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

strife and tension. Quite often the taking of a second wife was an
excuse for the first wife to leave and return to her natal home.
Role divisions within the household were distinctive and, in some
cases, sharply defined. Women and girls carried water almost
exclusively". During the slacker, winter months, men worked with bamboo
making mats with a fine diagonal weave used for drying grain and many
other purposes (mandro), and barkari with an open, straight weave used
for fencing and as roofing for cattle shelters (a).
Women made
things out of straw such as mats (gundri), and small round mats for
sitting on (san~am). The prohibition on women ploughing was common to
much of South Asia, and there were other divisions of labour in
agricultural work which will be described in the next chapter. Men
genera 1 1 y k i 1 led animals for meat and women prepared i t . However, i t
was not unheard of for men to become involved in cooking in the kitchen,
particularly snacks, and we noticed that our father was not averse to
helping with food preparation and service if there was no female family
member around to do it. On the other hand, Arne and Kamala would
resolutely refrain from eating until Aps had begun his meal, unless it
was known he was going to be unduly late. However, there were
significant differences in women's roles in the household compared to
some of those in Brahmin and Chetri households which emerged during the
political debates to be described in Chapter Eight.
Little children were frequently to be seen running from house to
house or into nearby fields, often with younger siblings in tow. We saw
various types of play activities using a minimum of materials: two girls
sat in the sunshine outside a neighbour's house one day making a
miniature cattle enclosure (goTha) out of small sticks stuck upright in