 Purum written in Meitei script | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 278[1] | |
| Languages | |
| Purum language (L1) Meitei language (L2)[2] | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Meitei people, Kharam |
The Purums are a Tibeto-Burman indigenous ethnic group of Manipur. They are (or were) notable because their marriage system is the subject of ongoing statistical and ethnographical analysis; Buchler states that "they are perhaps the most over-analyzed society in anthropology".[3] Purums marry only in selected sibs; the allowed sibs are fixed by traditional customs. The Purums are divided into five sibs, namely, Marrim, Makan, Kheyang, Thao and Parpa.[4] There is no indigenous centralized government.[5] They use Meitei language as their second language (L2) according to the Ethnologue.[6]
According to the 1931 Census of India, the Purums numbered 145 men and 158 women, all practising their ancestral ethnic religion; in 1936 they numbered 303 individuals but in the 1951 census they numbered only 43 individuals.[5]