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

dancing, but no such groups were formed when we were in the village.
There also used to be more groups in general. The fo1 lowing two days,
however, more groups of boys, or some t imes older and younger men from a
particular family, appeared singing a very characteristic song with a
chorus "deusi re" alernating with jolly nonsense couplets sung by the
leader, such as rtito m&To ('red earth'), ciplo b6To ('slippery path').
They would be given rice, a little money and perhaps raksi depending on
age, Lone damtii musicians were also frequent visitors to people's
houses during this time playing their narsin.Ra (a shrill oboe-like
instrument) and other instruments for uncooked rice and money,
The following day was marked by a Govinda pu.iii to oxen. i never
witnessed this (or indeed any of the animal pujas during Tihiir - people
assured me repeatedly they were quite uneventful and did not tell me
when they were about to be performed) but was told that they were given
a moistened mix of maize flour, salt and vegetables such as cucumber,
iskus, cuce karela or pumpkin, along with a garland, Unlike cows the
previous day, however, the oxen were not given a Tikii,
Many people said they enjoyed Tihtir more than Dasai-, which
intrigued me because compared to the earlier festival, during Tiher
there was much less in the way of variety of activities taking piace.
The reason for people's preference, perhaps, was the gambling which took
place particularly during Tihiir. (Plate 3 In Nepal as a whole,
gambling games were permitted only during the Dasai- and Tin6r
festivals, but in Tamaphok it was at Tih6r that the gambling reaily took
off, perhaps because of the connection of the festival with Lakshmi, who
was the goddess of wealth.
Gambling was almost exciusively a male domain, During the day men