Mara (Lakher) Erotic

Mara, historically called Lakher by their neighbors, are a Kuki-Chin people of the mountainous India and Myanmar borderland, concentrated in the Mara Autonomous District of southern Mizoram around Siaha and in adjoining parts of Chin State, Myanmar. They speak Mara, a Sino-Tibetan language of the Maraic group within Kuki-Chin, and today are overwhelmingly Christian. The ethnographer N.E. Parry documented their society in 1932.

Society and subsistence

Traditional Mara life centered on hillside jhum (shifting) cultivation of rice, millet and vegetables, supplemented by hunting and animal husbandry. Villages were organized under chiefs, and social standing was once marked by feasts of merit and, in the pre-Christian era, by success in the headhunting raids common across the Chin hills. Woven cloth, gongs and the mithun (a semi-domesticated bovine) were forms of wealth.

Belief and change

Before conversion the Mara held an animist religion of village and nature spirits requiring sacrifice. Christian missions in the early twentieth century transformed the society, and church life, literacy and choral singing are now central. Former warrior symbolism survives mainly in festival regalia.

Appearance and adornment

Mara are of medium stature with brown skin, straight black hair and East Asian features common to Chin peoples. Elders once wore handwoven striped cloths, heavy ear ornaments, and bead and brass jewelry, and men kept ceremonial cloths tied to status. Most now wear modern dress, retaining woven shawls and wraps for church and festival occasions.