This story is written exclusively for the participants of the Team India dance in Archana 2023 – the annual fundraiser for the India Friends Association.
One of the costumes we used in this dance was something that we took to calling a ‘lungi’ – just because that was a convenient name for it. However, the name we should use to refer to it – the ‘Zawlpuan’ – has a wonderful history and is a very important and integral part of the tradition of the Lushai people who live in Mizoram. I was fascinated by the different references to the word when I searched for it, and its connection to various aspects of Lushai life and customs, which I hope to convey to all of you in this story.
The characters in this story are all real – they actually lived and had these names, and the main incidents happened as described, in the times mentioned. The story itself is slightly fictionalized – and is stitched together based on a quick reading from a few sources on the web. The fictional parts ( which are in the greyed-out paragraphs) are written only to illustrate the significance of the Zawlpuan and the part it played in the culture. I am not an expert on the subject of Mizo culture and history – so I must apologize if this doesn’t accurately represent their wonderful culture. However, I hope this story conveys the sense of fascination and respect I developed for it over the day or so that I spent researching this.
This is a story from a long time ago, and a faraway country. More than a hundred and fifty years ago, to be precise – let me transport you back to the year 1857. This was a year of tumult and upheaval in the part of the world where the British East India Company had established its rule – but the first signs of resistance were taking root. The great conflagration in North India, which the British would call the Sepoy Mutiny, and the Indians would name the First War of Indian Independence would bring about the end of the Company Raj, and usher in the Great Indian Empire under the reign of Queen Victoria.
Our story, however, begins in about the same year, but far away from all this excitement. Let us fly east, about 2000 kilometers to the beautiful village called Tlabung nestled in the blue hills around the city of Lunglei in the land of the Mizo people, Mizoram. This was the area where the Lushai people lived, growing bamboo and other crops, weaving their own cloth and living a life in harmony with their idyllic surroundings.
A girl named Darpuii was born around this time in Tlabung. Little Darii as she was called by everyone, was a beautiful child, quick and intelligent, and eager to learn the skills of a young Lushai woman. As she grew into a beautiful teenager, Darii’s mother taught her all the essential skills, and chief among them, the fine art of weaving for which their clan was famous. The puan – the basic form of attire for men and women was a simple cloth that was worn around the waist or wrapped around the shoulders – and was always brightly colored and had a striped pattern of many colors.
When Darii came of age, it was now time for her to weave a special piece of cloth – the zawlpuan. This was very significant – the one thing that every Lushai bride must have before her marriage. Darii did the same thing that generations of girls before her – and wove rectangular piece of cloth, with alternating stripes of black and red. She also wove a basket of cane, the Thul, in which the zawlpuan was kept.
Meanwhile, great changes were coming to Mizoram. The British bureaucracy had now spread across the northeastern parts of the new empire, and inevitably they came into conflict with the tribes living in what came to be referred to in their documents as the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The first contacts did not go well, with frequent clashes, and heavy hand of the British police came to be felt on the poor defenseless Lushai people.
Peace had to be established, and that came in the form of Captain T.H. Lewin, who came to the area as the newly appointed Deputy Commissioner of the CHT. He truly understood the hill people, and greatly admired their simple lifestyle that was so much in harmony with the peaceful land. He traveled widely in the area, and learned the language and customs of the people and earned the trust of the powerful Mizo chief of the Thangluah clan, Rothangpuia. Gradually, his fame spread among the people, and the Lushai made him one of their own – and gave Captain Lewin his native name, Thangliana, or “Man of Great Fame” in their tongue.
Thangliana signed a peace treaty with Chief Rothangpuia in 1871, and even moved his headquarters to the Tlabung village. He learned their language and their customs and fell in love with the people of the hill country. Here he is, describing the Lushai country – “The mist gave one an impulse to spring out into the soft white fleece… I watched the rushing torrent cast its masses of topaz-coloured water over the dark rocks, foaming, raging, and tumbling headlong down, with such an uproarious sympathy with the wild water”. Once he had decided to live in Tlabung, he was, of course drawn to the beauty, not just of the wild country, but also the women – and this is how he described them – “[They] are almost a gold colour, they are like statues of transparent gold through [which] shines out the life light”.
Thangliana’s roving gaze settled on Darpuii, the most beautiful young woman in the village. She too was struck by the handsome white man, and was soon hopelessly in love. But – the strict customs of the Mizo land had to be negotiated first. Thangliana was not of Mizo stock, and therefore had no one to negotiate the bride price and formally ask for the hand of Darpuii. Her mother, well versed in the tribal customs knew of another way – the ‘Zawlpuanphan’. When a girl, with her mother’s consent, accepted a man’s proposal, the girl’s mother would spread a ‘Zawlpuan’ cloth on the main bed in her house, and allow her daughter to consummate her marriage on that bed. This is what was done, and Darpuii became Thangliana’s wife. Then, as per custom, Darpuii carried her Zawlpuan to her husband’s house, as every Lushai bride does – for a particular purpose that we will talk about later.
Sadly, their life together as a man and wife did not last long. They had a son, who died very soon after birth, and Thangliana himself became weary of the life spent in a strange land. He decided to return to England – but Darpuii could not bear the thought of leaving the land of her ancestors, and her family and people to a faraway country of white people. Captain T.H. Lewin returned to Parkhurst, in England, and spent the rest of his life there. He married again, and lived with his wife Margaret Elliot and never saw Darii again.
Our story isn’t over – because there is one more thing we have to learn about the zawlpuan. Forty years later, Christian missionaries came to the area, and it is through one of them that we pick up the story again. James Herbert Lorrain arrived in Mizoram in 1894 and established Christianity in the region. He compiled the first Lushai grammar and dictionary, and was responsible for the written language used in Mizoram today. He was fondly called Pu Buanga, and that is the name he is still known by in Mizoram.
The missionaries heard about Thangliana, the white friend of the Mizos who had lived there twenty years before their arrival. They found that he now lived in England, and wrote to him, because he was still considered the foremost British expert on Mizo people and their culture. It is in the correspondence between Pu Buanga and Thangliana that we hear about the final episode of our love story. The missionary mentions to Lewin that he is still much remembered and loved in the Lushai country, especially by one person who is now a baptized Christian – Darii! Forty years after their parting, they hear of one another again. Lewin sends her a letter and photograph of himself.
Darii hears from Pu Buanga that her Thangliana is still alive in England, and then begs him to do just one more thing for her. She carefully folds and packs the Zawlpuan and asks him to send it to her husband in England. That is the ultimate significance of the piece of cloth – every Lushai bride weaves it herself, and brings it to her new home, because that is the piece of cloth that will be used to cover her husband’s body on his death.
The zawlpuan so lovingly woven by Darpuii reached Parkhurst in February 1916. Just a few days later, Lewin collapsed and died. We know that, and not much more – but if we believe in the power of love, we must believe that Darii’s beloved Thangliana was draped, in his last journey, with the beautiful black-and-red striped zawlpuan.
References:
- Where I first read the story of Thangliana and Darii – http://dignifiedcow.blogspot.com/2010/02/top-10-mizo-stories-iv.html
- Culture and folklore of Mizoram by B.Lalthangliana, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 2005 (Google Books preview)
- Lushai Customs and Ceremonies by Bimal J. Dev, Dilip Kumar Lahiri, Mittal Publications, 1983 (Google Books preview)
- All about the puan, and all the names it acquires in its various uses – Cultural Significance of Chin-Kuki -Mizo Dresses in Manipur by Carolyn Niengneihmoi, J0442059062.pdf (ijhssi.org)
- The Frontier in British India: Space, Science and Power in the Nineteenth Century, by Thomas Simpson, Cambridge University Press, 2021 (Google Books preview)
- And if we are ever in Mizoram – we should go and visit this, a memorial to Thangliana that was erected by the Mizos in 1920 by arrangement with his English wife, Margaret Lewin
Thangliana Lung – Tlabung | Lunglei District | India - Wikipedia – James Herbert Lorrain – Wikipedia