A Zo people of the hill country where India meets Myanmar.
Dam maw? That is hello. It asks: are you well?
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Paite
A people on the march
Paite read their name as two small words. Pai is to go, to march. Te marks the many. Together: a group of people marching.
The name was first used by their neighbours in the Lushai Hills. In time the Paite took it as their own.
Into the hills
The march is believed to have come out of the Chin Hills. Most Paite today live around Lamka, in the Churachandpur district of Manipur, with villages across Mizoram and kin over the border in Myanmar's Chin State.
Tang is a mountain and mual is a hill. There are a great many of both.
Puan
Puan is cloth, and the shawl made from it. It is woven on a loin loom: one end tied to a post, the other strapped around the weaver's back, so her own body holds the threads tight.
Puandum
Black cloth striped in red, yellow and green. It belongs to the weightiest occasions: given as a mark of honour, worn at weddings and celebrations, and laid over the dead.
Puan laisan
The name describes the cloth. Lai is the middle and san is red: a puan with a band of red running through its centre, kept for ceremonies.
La is song. Lam is dance.
Folk songs carry the old stories, handed down by mouth from one generation to the next. A khuang, the drum, keeps the feet together, and the zam, a gong, rings out over the singing.
Paite pau
Pau is speech. Paite is a Zo language in the Tibeto-Burman family, close kin to Tedim, Simte, Vaiphei and Zou. It is tonal and written in Roman letters, with the tones left unmarked. Here are ten words to carry with you.
- Dam maw?Hello. Literally, are you well?
- Ka kipakThank you. Literally, I am glad
- TangMountain
- TuiWater
- MeiFire
- NiSun, and day
- KhaMoon, and month
- AksiStar
- LawmFriend
- ItnaLove
Ten words is only a start. For the rest there is the Zomi Translator, a free translator between English and Paite, trained for the language.
Translate into Paite