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

due, was to use their kinship term relative to oneself,
The kinship terminology employed by the Yakha indicated some of the
relationships which were distinguished in their language as particularly
important, and kinship charts based on data collected in Tamaphok are
given in Appendix 111. The Yakha kinship terms were interesting because
they demonstrated certain differences with the Nepali equivalent terms
although, as people became fluent in Nepali and recognized the
differences between the Nepali and Yakha kinship systems, as one might
expect the former was coming to influence the latter.
For example, in Nepali no linguistic distinction between siblings
and cousins existed except according to age relative to speaker and sex
(dBiyu/didi and Wibahini for older and younger males and females
respectively). In Yakha, by contrast, only the parallel cousins on the
father's side were thus merged (in the terms aphu/ana (older
'brother' /older ' sister' > and anunca (younger ' brother' / ' sister' >. The
cross-cousins, by contrast, were called akhokniba/akhoknima and the
parallel cousins on the mother's side anapniba/anepnima. This reflects
the ancient marriage system in which marriage between children of
siblings of the opposite sex - cross cousins - was enco~raged.~~.
This distinction was fading, however. Anepniba/anapnima were
starting to be called by the ' brother/sister' relationship terms, and
some people did the same for their- cross-cousins. The idea of marrying
one's cousin had come to be regarded as tantamount to incest, a1 though
it was appreciated that other groups practised such marriages. Since
there was no longer a need to distinguish cross-cousins for marriage
purposes, such a shift was understandable. Yet while, also Nepali
style, the 'brother/sister4 relationship was extended outwards