Today, young Meetei women are reclaiming this identity. On social media, hashtags like #MeeteiNupiMagica and #MathuNabaCode feature photos of traditional Inna (ritual oil lamps) beside feminist manifestos. Workshops on Maibi healing arts are filling up in Imphal and even among the diaspora in London, New York, and Bangkok.
Why the revival? Because in a time of ecological crisis, political uncertainty, and cultural erasure, the Mathu Naba Meetei Nupi offers a different kind of power—rooted, relational, and ritualistic. Not aggressive, but immovable. Not loud, but enchanted.
Today, Manipur has seen a revival of indigenous faiths (Sanamahism). While most modern Maibis focus on public Lai Haraoba, some secretive orders claim to preserve the Sahnpujarra tradition. They refuse to be filmed or recorded, but keywords like Mathu Naba Meetei Nupi Sahnpujarramagica occasionally appear on esoteric Meetei social media groups, signaling a hidden current.
A 2019 blog by a self-identified practitioner named “Mathu Naba Chanu” wrote: Mathu Naba Meetei Nupi Sahnpujarramagica
“The copper dish never lies. We are the Meetei Nupi of the old magic – the Sahnpujarramagica. Not for fame, but for the land.”
Colonial and missionary narratives often labeled indigenous Meetei rituals as “black magic.” But the Mathu Naba Meetei Nupi Sahnpujarramagica is closer to spiritual engineering. She does not curse. She protects. She does not command demons. She negotiates with local Lais (deities).
For example, during Panthoibi Iratpa (a ritual dedicated to the goddess of civilization and war), the leading woman enters a trance—not to lose herself, but to gain prophetic clarity for her community. That is Sahnpujarramagica in action. Today, young Meetei women are reclaiming this identity
In the remote hills and river valleys of Manipur, northeastern India, ancient practices of ritual magic, divination, and spirit communion have survived for millennia. Among the most cryptic figures in this esoteric landscape is one referred to in certain oral lineages as Mathu Naba Meetei Nupi Sahnpujarramagica.
Translated loosely, the term means: “Mathu Naba, the Meetei woman of the magical offering-rite of the Sahnpujarra.” Linguists and folklorists debate its precise etymology, but the consensus is that it refers to a priestess-medium (maibi in Meetei) who wielded a form of sorcery distinct from mainstream Lai Haraoba rituals.
This article explores the possible identities, rites, historical context, and symbolic meaning of this fascinating keyword. “The copper dish never lies
By The Sangai Express (Cultural Desk)
In the lush, rain-fed valleys of Kangleipak (present-day Manipur), where the Loktak Lake floats like a mirror and the hills guard ancient secrets, there exists a concept rarely spoken in textbooks but whispered among elders, ritualists, and keepers of the Puya (traditional texts). That concept is “Mathu Naba Meetei Nupi Sahnpujarramagica.”
Though the term sounds formidable, it breaks down into a poetic and powerful image:
Taken together, it describes “the magical, indomitable inner power of a Meetei woman who walks between worlds.”