Marma

Marma, people of the Chittagong Hills region of Bangladesh. The Marma numbered approximately 210,000 in the late 20th century. One group, the Jhumia Marma, have long settled in this southeastern region of Bengal; the other group, the Rakhaing Marma, are recent immigrants, having come from Arakan toward the end of the 18th century, when their kingdom was conquered by the Burmese.

Most of the Marma came under Bengali influence, but in the south of the Chittagong Hills region, where their culture remains comparatively pure, the script and dress are Burmese and the language an Arakanese dialect. Elsewhere the Bengali dress and language prevail. The religion of the Arakanese-speaking Marma is animistic Buddhism. The people are divided into endogamous clans, and in modern times there were still strong traces of a political organization under clan chiefs. In the hills, shifting cultivation was still preferred to plow agriculture in modern times, but the villages, containing from 10 to 50 houses, were invariably built on the banks of streams. The houses were light structures on bamboo piles, and a relic of the communal house for men was sometimes found in the form of a roofed platform built at the end of the village street.