Text and texture of clothing in meetei community: A contextual study

This paper is an effort to understand Meetei identity through the text and texture of clothing in ritual context. Meeteis are the majority ethnic group of Manipur, who are Mongoloid in origin. According to the Meetei belief system, they consider themselves as the descendents of Lord Pakhangba, the ruling deity of Manipur. Veneration towards Pakhangba and various beliefs and practices related with the Paphal cult have significantly manifested in the cultural and social spheres of Meetei identity. As part of the material culture, dress plays an important role in manifesting the symbolic representation of their relation with Pakhangba in their mundane life. Meetei cloths are deeply embedded with the socio-cultural meaning of the Meeteiness presented in their oral and verbal expressive behaviors. When seven individual groups merged into one community under the political dominance of Mangang/Ningthouja clan, traditional costume became an important agent in order to recognise the individual identity and the common Meetei identity. There are some cloths which have intricate design with various motifs, believed to be derived from the mark of Pakhangba's body and are used in order to identify the age, sex, social status, and ethnic identity in ritual context. The present paper, therefore, tries to understand how Meetei community identify themselves through using the concept of text, texture and context as a method of analyzing their cultural identity. It is an attempt to understand how they perceived, socialized and constructed their social identities depending upon their uses of cloths on various contexts.