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Abstract
The Kom tribe of Manipur with a population of 15,988 (2001, census) are concentrated in Churachandpur and Senapati districts of Manipur. The sex ratio is 1021.24; General Fertility rate is 81.56. Though having a high literacy rate (73.24%), their accessibility to health facilities is very low which is reflected in their causes of death - unknown (55.74%), followed by diarrhea, T.B. and birth related deaths. An attempt has also been made to review different views of their genesis and identity.
Introduction
Demographic aspects of fertility, mortality, age and sex ratio, migration and distribution pattern of a population in the backdrop of ecological factors are of immense importance in anthropological studies of populations. Manipur, one of the states of the Republic of India, in the North-Eastern region, lies between 23050/ and 25041/ N latitude and 9302/ and 94047/ E longitudes. The state is fringed by the Nagaland on the North, Myanmar on the East and South, Assam on the West and North-west, and Mizoram on the Southwest. An attempt has been made in this study to review the Kom tribe and their demographic profile. Koms are one of the 33 Scheduled tribes of Manipur.
The Kom
Very few reports on Kom tribe of Manipur are found made by the early British administrators, such as, Grierson (1904), Brown (1873), Shakespear (1912), and McCulloch (1859). In the recent years, some Kom writers such as, Karong (1976), Benjamin (1990), Kilong (2000) have also contributed to the already existing literature on the Koms. Although, these reports provide some important information related to their origin, and some aspects of their social organization, but they neither fulfill the much needed in-depth details on the socio-cultural aspects, nor do they give any information related the demographic aspect of the tribe. Therefore, a brief review of the available reports is furnished here in the following paragraphs.
Brown (1873) suggested that the Kom tribe originally belonged to the hills lying south of Manipur valley and were the only remaining Kuki tribe of any importance. He classified the sub divisions of the tribe as Keirup, Aimol, Chiru, Purum, Quoireng (Koireng), Mundung, Karam (Kharam), and Laikot. During the reign of Gambhir Singh, it is also referred to that the Koms suffered from the aggressions of...