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

'traditional' patterns were changing, but the household environment
remained intimately linked to Yakha identity, It has also examined
relationships between parts of the house (the kitchen compared to the
porch, for example), the inhabitants of a household (age and gender
relationships, for example) and between different households (as
demonstrated by parma and sahaya groups). Again as an 'environment',
the household has demonstrated a mix of features uniquely Yakha as well
as many others shared with a wider populace.
The chapter ended by looking at aspects of the household economy,
The Yakha of Tamaphok were subsistence agriculturalists, yet much of
their cash income came from work beyond the community, The next two
chapters look at the environments in which these activities (subsistence
agriculture and outside work, respectively) took place and Yakha
perceptions, knowledge and use of these environments.
Notes: Chapter Five
1. Like the swellows mentioned earlier (in season? and 3parrows (all
year round) chickens, pigeons and ducks formed an important part of the
family's life. They were constantly flying or waddling into and out of
the house, helping themselves to whatever grain they could find and only
getting shooed out when they were noticed or ventured into the main part
of the kitchen when someone was there. During the day, the chickens
were quite often kept in open-weave chicken baskets (ko~gl), or else a
mother chicken might be placed with with one leg tied by a long string
to a stake knocked into the earth floor of the yard so that her chicks
could scuttle around her. A type of chicken particularly favoured for
sacrifice was the dhumse kukhura ('porcupine chicken' ) which, apparently
because of a genetic abnormality, had feathers sticking straight out
from its body. The ducks were released from their pen during the day to
waddle off to feed and swim at the dhSrS or in a small pond on the way