De la secte à la tribu : les Moran et Matak du Haut-Assam

Abstract

This article presents the results of a survey on the ethnicity of the Moran-Matak, two closely related groups of Upper Assam. Assimilated to the Moamaria (Mayamara) rebels who contributed to the overthrow of the Ahom empire at the end of the 18th century, the Moran-Matak form a dual society which, from the outside, remains poorly identified and which so far has not been the subject of any ethnography. Drawing from field interviews, from the Assamese chronicles (burañjī) and from colonial documentation, this is an attempt to reconstruct the interplay of differentiations by which the Moran and Matak define themselves in relation to each other, then in relation to their neighbours and finally within the Assamese society. It turns out that the segmental dynamics of the Vishnuite sect to which these societies are affiliated, that of the Mayamara, largely accounts for these differentiations.

Keywords

• Assam (India)
• ethnicity
• Vaishnavism
• descent
• segmentarity
• differentiation