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

elative whose mother had been a relative of Kamala's mother, The woman
had married a Yakha and come to 1 ive in Tamaphok and while I could not
figure out the exact relationship, Kamala explained to us that she would
call the woman (who spoke no Yakha) h u h in public, but didi in
private.
Social Roles
Perhaps most significant of the social roles anthropologists
consider are the roles associated with gender. Gender is, of course, by
no means a unitary concept, and nor was the role of women uniform
amongst the Tamaphok Yakha. Much has been written on the relative
freedom of Kiranti women compared to their Brahmin and Chetri
counterparts (e.g, Jones & Jones 1976). However, it was often the
variation between families which was as striking as the similarities
across the group as a whole.
Marriages varied in the extent to which they were entered into
voluntarily by both parties, and this obviously affected the dynamics of
the relationship between partners in the household. Yakha women, like
Kirant i women general ly seemed to have a certain amount of control in
their choice of marriage partners, certainly much more than did do
Brahmin and Chetri women, and more scope to leave and divorce their
husbands if their marriage was not happy (cf. Bista 1967:39; McDougal
1979:lOl; Jones & Jones 1976:72-73), One very significant influence on
household dynamics might occllr if a man took a second wife. This was
only the case in perhaps 10% of Yakha households, and did not appear to
be approved of by those of other households. The households we visited
where more then one wife was present generally appeared to be riven with