Paite: a transborder tribe of India and Burma

This book deals with a people who I live in the Indo-Burma border areas. They are known variously as Kamhau, Sukte or Gwuite in the earlier records. They are also known as Paite or Tedim Chin.
The book highlights the structure of the Paite society by unfolding the invisible ties of kinship based on consanguinal, affinal and local membership in a corporate body called inndongta. This institution is a household council and it is universal in Paite society in an elaborate form though it is found in vestigial form among other Chin tribes. The author, as a participant of Paite culture, studies the rights, obli gations and prerogatives held by members of the society by virtue of his membership in a particular house hold and also by occupying a particular and definite position in the kinship circle through the institution of inndongta as its focal point of study. The book shows vividly how the Palte households are socially, ritually, eco nomically and structurally interrelated. knitted and dependent on one another through the mechanism of Inndongta in woe and weal for their physical and spiritual survival.