Matak people

Matak or Moamaria

মটক
Mayamoria Dinjoy Satra
Regions with significant populations
Predominantly in Upper Assam, especially Tinsukia and Dibrugarh
Languages
Assamese
Religion
Hinduism (Ekasarana Dharma, particularly the Mayamara tradition)
Related ethnic groups
Morans, Chutias, Kalitas, Ahoms, Kaibartas

The Mataks (also known as Moamoria) are the adherents of the Mayamara Satra, an egalitarian and proselytising Neo-Vaishnavite sect of 18th-century Assam, who initiated the Moamoria rebellion against the Ahom kingdom in the 18th century. The rebellion weakened the Ahom kingdom to such an extent that the kingdom became vulnerable to repeated Burmese invasions of Assam and the subsequent colonization by the British. The Moamorias were also called Mataks. Over time, the main groups that had supported the Ahom kingdom came to owe allegiance to the Moamara satra: Morans (the mainstay of the Ahom militia), Chutias (expert archers and matchlockmen), the Sonowal Kacharis (gold-washers), professional castes such as Hiras (potters), Tantis (weavers), Kaibartas, and Ahom nobles and officers. The largest group among the Mataks were the Morans, followed by the Chutias.

The Matak identity solidified during the rebellion, and the Moamorias referred to themselves as Mataks rather than by their original ethnic identities. In a treaty with the Ahom kingdom in 1805, the Moamorias were able to set up an autonomous region, the Matak Rajya, under the office of Borsenapati, with his seat at Bengmara (modern-day Tinsukia). The Matak community remained cohesive into the early twentieth century, and the Matak-Moran Sanmilan was formed in 1937 as a common organisation of the Mataks and Morans. From the 1960s, however, the Morans began to organise separately from the wider Matak community. They established the Moran Sabha in 1965, followed by a separate Moran student organisation in 1968, partly in the hope that recognition as a distinct tribal community would enable them to obtain benefits under the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. In 2020, the Government of Assam established the Matak Autonomous Council under the Matak Autonomous Council Act, 2020, comprising Matak-dominated villages and intended to promote the social, economic, educational, ethnic and cultural advancement of the Matak community. In recent decades, the All Assam Matak Sanmilan and some associated intellectuals have tried to promote an alternative origin narrative that presents the Mataks as an "Ancient Tai" population which had entered Assam before the Tai-Ahoms; political scientist Sun Gogoi has interpreted this reconstruction in the context of contemporary Matak ethnic politics as reflecting an aspiration for "political tribalization".

Moamara Sattra

Beginning

The sattra was established by Aniruddhadev, whose mother was a cousin to Sankardev, sometime after 1601. Aniruddhadev was the disciple of Gopaldev (Gopal Ata of Bhawanipur) who had initiated the Kala sanghati sect of the Ekasarana dharma. He established the sattra near the Moamari lake in Majuli. He quickly gathered a large following, and the followers developed such rigid principles that they would not bow to anyone or anything except their guru, the sattradhikar (abbot) of the sattra (monastery). Aniruddhadev was followed by his son, Krishnanandadev, as the abbot during whose time the Ahom king Prataap Singha subjugated the Baro-Bhuyans on the north bank of the Brahmaputra and moved them to the south bank. Krishnanandadev, being a Bhuyan, too moved and established his seat at Khutiapota, near present-day Jorhat. Here he was able to convert even more, including many Ahom nobles.

Matak

The Moamoarias were also called mataks. One theory suggests that this name was given by the Ahom king, Prataap Singha, on account of their strict adherence to the monotheism of Ekasarana dharma (in Assamese: mat: opinion, ek: single). In an incident narrated in some Buranjis, Prataap Singha tested the fanaticism of his own high nobles and officers, who were disciples of the Moamara Sattra, by making them ride their horses against naked swords held at the level of their necks. A noble, the Guimela Sola Borgohain and an officer, the Neog-Phukan, lost their lives since they refused to bow down and ride under the sword, at which point the test was stopped. Another possible explanation is that the Maran people acquired that name because of their valour (in Ahom language: ma: courage, tak tested) which then transferred to the Moamorias in general; the cognate Tai-language speaking Singpho and Khamti people described the people of the Barsenapati too as matak (strong) against the weaker mulungs (the weak royalists).

The historical use of the terms Moran, Matak and Moamoria was not uniform. Sristidhar Dutta notes that different chronicles employ these names differently and that some accounts use Matak for people identified elsewhere as Morans. In particular, Dutta notes that the Buranjis of Kasinath Tamuli Phukan and Harakanta Barua identify the Mataks mentioned in connection with Sukapha's encounter with Morans. Philippe Ramirez, in discussing ethnonyms used in the Tai-Ahom chronicles, identifies Rangyeu, Tiwra, Tumisa and Môtuk among comparatively specific names used for populations of the plains. He relates Tumisa to the Dimasa/Kachari sphere and Tiwra to the Chutias; in a passage dated to 1704 he renders Môtok as "Matak".

Modern identity politics

Interpretations of Matak identity have changed in the course of twentieth- and twenty-first-century ethnic politics in Assam. Political scientist Sun Gogoi notes that Matak organisations had asserted since at least 1941 that the Mataks constituted an "aboriginal tribe" rather than primarily a religious community. In more recent decades, the All Assam Matak Sanmilan (AAMS) and some associated intellectuals have traced Matak origins to Southeast Asia and presented them as an "Ancient Tai" population that had entered Assam before the Tai Ahoms. Gogoi interprets this reconstruction in the context of efforts to establish the Mataks as a distinct tribal community and describes the presentation of the Mataks as an ancient Tai population as reflecting an aspiration for "political tribalization". He further argues that the construction of separate Moran and Matak ethno-political identities has involved "selective manipulation and non-disclosure".

One such reconstruction has been advanced by Karabi Baruah Gogoi, who describes the Mataks as an ethnic group of "Tai Mongolian origin" and connects their history with the Phukhao terminology of the Tai-Ahom chronicles. She interprets several passages relating to Sukapha's early settlement as evidence for a pre-Ahom Tai Matak population. She identifies a local chief who supplied brinjals to Sukapha and subsequently received the name Lanmakhru as a Matak chief, and argues that this episode demonstrates the presence of Mataks around Tipam at the time of Sukapha. In her reconstruction, she also cites a chronicle passage in which a person from a Tai family was designated Matak Patar. From this and related passages she argues that the Mataks belonged to the Tai group.

Other chronicle traditions identify the population described as Matak in the Sukapha narrative with the Morans. Kasinath Tamuli Phukan's Assam Buranji, in its account of Sukapha's dealings with the Matak ruler Badaucha, explicitly states, "এই মটককে মৰাণ বোলে" ("these Mataks are called Morans"). Sristidhar Dutta consequently notes that the chronicles of Kasinath Tamuli Phukan and Harakanta Sarma Barua "clearly mentioned" that the Mataks occurring in connection with Sukapha's encounters with the local population were the Morans. The identification of the Lanmakhru figure also differs in other scholarship. Yasmin Saikia, using Buranji chronicles like the Satsari Assam Buranji, identifies the same figure as a Moran who fought against the Nagas in defence of the Tai-Ahom settlers, was subsequently renamed Lanmakhru, and founded the lineage bearing that name. Birinchi Medhi and Aref Zaman similarly cite Purani Assam Buranji in identifying Lanmakhru as a Moran who supplied brinjals to Sukapha.

Likewise, the Matak Patar passage does not itself describe the person as ethnically Matak. Gogoi's own rendering states that "another Tai family was also designated as Matak Patar by the King", after which she infers that the Mataks belonged to the Tai group. The passage therefore records the designation of a person or family of Tai origin as Matak Patar, while the identification of this as evidence for a pre-existing Tai Matak ethnic group is Gogoi's interpretation of the passage. A parallel account in Hemchandra Goswami's Purani Assam Buranji describes men sent from the Nara kingdom to collect tribute from neighbouring populations. One of them subsequently joined Sukapha and was given a Patar designation; the chronicle adds that the family which had come from Nara was thereafter known as Moran Patar.

The term Phukhao also occurs in contexts considerably later than the Sukapha narrative. Philippe Ramirez notes that in the Tai-Ahom chronicle account of the eighteenth-century Moamoria rebellion, phū khau an kao became a generic designation for the rebels, whereas Mayamara was used for the leaders of the religious sect. More broadly, Ramirez treats the present-day Moran and Matak as neighbouring and culturally close communities and argues that their modern differentiation developed to a considerable degree through the segmentary dynamics of their shared Mayamara Vaishnavite tradition.

Dutta's reconstruction similarly places the development of the broader Matak identity within the Mayamara community. He describes the Moamorias as followers of a single satra drawn from several communities, including Morans, Chutias, Kacharis, Barahis, Ahoms and Kaivartas. According to Dutta, the name Matak, initially particularly associated with the Morans, subsequently expanded to include other tribal members of the Mayamara community. He consequently distinguishes the three related terms: the Moran constituted a tribe, Moamaria or Mayamaria denoted the sect whose followers were called Moamarias or Mayamarias, while Matak denoted the wider community comprising the disciples of the Mayamara Satra drawn from different castes, tribes and occupational groups. Dambarudhar Nath similarly treats the Mataks as both a religious and social community formed around the Mayamara tradition. He notes the persistence of constituent identities such as Ahom Matak, Chutia Matak, Kalita Matak, Moran Matak and Kaivarta Matak within this broader community. Nath describes the early phase of the Moamoria rebellion as predominantly Moran-led, but notes that the conflict subsequently expanded to encompass Chutias, Ahoms, Kaivartas and other groups within the wider Mayamara constituency.

During the rebellion, the common Matak political identity also acquired a political dimension. Dutta places the emergence of the autonomous Matak polity under Sarbananda Singha in the political aftermath of the rebellion, with its status recognised through a settlement with the Ahom government in 1805. Baburam Saikia likewise places the establishment of the autonomous Matak polity under Sarbananda Singha in the aftermath of the Mayamara rebellion.

Notable people

• Paresh Baruah

References

• Baruah, S. L. (1993), Last Days of Ahom Monarchy, New Delhi{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Dutta, Sristidhar (1985), The Mataks and their Kingdom, Allahabad: Chugh Publications