Cult leader with 38 wives, 89 children, 36 grandchildren and a great-grandson has died

Zionnghaka Chana, polygamist and cult leader, who once said he felt “lucky” to have 39 wives and at least 127 children and grandchildren, has died aged 76 in India. The patriarch of what is believed to be one of the world’s largest families suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure, and died in a hospital on Sunday.

“Mizoram and its town of Baktawng Tlangnuam have become a major tourist attraction in the state, thanks to this family.”lamented a local government official, who said he was “with a painful heart” for the loss of this character.

Chana was a kind of local attraction for tourists from all over the world who visit the city in northeast India where the huge family lives in a four-story house with 100 rooms called “Chuuar Than Run” or “New Generation House”, in Baktawng Tlangnuam, about 70 km from Aizawl, the local newspaper reported Ukhrol Times.

The deceased’s nearly forty wives (who married the first at 17 and the last at 62) shared a room next to his room. Chana had a room on the ground floor, where she took turns sleeping with her many wives. All wives followed a schedule that indicated who was to take care of him each day.

A 2019 report says that “The qualifying brides begged him to marry Chana and, on occasion, the bride’s parents encouraged the marriage bond. There have been instances where he married multiple wives at the same time.”.

In 2014, local media reported that the family appeared in an advertisement for a major dishwasher brand. Actress Sakshi Tanwar, the dish soap brand ambassador at the time, called the family filming experience in Mizoram “special.”

“I couldn’t believe that a family could have 160 members [la familia tiene más de 180 miembros ahora] until I meet the lovely people at Ziona Chana’s, ”she said, according to the quote. “I was very surprised at the amount of food they need to cook on a daily basis and the large number and size of containers that women have to wash each day.”

The “Chana Pawl” sect was founded by Chana’s grandfather in the 1930s and has around 1,700 members, including four generations of the Chana family, many of whom work in cabinet making or pottery.

The cult’s philosophy is based on Christian principles, despite the fact that the leaders of the Presbyterian Church, the main faith in the state, reject Chana’s polygamy. In addition, the group allows polygamy for men.

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