Chapter 8 of 9

Culture

Language, clan, festival, song and cloth carry Zo identity across generations and borders. This page is the one most in need of community voices.

Language Documented

Zo languages belong to the Kuki-Chin branch of Tibeto-Burman. ^[1] They are many, and often mutually intelligible only in part: in schools in Columbus, Ohio, for example, Lai Chin was reported as the common tongue among Chin students. ^[5] Tedim is classed as a Northeastern Kuki-Chin language. ^[6]

Clans and chieftainship Documented

Society was organised by clan and lineage. Political life varied: many northern and central communities had hereditary chiefs, while some southern Chin communities did not. Authority could also flow through land rights, marriage alliances, tribute and obligations between villages. ^{[7] [8]} The British retained the chiefs under indirect rule ^[9] until a mass meeting in Falam on 20 February 1948 voted to replace chieftain rule with democracy. ^[10] Colonial gazetteers record histories of individual tribes such as the Sukte, Siyin, Lai and others. ^[11]

Festivals Documented

Khuado (Khuado Pawi) is the Zomi harvest and New Year festival; the name begins with khua, “village” or “community.” ^[2] It is the biggest festival of the Zomi year. ^[12] It marks the end of the cultivation cycle and is usually celebrated in October. ^[3] It is now held in the diaspora too, with communities in Australia gathering to pray for harvest and community health. ^[13]

Older Zomi festivals included a New Year rite before jhum cultivation, a first-fruits festival, and Mim Kut, the millet festival, which was more ritual than celebration. ^[14]

Chin National Day (20 February) has become a major cultural as well as political celebration, at home and abroad. ^[10]

Music Documented

At one traditional Zomi festival, Haitungmut Kithoihna, the instruments played included the phit, tamngai, guate, taal and semgua, and the village priest blew a trumpet. ^[14]

The hornbill Oral tradition

In Zomi tradition the hornbill is a noble, even sacred, bird, honoured for living simply and eating only fruit. Hornbill pairs are remembered as faithful for life, and their bond is held up as the model for a marriage that only death can end; to compare a wife to a hornbill is to speak of her love and loyalty. ^{[15] [16]}

Hornbill feathers were worn on important occasions as a mark of dignity and honour, and the hornbill is used as a Zomi emblem standing for the tie between Zomi in India, Myanmar and Bangladesh. ^[15] Beyond the Zomi, Chin armed movements have also taken a pair of hornbills as their symbol because the bird is revered in Chin culture. ^[17]

Dress and textiles

Cloth is woven on the backstrap loom. One end is tied to a fixed point and the weaver’s body holds the threads taut. Patterns are picked out with a porcupine quill, and a skilled weaver can take up to two months to make a traditional woman’s longyi. ^[4] Each area has its own palette, based partly on the plants available for dye:

• Tedim (Zomi): stripes of black, green, white and red. ^[4] The Tedim cloth chosen for a Melbourne public artwork is woven from cotton and silk on a mechanised backstrap loom, and women wear it mostly for the harvest festival and traditional dances. ^[18]
• Falam: geometric designs in red, green, purply-blue and golden yellow.
• Hakha (Lai): traditional designs, which one weaving business is now cataloguing.
• Mizo: a white ground checked with black, red, yellow and green.

^[4] Among the Paite, the puon dum (“black cloth”) is worn at condolences and formal occasions. ^[19] On the Chin textiles chosen for a Melbourne public artwork, the ngotekherh was once a men’s hunting cloth, and arrows on the bridal puanlaisen stand for courage and victory. ^[18] One named motif, “a hen and her chicks,” is a large diamond surrounded by small ones. Today, cheaper machine-made cloth competes with handweaving, while weaving businesses in Chin State sell to the diaspora. ^[4]

What a puan looks like

• Colours: red and black are the most commonly worn colours across Chin cloths, though puans come in a wide range. ^[18] On Mizo puans the main colours are black, white and red. ^[20]
• Size and making: a typical puan is about 36 inches long and 44–54 inches wide. The loin loom weaves it in two halves, which are then stitched together. ^[20]
• Dyes: the earliest puans were undyed white; natural dyes came later, and synthetic dyes have now largely replaced them, which has widened the palette. ^[20]
• Red-centred cloths: the Hmar puon laisen is named for its red middle section, which carries two black stripes at the centre. ^[19]

The striped band used across this site is modelled on the Zopuan: a deep maroon ground with fine dark pinstripes and white lines, a green, red and gold centre band, and a navy-black edge. The colours were taken from photographs of Zopuan skirts, shawls and shirt trim and are an approximation; shades vary from weaver to weaver.