THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

ut never eaten. It should be noted that, while the price in 1990 was
3,200 NRs (for a buffalo weighing 32 dhdrni (about 75 kgs)), this was
proportionately far less by weight than goat.
Lack of interest in dairy products also affected the production of
oils by the Yakha, Yakha made and used oil from mustard seeds, li~e
Brahmin and Chetr i households. Brahmin and Chetr i households, however,
were also much involved in the production of clarified butter (m).
However, we saw no Yakha families in Tamaphok producing u, and a
negative epithet sometimes applied to Brahmins and Chetris was 'ghiuko
m' (w-face).
The cultural dichotomy I have presented was not hard and fast. Some
Brahmins and Chetris drank alcoholS9~ We were several times served
raksi in Brahmin company or Brahmin homes, drink which was shared with
us. A Yakha (and probably wider) joke we were often told at the expense
of Brahmins' drinking habits was "I don't drink raksi: just give me one
bottle!" However, we never knew of a Brahmin or Chetri distilling ra~si
or brewing j& themselves. The raksi they acquired was generally bought
from neighbouring Yakha or the tea shop, run by a Brahmin who bought the
raksi he sold from the Yakha. Having the paraphernalia involved in
their house would have been too overt a transgression of their caste
status as Brahmins and Chetris.
Many Chetris and Brahmins also admitted to having eaten (and
enjoyed) pork at some stage, and some averred (to Yakha if not to us)
that it was their favourite food. One evening at the pradhan ~8-c's
house, the headmaster and a senior Brahmin teacher at the school, on
their way back to Tamaphok after the Dasai- holidays, were entertained
to raksi in the porch. "I drink tnis sometimes", said the teacher, "but