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

5.2 The Yakha House
The house in which we 1 ived during our first year in Tamaphok was a
fairly typical house of the more well-to-do Yakha living there (see
Plate 18). Approaching it from the mu1 bEiTo (main path) which ran up
and down the hillside to the west, one first passed an older, main house
(mu1 ~har) on the left hand side. A little further and off to the right
was a pit latrine (carpi) used by the family and enclosed by bamboo
screens. One then passed the partitioned wooden shed (m) in which
the goats, firewood and rice pounder (Dhiki) were kept. The upper part
of the pB1T, reached by a bamboo ladder, was an open area (maTBn), used
for storlng hay, Our family kept half of this area clear as a hostel
for four Yakha girls attending the high school. One then entered the
yard yak an, charam), a flat, open area of beaten earth used for a
variety of domestic activities during the year and bounded by the shed,
the higher terrace earth wall to the right and a low stone wall
overlooking the ghar-b8ri (house fields) on the left. The house was
straight ahead, with a path continuing to the right of it, past a
neighbouring uncle's house and on to the dh&-6 (waterspout) and fields
beyond,
The house was rectangular in shape with the short end facing the
yard and the long sides following the contour of the land (see Fig.
5. I >, It was a two-storey stone building with mud plaster wells which
were painted with red clay up to about two feet from the ground and the
rest whi tewashed. A1 len (1972h: n5) suggests that colour symbol ism was
little used by the Thulung Rai, the available colours belng used mainly
for their decorative effect, The same thing could be said in principle
for the Yakha, although there was a general tendency for Yakha to use