CHAPTER ONE

1« BACKGI^UND INFORMATION

1.1 THE PROBLEM OF STUDY

A fie ld survey was undertaken to study bioanthropological variation in the three major local populations,namely^the Andro# the Meitei and the Khangabok of Manipur valley. Analyses of data obtained from this investigation and the results are summarised in this treatise.

Information about physical features and other biological traits may be sought fo r a variety of reasons. The most important of these is to understand the evolution of adoptive modes and structural diversities in biological populations of man. If body size and shape* and genetical constitution are related to bio> logical functions* they must be adapting to environmental changes.

Most living populations have resulted from isolation* migration and hybridisation involving different components which must have influenced at least a part of the human gene pool. Such slow and small changes may produce d in e s in the traits and gene frequ­ encies. The scope and limitation or these processes are largely related to the ecocultural systems in whicti human populations evolve. Therefore* a quantitative analysis of microvariation of three sympatric Manipuri populations have been attempted in this thesis in the context of available ecological* demographic historical* cultural and linguistic evidence about the dynamics of their biological relationships. 4 1*2 ECX)LCXJy AM) BIOSYSTEM OF MANIPUR VALLEY

The populations which are Investigated share a common ecological niche of the central valley of Manipur State. Manipur covers an area of 22.356 square kilometres, between 23.83® and 25.r68° N latitude and 93.03® and 94.78® E longitude ( Dept, of Stats,, Govt, of Manipur 1975) within the Indian Republic near the border of Burma in the east. A chain of mountain ridges surround this Central D istrict - a fe r t ile saucer->shaped valley of about 1788.8 square kilometres, at an altitude of 785 metres, which is drained by a number of rivers and rlvuletes (F lg.l).

Occurrence of many lakes, one of which (Loktak) submerges

an average area of 65 square kilometres In a year and fossil marine fish have suggested that this valley, along with Cachar.

Garo H ills and parts of Bengal were under water In the long past

(Oldham 1883# Roy 1958). But evidence of human habitation on the h ills have been traced from prehistoric times (Slngh.O.K. 1972).

•nie mountains which isolate the valley, themselves continue into

the highlands of Nagaland In north. Assam and Mizoram In west

and south and those of the Burmese territory in the south and east. This has facilitated waves of immigration of various ethnic populations in the surrounding plateau as indicated by numerous

foot^tracts. Obviously at a later stage, a variety of natural flora

(Hodson 1908, 1911) and different fauna (Godwin-Austen 1874-75)

of Manipur valley have attracted (Grlmwood 1892, Johnstone 1896)

both travellers and immigrants to this region for a long time.

On the other hand, survival of isolated faunal species such as

the l|Bw-antler^eer indicates natural barriers against easy inflow of genes Into the valley even for human populations, until cxarnnu- olcations developed* At Imphal, which has been the cultural, political and economic eentre of Manipur valley since long converges four Important routes which must have linked it with Burma, Nagaland, Cachar in Assam and Lushai H ills (now Mizoram) for quite a long time, after the initial isolation.

ITiere is no d efin itive indication of the ethno«>geogra^ phlcal origin of the founding ancestors of the present"day Meltei population* On the other hand their ethnocultural links with diverse people of different directions are equally strong* This, in the background of prehistoric and historical evidence of equally limited facilities of communication from all sides, might suggest the possibility of origin of the populations of Manipur by merging of several ethnic waves*

1,3 CHOICE OP THE POPULATIONS

The population size of the present-day Manipur State as a whole can be estimated from the 1971 census which has recorded

10,72,753 individuals of which 5,41,675 were males* The h ills are inhabited by trib al populations (Brown 1873/ Dun 1886; Johnstone

1896; Hodson 1901, 1908; Roy 1958; Singh, Khelchandra 1969)* In the valley the predominant population is the Meltei*

The bulk of the Meitel are spread over the entire valley and identify themselves as the Kshatriyas of Hindu hlerarchal system (Hodson 1908, Chatterjee 1950, Singh K*B* 1963)* A small group of Meltei Brahmans (broadly included among the Meitei) are sparsely represented in all Meltei villages and there are a few families in Inphal, which makes them unsuitable for the present st:udy* In addition, there are a few small endogamous populations who are usually confined to large villages and are collectively referred to as the Loi and the Blshnupriya (Sinha, K.P, undated;

Chaudhuri and Gupta 1975), All these groups speak various dia­ lects of the correnon M eitellol (Language of the Meltei) and their interspersed villages from a mosaic of cultural variety as shown in the sketch (Fig,2). There are also a few settlements of the more recent Bengali and N ^ali speaking immigrants and a negligible size of the tribal populations from the hills. Of course, there are also a few isolated families from different parts of India in the Inphal city. The focus of the present investigation is on the core of the ancient Manlpurl populations in the ethnohistorical sense.

Therefore, the Meitei, the Loi and the Blshnupriya populations have been chosen fo r this investigation. The Muslims were exclu­ ded from this study because of their apparent physical diversity and history of recent migration in spite of their social inter­ action with the neighbouring Meltei and occasionally marrying

Meltei g ir ls (Brown 1873; Singh Khelchandra 1969). The broader clusters of a few breeding populations, the Loi and the

Blshnupriya, have been represented by the sizable Andro and the

Khangabok respectively for the purpose of present research. For a meaningful insight into the underlying physical and genetleal variations studied, a brief review of the ethnohistorical data has been presented in the following section. V\HI MAP OF CENTRAL DISTRICT OF MANIPUR tAMPUNC a r e a s ]

I DISTjRICT//

c e n t r a l W « T N (C T NOUNOAN v D tS T N ic r •OUNOANt •WEMViSfONAI eoiA W A A v t t t C f m m r u

A«WtA ^ - L A K t SAMAMNC A N M •PtMS NtlTtl # Aw ANCANOA M T T L J M t N T 9 . M r r b M M T • 1.4 EIHNOHISTORY OP THE POPULATIONS

1.4.1 The Andro

The endogamous Andro population numbering 4170 (V illage census 1971) is located in two adjacent villages* Andro Khunjao and Andro Khunou at the fo o th ills of Nongmaijing about 25 k ilo­ metres to the south-east of Itiphal town. The second v illa g e is much smaller and is a recent offshoot of the first. These villages are not obviously near the highways of communication which suggest a longstanding cultural and biological isolation of the people* except for a few Meitei villages in their neighbourhood.

They recognise clans having names identical with those of the

Meitei* but do not strictly follow the rules of clan exogamy.

There is no bar against cross-causln marriages among them and they claim that marriages with other Lol populations - Sekmai or

Phayeng Lois were possible* but not a single case occurred in the present sanple. Although* theoretically intermarriage with Meitei are not permissible, in a sample of one hundred marriages* there was one Instance of marriage between an Andro g ir l and a Meitei boy. The boy was absorbed in the Andro population. In another instance, a Nepali girl married to an Andro boy was absorbed in the Andro village.

The Andro appears to be the largest population of the *Loi* community - a scheduled caste of Manipur (V illage census 1971).

The other Loi populations are called* the Phayeng* the Sekmai* the

Khurkhul* the Susakaraeng* the Yaithibi (Thoubal Khunou) and the

Chalren by their village names. 10 The *Lol‘ is a Meitei title which was originally given to the outcastes from the Meitei society by the Meitei Kings for violating the customary laws and disobeying the King’s orders (Hodson 1908, Singh W.Y, 196^* It is alternatively suggested that the t i t le was meant fo r war captives or fo r descendants of the former inhabitants of Molrang (Brown 1873). The Andro themselves claim to be one of the oldest people of the Manipur valley who have been independent from the beginning (McCulloch

1859). It is said that the Andro and the Phayeng Lois once occupied the Konung (the palace) at Iraphal from which they were driven out by king Pakhangba (Hodson 1908), an early Meitei King.

They formerly had a separate language known as *Chakpa*

(Singh Khelchandra 1969, 1975, Hodson 1908) which is no more prevalent, although many old people can speak and understand it.

This language is supposed to have some connection with the eastern Naga languages, with which the language of the Meitei is classified together (Grierson 1923).

The Andro worship house>deitles such as ’Sana Mahl* and

Sylvan deities (Umang Lais) called Panam Ningthou and Pureiromba

(Chaudhuri and Dasgupta 1975). It was found during the present enquiry that a few households have accepted Hinduism and Chris­ tianity only during the last decade. The neo-Gouriya (the new

Vaisnavas) receive the services from Brahman priests of adjacent

Meitei villages. For the neo-Christians, there is a church at

Machengpat inside the v illa g e . However, the majority of them s t i l l stick to their old animistic beliefs. Their traditional occu­ pations are distillation of liquor and making pottery besides 11 settled agriculture* The Andro families domesticate pigs and eat pork and also indulge in drinking indigenous liquor.

No study has been reported so far about the biological variability of the Andro population nor any suggestion made regarding their ethnic affinities. No apparent difference of the

Andro people from the Meitei in respect of physical features or dresses and ornaments could be recognised during the field work whereas it may sometimes be possible to distinguish a Khangabok from them.

1.4.2 The Meitei

The Meitei arc distributed throughout the valley. Their settlements were also reported from other Indian states of Assam.

Tripura. Utter Pradesh, West Bengal and also from Bangladesh and

Burma (Hodson 1908). Excluding the scheduled tribes, scheduled castes (the Lol). the Muslims and other small groups, the esti­ mated total population of the Meitei in Manipur valley is about seven lakhs (Census 1971). But the largeness in demographic size and in the area of distribution raises a problem in accepting this population as a unit of genetlcal evolution which is ideally a breeding population. Normally, the degree of geneticel isolation between sections of a population cf distant places is expected to be high even in the absence of clear barriers of mating.

However. Isolation by distance is not v;ell marked in the popula­ tion structure of the Meitei of Manipv^r valley. Any genetic difference that may arise would be swamped by interbreeding between areas. Only a suggestion of heterogeneity in the Incidence of the two types of hand—clasping between the two Meitei male

12 sanpLs from two different areas has been made by the present

investigator (Singh. K.S. 1973) and others (Singh. N.R. and

Malhotra 1971b). But a wide sampling fluctuation based on

arbitrary collection of data for individual segregatlonal traits, especially those for which herltability estimates are low and

controversial« does not represent the blologlccd. variation within a population. Although individual tra its may often show wide

variations within a population (Hjkherjee 1972), the present

study is concerned with a variety and number of tra its , most of which are multifactorial, and their combined effect within the

Meitcl population. The area of distribution of the Meitel

population in the Manipur valley can easily be assumed to be

smell fo r apparent diversity in such m ultifactorial and rela­

tively stable traits within them.

Furthermore, during this field investigation the total

Meltei population has been found to largely satisfy the condi­

tions of a breeding population, an ideal unit of genetical

evolution. Theoretically, there is no marriage barrier between

different areas of the valley. They have had a well developed

system of clan exoga.my until recently and a less rigid village

exogamy which raise the matrimonial distances. Strict prohibi­

tion against consanguineous marriages also contribute towards

the same trend. If the valley is devlded into four regions namely,

north, south, west and east the regional exogamy has appeared

to occur upto 50 percent. Constant mobility of young men for

jobs and other purposes to the Inphal area or from Inqshal to

the villages has led to a larger proportion of inter-zonal marriages mostly by elopement atleast for the past three gene­

rations. Ibc genetical homogeneity of this population cannot be 13 seriously questioned until systematic and representative samples of data for various traits are collected together from all the

regions and the results suggests regional differentiation.

The present-day Meltel represent a sufficiently closed community as fa r as intermarriages are concerned. Only In a microscopic small fraction of all marriages of Meltel of Manipur have g irls been taken from the Meltel populations residing outside the state or from non-Meitei populations. Rare instances of elopement of Meltel g ir ls with nelbouring Khangabok men and their settling in those v illa g e coiranunities have found. These marriages do not in any way contributes to inflow of genes to the Meltel population.

Even a small degree of regional differenclation will not

substantially affect the results of the present investigation, because the data have been acquired as far as prar;tlcable from widely different areas, especially for the male subjects, as will be shown in the next chapter. So, the Meitei population of

Manipur valley has been considered as one genetical population

and conditions of genetical equilibrium and the random mating may be assumed among the Meltel population for the purpose of

this study. There are various speculations about their ethnic origin

on the basis of indological, cultural and historical information,

legends and opinions, v#hile their language is classified within

Tibeto-Burman family (Grierson 1923). The Meitei are described asi

(a) Indo-mongoloid and advanced section of Kuki-Chln

immigrants from Burma (Chatterjee 1950), (b) descendants of a colony of Tartar immigrants from north-west China during 13th and 14th century

(Pemberton 1835) which was however disagreed by Hodson (1908),

(c) having people of 'fin e cut features ^proachlng Aryan type' among them and 'descendants of an Aryan wave of pure blood passing through Manipur to Burma in prehistoric times' (Brown 1873, Dun 1886)•

One of the earliest references about immigration into Manipur valley by Polreiton is recorded in the book 'Foireiton

Khunthokpa* (Singh, W.Y. 1935, Singh, Kbelchandra 1969) which refers to third century A.D, Chatterjee (1950) thinks that the word Polreiton is derived from a Sanskrit root and means 'one who has come to a new p la c e '. This may indicate an early link with Sanskritic traditions of the Manlpurl people from very ancient times. He suggests that this was a name given to Lord

Siva, Furthermore, the legend of Polreiton also refers to the practice of crcm;.tion in Manipur, even before Christ (Singh,

Kbelchandra 1969)• This suggests some cultural link of a section of the ancestors of the present-day Manipurl people, presumably a the Meitei with Vedic Aryan ideas and customs (Singh, W.Y, 196^,

An Indid ethnic element in them (Bickstedt 1934) from very early times cannot be precluded on the basis of cultural b records (Singh, W.Y, 196^, References of Manipur in Bhavisya

Parana (Chattsrjee 1950) and in Mahabharata also indicate an

advanced civilization of the Meitei kingdom at ancient times.

The Meitei are believed to have descended from Arjuna, the epical hero of Mahsbharata (Singh, W.Y. 1935, Ahmad 1935, Roy

1950), but it was criticised by Dun (1886) arid Hodson (1908). 15 Legends, again, refer to some gene Inflow to the Meltel population from various Naga and Kuki tribal groups. The kings

are supposed to have admitted some trib a l men into the Meitei population (Johnstone 1896), According to a Tangkhul legend, the

Tangkhul, the Kuki and the Meitei are the descendants of three sons of the same parents. Hodson (1908) and Horam (1975) also records various legejads which connect the h ill tribes, the Naga and the Kuki, with the Meitei of the plain.

Ihere is also a speculation about tne word ‘Meitei* being derived from the Kachin word 'Moi* ano the Siamese ‘ Tai*

(hodgson 1853). It is not unlikely that at different periods invading tribes have merged themselves with the dominant Meitei community of Manipur (Roy 1950).

The history and royal chronicle (Cheltharol Kumbaba) of

Manipur refers to bands of Burmese settleraents at different parts of Manipur such as Khural Kabo (Burmese in M eiteilol)

Leikai, Kabo Leikai (Singh, M, Jhulon 1947) and Onlngkhong

Mapan Kangdabi (Singh, L. Ibungohal and Singh, Khelchandra 1967), to mention only a few recent incidents in 1389, 1598 and 1864 and they were once known as the Mongpok Haram (Eastern immi­ grants) among the Meitels (Singh, M. Jhulon 1947).

The annals of Manipur point to their assimilation of

Bengali culture through Vaisnavism, the script and vocabulary

and also Sanskritisation by Manipurl Brahmans whose ancestors mainly came frc^m Bengal a few centuries ago (Singh, K.S, and Mukherjee 1975). This might have started in 15th century (Singh,

K.B. 1963). The titles such as ‘Fal* and ‘Roy* suggest an

absorption of some Bengalee elements in the ethnic composition

of the Meitei, 16 All these information give a strong suggestion that the present-day Meitei population have earlier diverse elements often from the neighbouring communities having closer ethnic a ffin itie s and sparsely from Caucasoid or Indid strains from the very ancient times* Documentation of a long cultural conti­ nuity with closely sim ilar groups such as the Andro, who have ejqjerlenced smaller rates of gene flow as coirpared to the Meitei, may indicate a process of biological transformation of the Meitei population through history* The retention of a non-Aryan language, M eiteilol (Manipuri), which is the chief medium of comiminlcation a'rong the people of i^anipur, strongly suggests that the basic ancestral population has had some genetic relationship with the neighbouring populations whose language have coiunwn origin*

However, the modem Meitei language necessarily contains a considerable proportion of Sanskritic words particularly in the context of religion and has adopted an Indo-Aryan (Bangall) script. A Hindu way of life and religion must have also influ- encetl their breeding (genetical) structure in addition to the associated gene flow* The Vaisnav philosophy of non-violence has largely contributed to their restriction against non-vegetarian diet except fish similar to the Bengalee Vaisnavas which may be related to their ecosystem. Unlike the Andro and other less

SanskritIsed neighbours, the Meitei are characterised by the habit of taking milk and milk products since a long time v/hich obviously would affect the biological aspects of vital statis­ tic s . The Meitei identify themselves as the high caste Hindus and have genereilly followed usual restrictions and taboos asso­ ciated with the concept of purity. 17 The people have been settled agriculturists for a long time and have had a tradition of being rulers and soldiers of the ancient Manipuri Kingdom* with the development of urbani­ zation and oomraunlcatlon, they are culturally linked up with the main stream of Indian civilization* classical art and culture*

1*4*3 The Khancabok

Ihe Khangabok population is confined to one large village of 7782 individuals (V illage census 1971} which is 26 kilometres to the south-east of Imphal in the vicinity of Meitei villages on a ll sides* and about 20 kilometres from the two Andro settlements which are remotely connected with the Khangabok village (Fig*2)* Ihe people of Khangabok as well as two other villages of Heirok and Ningthoukhong are described as the Bish- nupriya (Sinha* K

However* from the genetical point of view each one of them forms a separate gene pool because of isolation by distance*

Theoretically* the Khangabok can intermarry with the Heirok and the Ningthoukhong populations of the Bishnupriya cluster* But in practice* such marriage could be located only in one case out of 100 marriages studied during the field investigation* This marriage was contracted between a Khangabok boy and a Ningthou­ khong girl* There are however three cases of intermarriage with the Meitei women which were not expected from customary rules and are lik e ly to be a recent phenomenon* Thus a high rate of endogamy* at least among the e a rlie r generations makes the

Khangabok population an acceptable unit of anthropological study* 18 Itiere is hardly any separate historical information about the

Khangabok. Whatever has been said about the Bishnupriya, within which this population can be undoubtedly grouped may be expected to throw some light on ethnohistory of the Khangabok. The pattern intensity index on finger, which is the only bioanthrx>— pological trait studied among the Bishnupriya show a striking sim ilarity with that of the Khangabok, cortparing the male sanple^

(Section 4.15, Table 97). This, in view of the ethnic stability of dermatoglyphic character, strongly suggest that Khangaboks have no marked ethnic diversity from the Bishnupriya population of the neighbouring Cachar district, from the linguistic and the ethnohistorlcal information about the existence of some

Bengalee element arnong the Bishnupriya t>opalation in general, there is hardly any definite suggestion about the ethnic classi­ fication or origin of this population. The majority of Bisnnupriya Manipurls are fovmd to reside in the Cachar d istric t of Assafu, Tripura State and in Sylhet d istric t of Bangladesh (Sinha, K.P. undated). rnere is a strong suggestion of their earlier iudiiyrution from the west into

Manipur (itodson 1908, Singh, Kiielchandra 1969). These Liinigrants probably belonged to the Bengalee low caste populations, such as

Dorn who later married Meital girls and called theitselvas as

Kalasaya or Bishnupriya (riodson 1506). It is believed that tnese Inrutsigrants were first settled in or around Bishnupur (Lamaingdong) village, the last station of the h ill pasS) Tongjeimarin, through which they probabli came and aifterwards they niust have shifte^i in groups to other places such as Khangabok, Heirok etc. Historical information also 19 suggests that the people who once settled In the Blshnupur area

(Flg«2) of Manipur are known by the naine of Blshnuprlya (Brown

1873, mm 18^6, Grierson 1923, Sinha, K.P. undated). Their occupation at that time was supply of grass fo r the royal stable (Grierson 1923). Alternatively, there is a claim that the Bishnupriya who are now settled outside Manipur are descendants of the original people of the Manipur valley (Sinha, K,P.undated) which, of course, needs a careful review.

The dialect of the Khangabok is nearer to the original

M eiteilol than that spoken by the Andro, But the Bishnupriya living outside the state speak a language akin to Bengali and

Assamese of tlie Indo-Aryan family in addition to Manlpuri (Sinha,

K.P, undated). Like ocher sectior*s of Bishnupriya, the Knangabok

are also followers of che Chaitanya school of Vaisnavism, and their ways of lif e , customs and costumos are closely sim ilar to that of the Meitci, Identical food habits, participation in coia.ion religious b eliefs and festii'als leading to socio-economic Iziter act ions brings the Khangabok and tne neighbouriug Muitei populations nearer. The Khangabok population is about equally auvanceo in cultural and economic persuits as the Meltei# Besiaes, tlie main­

stay of agriculture, the Khangarx^k concentr«te on basketry, diary

and rope-making industry. It may however be safely suggested that the Bishnupriya populations whom the Khangabok rej>resent, have been founded by a

distinctly separate ethnic group whatever that may be, and chat

the Bishnupriya have later had some obvious gene flow from the

Meitei. This ano other cultural and ecological factors of close

20 similarity and nearness may be suggested to bring out a biocultural convergence of the Khangabok population towards the Meltei*

1*5 BIOCULTURAL INTERACTION BETWEEN TOE POPULATIONS

The foregoing summary of the ethnohistorlcal information and opinions l«iads to the following hypothesis about the ephe* meral nature of the biocultural relationship of the three populations which may be relevant for the present study* Each of these populations are practically endogamous and therefore have different gene pools as a result of their microevolution#

The founding ancestors of both the Andro and the Meltei populations must have had some closer genet leal and cultural, relationship than they ^pear to have today# The linguistic affinities of both these populations with the neighbouring

Marlng tribe further strengthens this possibility# Both of them have inhabited in almost the same isolated biotope for thousands of years and have continued and adapted their cultures in res­ ponse to it* On the other hand# the geographical location of their settlement, primitive beliefs and practices, backward economy and occupation, drinking and food habits indicate that the

Andro have retained their traditional culture which the Meitei have completely transformed through assimilation of Brahroanic religion and in due course of the modem way of life, whereas the Andro population has remained relatively unmixed# There are direct eind indirect evidences that the ^teitel experienced exotic gene flow at different periods of history# 21 “Itie difference in the demographic structure of the two populations also suggest the possibility of tenporal changes in their genetical structure and conposition throughout generations. Perhaps sharing o f a common ecological niche fo r a long time, and occasional admixture with the neighbouring Meltei have restricted the process of genetic differentiation of the Andro from the Meltei to some extent.

Irrespective of the controversy, that the Khangabok population who represent the Blshnupriya coitununity are autoc]>> thones or an emigrant population of the Manipur valley, there is hardly any sim ilar claim on historical or lin gu istic grounds fo r their ancestors to have had originated from an ethnic stock related to the Meltei. They might have come in contact with the

Meltei population during historical times when the latter assumed the status of rulers of Manipur and during adoption of the

Vaisnavism in the Manipur valley. Although some Bengalee ethnic elements are obviously contained in the conpositlon and culture of both the Meltei and Blshnupriya Manipuri. the concentration of this conponent is much larger in the Blshnupriya community and its subpopulations, such as the Khangabok than in the Meitel.

Linguistic, demographic and ethnohlstorical information and opinions suggest, a Bengalee origin of the founding fathers of the Blshnupriya, whereas the Meitei o rigin ally may have branched from population of the Kuki-Chin language group who later acuaix- tured at various times with some Indid elements mainly from

Bengal. The Blshnupriya has been reporteu to have married Meitei g ir ls and a f ^ contenporary instances of which from the present generation o f the Khangahok have been already mentioned. Th ” could contribute to a trend of genetlcal convergence between the Khangabok and the Meltel who are also otherwise likely to be developing similar climatic and eco-cultural adaptation for a considerable number of generations. There is no historical evidence to suggest a blocultural link between the Khangabok and the Andro from ancient times t i l l today and there is hardly any opportunity of Interraction between them.

llie basic d iffic u lty in bloanthropological comparison of human populations is the lack of time-depth in such observations end measurements. The moat obvious approach to bioanthropolo­ gical study of miciroevolution is to obtain some historical information on interaction of pairs of populations without which interpretation of biological, cultural and linguistic sim ilarities and differences betv/een contemporary populations becomes cOTbiguous. In the present case, however, we can at least verify the working hypothesis based on cultural and historical information using parameters of physical anthropology txna the approach of population genetics.

1.6 BIOANTHHOPOLCXJICAL STUDIEis IN

The major object of this work is to examine the corres­ pondence of bloanthropological information with the ethnohisto— rlc a l information in respect of the changing patterns of relationship among these three populations.

Survey of literature on bloanthropological studies on the

Manipur! populations yield very little useful information for verifying the h'^pothesis about their e a rlie r relationship. In fact# there are only a few studies and they are limited either in^^

number of tra its or in populations considered and sometimes even in the size of the samples, ihe reasons fo r inadequate data from Manipur lie in the traditional taxonomic and typological approach of the physical anthropologists and consequent search for new varieties in isolated tribes. They are outlined as follows,

1,6,1 Anthropometry

'Xhe earliest anthropometric records on head« face and height measurements on only fifteen Meitei males (mean stature 1640 ram) from both Manipur and outside the state, placed them in a separate category between Kabul Uagas (mean stature 1674 mm) on the one hand and the ihadou (mean stature 1609 mm) and other

Kuki tribes (waddel 1900, Shaw 1928) represented by even smaller samples, on the other hand. But Kaddon (1929) postulated a prehistoric (Pre«-dravioian) element airong the Manipuris, Khasis

and Mikirs of neighbouring Assam excluding the Nagas, while Shaw

(1928) found a Negroid a ffin ity of the Thadou,

Soon followed the suggestion of 44 percent Dravidian and lesser proportions of Nesiot, Pre-dravidlan and Mongoloid ele­ ments in f i f t y males of the Kom tribe of southern Manipur

(Dasgupta and BdsU 1936) , One hundred Kuki males (Das 1945) and sixty Kabul males (Chakladar and Chaudhuri 1957) were again measured fo r a few more additional tra its which showed d iffe ­ rences from that of other Naga tribes, 'Phua anthropometric study on Manlpuri speaking populations was limited to the Meitei and the suggestions went little beyond the historical speculationsy

about th eir ethnic elements. 24 1«6«2 Blood Groups

The first blood group survey In the Manipur region was under-taken during almost the s ^ e period of anthropometric studies (Brit. Med. Asson. 1939) and its report shows a higher incidence o f the gene *B* among the Kabul in contrast to other Nagas. However# a recent survey (Battacharjee and Nanda 1976) shows that *A* gene frequency is wery high among the Paite and •O* gene among the Hmar and the Kuki of southern Manipur.

1.6.3 Dennatoql vpha

Systematic bloanthropologlcal investigation of the Mani­ pur populations began only recently with the report of a dermatoglyphlc survey of both sexes of fourteen major endogamous populations of the Manipur state (Chakravartl and Mukherjee 1963).

While all the male sanples of the Naga populations of the northern hills displayed nearly 55 percent whorl patterns and those of the Kuki populations of the southern hills roughly 45 percent of those patterns on fingers# the Meitei males had about 50 percent of whorls which corroborated with geographical trend of ethnic variation as suggested by Waddel (1900)• It is relevant for the present purpose that the Meitei population showed some genetical diversity from the surrounding h ill people.

Furthermore, the same authors (Chakravartl and Mukherjee

1961) also reported that the Blshnuprlya Manlpuris of Assam diverged more towards the Bengalee populations in th eir lower whorl frequency (44 percent) on fingers in the male sample than that of the Meitei males. However, the frequencies of finger­ print patterns in the female sanples of the two populations. the Meitel and the Bishnupriya, are relatively more similar to each other*

It remains to be verified If the Khangabok population of Manipur valley, also show a similar trend In fingerprint patterns and other traits to substantiate their claim to be a branch of the Blshnupriya and in fact they do* In any case, the earlier dermatoglyphlc data for the Blshnupriya and the

Meitei populations do not stand against the ethnohistorical hypothesis about their biological relationships*

1*6*4 Soroatoscopic Traits

The third phase of physical anthropological study among

Manipur is, a decade later, provided data on frequencies of a few segregatlonal somatoscopic and behavioural (conative) traits which are lik e ly to have single genetical background* Singh,

N*R. and Malhotra observed significantly higher incidence of non-attached earlobe (1970), cleft chin (1971a) and hand«>clas« ping with right finger over left (1971b) among the Manlpurl

Brahman than among the Meitei, and on that basis classified the former within *the Caucasoid race* and the la tte r within ‘ the

Mongoloids** But the present investigator (Singh, K*S* 1973) observed a significant difference between a different Meitei sample from Thoubal area and the classical Mongoloid populations from China and Japan*

Although these results are suggestive of some degree of genetical differentiation between the sympatric populations such as the Manipurl Brahman and the Meitei, a diflnltlve conclusion about the diversity of their ethnic origin on the basis of 26 sta tistic a l difference or distance of a few presumably single gene traits is difficult to make. Even if such a conclusion could be assumed to be true, close homogeneity of the same two saiT?3les in the frequencies of types of arm folding (Slngh^ N.R, and Malhotra 1971b) and cartilaginous lun^j (Malhotra and Singh, N.R, 1971) would suggest a process of convergent evolution. The reverse process of divergence from a genetlcal similarity is also equally tenable.

It may be of interest to note that the male sanqples of the Meitel population from Thoubal (Singh, K.S, 1973) and from

Iiiphal (Singh, N.R, and Malhotra 1971b) d iffe r sign ifican tly

(P O .05) between them in the frequency of types of hand clasping, but the female san55les of the Manipuri Brahman and of the Meitei do not differ significantly in this respect, at 5 percent p^robabillty. The male san^le of the Meitei of Thoubal area and the Manipuri Brahman do not significantly differ.

Frequencies of individual segragational characters may be sen­ sitive to underlying processes of raicroevolutionary change rather than reflecting ethnic affinities of populations, provided that there is no marked degree of sampling error. In this case, however no particular care was taken by the author to make the samples representative in nature and it is quite likely that the data from the two Meitei settlements represent clusters of families. The results obtained from them may not reflect the nature or extent of population variability in this area.

However, as has been stated in the previous section, the

Meitei of Manipur has been assumed to be p ractically one breeding unit and it is also e3q>ected that the Meitei population will not show a large amount of distinction in different regions if a Z1 number of characters are taken into account* It may be worthwhile to verify this assumption of relatively rapid change in the fxequency of single gene traits in comparison to multifactorial traits by a systematic comparison of well defined endogamous populations selected for the present study.

The combined data from two Bishnuprlya populations# the Khangabok and the Heirok# again show a significant drop in the

Incidence of Right type of hand-clasping from that of the Thoubal

Meitei studied by the present investigator (Singh, K,S, 1973),

But the male sample of these Bishnuprlya populations show striking sim ilarity with the male Nteitei sample from Imphal area# in this trait* The pooled Bishnuprlya sample from Manipur also displayed a significantly lower incidence (P<0.05) of individuals with middle phalangeal hair on fingers (Singh# K* S* 1972a) than in the Meitei san^le from Thoubal (Singh# K,S* and Mukherjee 1975)# while both these populations showed a homogeneity in the fre­ quency of occipital hair whorls (Singh# K*S* 1972b).

More recently Singh# K*S* and Mukherjee (1975) have discussed how the Meitei population appears to be the most hairy on the middle segments of their fingers among the so called

Mongolian populations# i f at a ll they can be included in that ethnic division# It could not thus be decided without further investigation# to what extent the presence of non—Mongoloid ethnic elements among the Meitei as suggested by cultural and historical information has been behind this diversity or how far the process of natural selection or random genetic drift are behind it. It is hardly i>ossible to categorise the population into one or other ethnic group on the basis of single biological

tra its * 28 Thua^ the reeults of previous work on genetleal variation suggest microevolutionary processes and emphasise the need of freshly collected systematic bioanthropological data on the Hanipuri speaking populations of the valley and their analysis in the light of the various ethnohlstorical information and suggestions« Hence, the present attempt to collect and analyse fresh data on these three populations. Plate 7> Distillation of country liquor* Andre %#omens* another occupation*