Maku

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Maku (मकु) (Maki,Mykoi) is a Jat clan found in Afghanistan.[1] Makae/Macae|Macæ, a nation of Arabia is mentioned by Pliny.[2]

Origin

Jat Gotras Namesake

Makula village

History

H. W. Bellew[3] mentions that Maku stands for Makwahana, a very ancient Indian tribe, neither Rajput nor Jat by descent, but reckoned amongst the Rajput along with the Jat as adopted tribes ; a clan, perhaps, of the Saka Scythians.

The Mykoi, as before stated, may be now represented by the Maku Durani of Kandahar. The greater portion of the Maku, it is said, emigrated to Hindustan to escape the horrors of the Mughal invasion under Changhz Khan. There are some flourishing, though small, colonies of the Maku in Multan and the Derajat of the Indus valley. The Maku are generally associated with the Khagwani, a branch of the Khugiani, before described, and with them reckoned as of the Mak, or Makh, race, which I have supposed to be the Makwahana genealogy. [4]

Mention by Pliny

Pliny[5] mentions about Makae nation of Arabia....They (The fleet of Alexander commanded by Oncsicritus sailed from India into the heart of Persia) next came to the Promontory of Carmania12 from which the distance across to the opposite coast, where the Macæ, a nation of Arabia, dwell, is fifty miles; and then to three islands, of which that of Oracla13 is alone inhabited, being the only one supplied with fresh water; it is distant from the mainland twenty-five miles; quite in the Gulf, and facing Persia, there are four other islands. About these islands sea-serpents14 were seen swimming towards them, twenty cubits in length, which struck the fleet with great alarm.


12 Called the Promontory of Harmozon by Strabo. Hardouin says that the modern name is Cape Jash, but recent writers suggest that it is represented by the modern Cape Bombaruk, nearly opposite Cape Mussendom.

13 Perhaps the modern Kishon, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf; or that may be one of the four islands next mentioned.

14 The story of Pontoppidan's Kraken or Korven, the serpent of the Norwegian Seas, is as old as Pliny, we find, and he derived his information from older works.

Notable persons

Reference

  1. An Inquiry Into the Ethnography of Afghanistan By H. W. Bellew, The Oriental University Institute, Woking, 1891, p.16,92,127,157,161
  2. Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 26
  3. An Inquiry Into the Ethnography of Afghanistan By H. W. Bellew, The Oriental University Institute, Woking, 1891, p.16
  4. An Inquiry Into the Ethnography of Afghanistan By H. W. Bellew, The Oriental University Institute, Woking, 1891, p.157
  5. Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 26

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