Guite people

For the surname, see Guité.

Guite is the progenitor clan of Zomi people, also called Chin in Myanmar, Mizo, or Paite, or even Kuki in India. According to Zam, Nigui Guite is the elder brother of the ancestral fathers of the Thadou people, namely Thangpi (great-grandfather of Doungel), Sattawng, and Neirawng.[1] This genealogy was recently inscribed on the tribal memorial stone at Bungmual, Lamka in the presence of each family-head of the three major clans, Doungel, Kipgen, and Haokip, on August 7, 2011. Some historians, like Shakespeare,[2] assumed Lamlei was the Nigui Guite himself but the Guites themselves recounted Tuahciang, the father of Lamlei, as the son of Nigui Guite instead, in their social-religious rites. Regarding Guite as the born son of Songthu and his sister, Nemnep, it was the practice of ancient royalty to issue royal heir and also to keep their bloodline pure instead. Depending on local pronunciation, the clan was also called by different names such as Nguite or Vuite,[3][4] Gwite,[5] Nwite,[6] Paihte by the Lushei.[2] In accord with the claim of their solar origin, the Guite clan has been called nampi, meaning noble or major or even dominant people, of the region in local dialect in the past.[7]

  1. ^ Zam, Ngul Lian; Mung, Thang San (25 July 2018). Mualthum Kampau Guite Hausate Tangthu. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1-7216-9355-9.
  2. ^ a b Shakespear, John (1912). The Lushei Kuki Clans. Macmillan and Co. Limited. p. 142.
  3. ^ See other alternate names for the language name "Chin, Paite" at Ethnologue: Languages of the World.
  4. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 14 December 2007. Retrieved 11 December 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. ^ Please, see word switch between "Guite" and "Gwete" in the fourth paragraph of the page at Siamsin Pawlpi (SSPP) Archived 10 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Bertram Sausmarez Carey and Henry Newman Tuck, The Chin Hills: A History of the People, Our Dealings with Them, Their Customs and Manners, and a Gazetteer of Their Country (Rangoon, Burma: Government Printing, 1896), 2-4 [Nwite is probably a mispronunciation of Nguite by Burman guides when the British came to the land via inner Burman kingdom for the first time].
  7. ^ See article, "Guite," in Sing K. Khai, KUKI People and Their Culture (Lamka, Churachandpur, India: Khampu Hatzaw, 1995), 21-22.