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

5.4 The Household Economy
The expectation that sons working outside Tamaphok would give back
money to their fathers was one of the driving forces for household
fission outlined above, Outside work of this sort was one of the main
ways a family could expect to better itself in the world, However,
there were other ways the Yakha were drawn into local and wider economic
structures since most of the households we interviewed had insufficient
land to provide for the subsistence needs of the occupants for the full
year. Thus people either had to make up the difference with an income
in cash or kind, or through loans.
Subsf s t ence hrk Groups
Much has been writ ten about the organization of groups for
agricultural production in Nepal (e.g. Messerschmidt 1981; Caplan 1970:
108-9). These tend to be organized on either a seasonal or, more
frequently, task-specific basis. The idea is that households exchange
labour so that work can be done on a group basis, quickly and
efficiently. In Tamaphok, such a system was called horleopate (horler]
meaning 'circulating', like a ferris wheel) or jarle~gi. However, while
most people in our survey recognized the names, everyone said that
exchange labour of this sort had virtually disappeared. One man spoke
of having been involved in such an exchange in November/December, when
he had joined his neighbours in carrying rice between their lower fields
and the i r houses. Four or f i ve households had been involved, and they
had carried between 20 and 30 muri of rice in a day.
However, as far as the bulk of agricultural activity was concerned,
these groups, in Tamaphok at least, were a thing of the past. One Limbu