Traditional social system of the Zeliangrong
- Part 1 -

Budha Kamei *

Gaan-Ngai celebration at a Khul :: Pix - Jinendra Maibam

"Society is a wall of very strong masonry, as it now stands; it may be sapped in the course of a thousand years but stormed in a day-no! You dash your head against it - you scatter your brains and you dislodge a stone. Society smiles in scorn, effaces the stain, and replaces the stone." According to Zensberg, "A society is a collection of individuals united by certain relations or modes of the behaviour which mark them from others who do not enter into these relations or who differ from them in behavior."To T.B. Bottomore, society is a group of people having a political independence along with distinct economic, religious and familial institutions.

He does explain polity, economy, religion and family as the main structures of a society. The social members have independent relations in their way of life. This relationship is made in all cultural activities such as social, language and kinship. Through this relationship a homogenous society is formed under a particular culture. A.L. Kroeber opines, a society is a group of inter-related individuals. All the scholars have different opinions about the definition of society.

In short, a society is a group of individuals having a distinct culture and bound together into one homogenous group and they exist through their activities in various ways of life. Every society has a social structure though there are many changes in their patterns and functions. Social structure is a much of social alignment, as that, fresh relations were not in operation, the society could not be said to exist in that form.

For A. R. Radcliffe Brown, the components of social structure are human beings, the structure itself being own arrangements of persons in relationship institutionally defined and regulated. Robert Redfield6 says, "a serial structure is a system." The elements of social structure do not exist independently of one another. Raymond Firth suggests, "It must be concerned with the ordered relations of parts to a whole, with the arrangements in which the elements of the social life are linked together. These relations must be regarded as built up one upon another – they are a series of varying orders of complexity." E. E. Evans Pritchard restricts social structure to the interrelations of group explicitly excluding inter-personal relations.

According to E. R. Leach, social structure consists of a set of ideas about the distribution of power between persons or groups of persons. S.F Nadels describes social structure in these words: "Structure indicates an ordered arrangement of parts which can be treated as transportable, being relatively invariant, while the parts themselves are variable." A.R. Radcliffe Brown opines, "social structure is the continuing arrangement of persons in relationship controlled by socially established order in which members have co-relations among each other under social rules and it is to be followed by all".

Thus, a social structure is a component body of certain elements, such as social, political, religion, economic, kinship, diet, art, education, language, morality and so on. The elements are made by the social members. These aspects of social structure have certain functions and under these functions the social relationship is established. These aspects are interrelated and inter-dependent on each another in their functions. In view of Marxist, society is a structurally complex organization in which individuals group and bodies are linked in an endless variety of ways. The structured functions are performed in continuous process.

The basic needs of human being such as food, cloth and shelter are supplied by the society through the economy. It is through this that society developed into different stages such as primitive, pre-agrarian, agrarian feudal, and so on. It is an inseparable part of social structure. The political institution is the means of maintaining order and protecting the society from enemies. Knowledge and learning in a society are acquired through education. The children learn the social rule from their family and their environment.

The place of man in universe is interpreted by religion. Religion is a part of social organization because it develops the morality of the people. The spread of education and economic system lead to the introduction of religious sects associated with high philosophy. Among the primitive people there was no high philosophy of religion because they believed in natural phenomenon. Language is the only medium for exchanging and interaction of ideas and thought among the members of the society. Thus, all these structural aspects are interdependent and interrelated among each other. Society is a system of usages and procedures of authority and mutual aid of many groupings and divisions, of controls of human behaviour and of liberties.

The Zeliangrong has well-knit social system since ancient times. Unlike some other tribes, they did not migrate from one place to another frequently. In olden days, when circumstances did compel, they shift from one place to another and in that case too, they moved to a little distance from the original place. They are, in fact known to love permanent dwellings, and one wonders as to the way of the life style in which they live in by gone days. R. Brown writes, "The Kowpois (Zeliangrong) are much attached to their villages as the former homes, the present graves of their ancestors are held in much esteem; and a village is only abandoned with the greatest reluctance." A village is a socio-economic and political unit. The foundation of the Zeliangrong society is based on the kinship and clan system.

A society may be divided into a number of clans, then into lineages and again subdivided into a number of families. Family is the smallest basic unit of the society. Family is a group of persons with close kinship ties, usually parents and their children, some of whom generally live together in the same dwelling. It is believed that family is evolved from primitive promiscuity through various forms of plural marriage to monogamy. However, the evolution of family may differ from society to society. G.M. Foster states that whereas some families are evolved from savagery some in Barbarism and some in civilization. Robert H. Lowie regards family to be an association that corresponds to the institution of marriage socially approved forms of sex relations. The nuclear family is a universal human grouping. Either as the sole prevailing form of the family or as the basic unit from which more complex familial forms are compounded, it exists as a distinct and strongly functional group in every known society.

There are four main functions of the family i.e. reproduction, maintenance, placement and socialization of the grown ups. Without reproduction, society would become extinct; without economic cooperation among family members, life would cease; without education of children, there would be no cultural continuity. There is a fifth function which is often recognized and considered universal status provision. It refers to the fact that in all societies every legitimate child has recognized rights, privileges, obligations, and chances for success acquiring from his family's position in the social structure. Thus, family is a constituent part and a body of individuals who are descended from the same blood.

Kaikhun/Tampi means family. Kaikhun comes into existence with the marriage of a man and woman. They will act together for the common good of the family so long as the members of a household live together under the same roof and they are expected to produce children, care for them, and help train them in the ways of their culture. The mother of the family plays the important role in running the household affairs. Being a patrilineal society, the father is the head and exercises authority over all members of the family and the family is known by the surname of the father. T.C. Hodson writes, the household is a true social unit, as is proved by the fact that the head of the family has to perform certain religious duties.

In the past joint family system consisting of grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, brother and sister is a common practice. They believe that joint family system lead to harmonious family relationship. With the modernizing trends family is becoming a nuclear family consisting of husband, wife and children. Yet lineage, family and kinship ties are still very strong. There are three types or forms of family like Koukai, extended family, Bomkai, nuclear family and Maipuikai, widow family. In Koukkai, the grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, brother, and sister live together, they share common kitchen, property and work collectively for the common good of the family.

In nuclear family, there is only parent with their children. The married couple does establish a family when their parents give permission to settle for their own. But in some cases, they set up it in their own will without the consent of the parents. Maipuikai is a family where the husband is no more and the family is looked after by her husband's brothers. If proper care is not made available, the lineage/clan members should take care of her future by extending all possible help and care to the widow concerned. The term Kinship system explores for a system of kinship and marriage or kinship and affinity. It is the system of human relationships derived from marriage and descent. It is an important factor regulating behavior between individuals and affecting the formation of social, political and territorial group. Charles Wimick says, "Kinship system may include socially recognized relationship based on supposed as well as actual genealogical ties".

This social rule binds different members into one and forbids them from doing certain anti-social activities. The kin terminologies such as mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, cousin etc. indicate the blood relationship among the members of a kin group. Lewis Henry Morgan uses the terminology, 'gens' for the body of consanguine descended from the same common ancestor, distinguished by a gentile name, and bound together by kinship affinities of blood. It is an important factor in preserving social unity and the most effective way to study the social structure of a society is to begin with the analysis of kinship.

There are two main types of kinship system - patrilineal and matrilineal systems. In patrilineal system, the relationship is counted from male line and the later is from the maternal relationship. Each male member of a patrilineage is the potential founder of a branch or segment of the original lineage. In some societies, each lineage is thus a segmented group, dividing in turn into major segments, each of which is divided into lesser segments and so on. Groups of this kind may be kept in being by the control of marriages of members of the group, by obligations of mutual assistance, or by adherence to an ancestor cult. In some stateless societies, lineages wage war and maintain law and order.

A. R. Radcliffe Brown has termed a clan, a "group which though not actually or demonstrably (by genealogies) a lineage is regarded as being in some ways similar to a lineage. It normally consists of a number of actual lineages." M.J. Herkovits regards clan only to distinguish a group which descended from the father's side, whereas the descent from mother's side is 'genes' and both form is 'site'. It is stated that the keeping of lineages and genealogical records were started since Chalcholithic period with the development of kinship organizations and property relations.

The growth of kinship system is thus associated with economic relations. The growth of population led to division of lineages. It has made surplus productions and advanced techniques which led to break down the homogenous clan into a number of families. These families settled in a particular area by cleansing forest formed a clan or lineage group. The clan system unites the member of various exogamous groups and extends the co-operative unit over a marriage which may be prohibitory permissive or obligatory is universally recognized.

A lineage is a group of living agnates, descended from the founder of that particular line. Logically it may include dead persons descended from the founder and we sometimes use the word to include them also but these dead persons are significant only in that their genealogical position explains the relationships between the livings. Robert Lowie says that "lineage is made up exclusively of probable blood relatives, i.e., all members are demonstrably descended from a common ancestor or ancestors."

To be continued....