Preserving Cultural Identity: A Study Among The Tai Phake Community of Dibrugarh District, Assam

Abstract

Culture is the most distinctive feature of human being. It consists of belief, practices, tradition and all the habits shared by mankind. Each tribe and ethnic group has their own culture through which their identity is reflected. Now- a- day Anthropologists are more interested to study the ethnic culture to preserve the indigenous identity. Tai Phake is one of the important Tai groups of Assam who have migrated from Men Mau of South China, across Myanmar and then Pat Kai Hills and then entered Assam in 1775 and at present they settled down at Upper Assam. Tai Phake community have rich culture heritage. They have their own belief and practices, tradition, religion, language, habits etc., because of which they have unique cultural identity. In order to observe their cultural traits and to study the uniqueness of their cultural life a study has been done among the Tai Phake community of Namphake village, Dibrugarh District of Assam. The standard anthropological methods such as observation, interview and case study are used to enrich the data.