesser a human being but just our male dominated society over the years having amazingly projected that to be the case, so we all need to fight this gender inequality in customs and cultures especially in Meitei society.

References

Government of India, census 2011, provisional
http://www.lisindia.net/Mani/Mani_cult.html
Hudson, T. C. 1908, The Meitheis, London. Low Price Publications,
Parratt, S. N. 1980. Religion of Manipur, Calcutta: Firma KLM pvt.
Pramodini, N. Gender Differences in Meiteiron linguistics of Tibeto-Burman Area Vol.28.1 Spring 2005.
Singh, M. Chandra (ed). 1963. Panthoibi Khongun, Imphal: Manipur Sahitya Parisad
Singh, N. Khelchandra. 1978. Ariba Manipuri Longei. Imphal Manipur State Kala Academy.
Tineshowri. M (2010), Reproductive Health and Adolescent Girls, Akansha Publication, New Delhi.