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

Kirsten Johnson and her col leagues, . . reveal to us the hi 1 1 farmer's own
land-use categories and, through them, the shrewd, sensitive, and
rational strategies by which he strives to manage the natural and man-
made hazards that he faces'' (1986:82). This may be true but, for
reasons outlined in Chapter Two, I would argue that the categories
employed by the Yakha were representative of more than just adaptive
strategies for hazard management (assuming they were indeed adaptive),
To understand the full significance of the land-use types distinguished
by the Yakha, one has to look beyond explanations for the categorisation
of land in terms of function or adaptation. One also has to consider
the cultural and social arrangements, the symbolic constructions, which
influenced people's perceptions and use of the land, True, physical and
biological factors were important in giving character to the different
types of land-use, but so too were social and cultural factors, To
demonstrate this, I shall look in detail at ghar-b8ri (house fields),
(dry terraces), kheT (irrigated terraces) and ban (forest).',
6.2 Lend-Use Cete~ories and their Meaninw
House F i el ds ( Ghar-bHrf 1
The fields closest to people's houses in Tamphok were commonly known
by the Nepali term ghar-bBri. These were plots, seldom more than half a
hectare, in which many people grew plants used in cooking to supp!ement
the staple crops grown on fields further away, Ghar-bBri were very
different in appearance from other types of cultivated fields, as can be
seen in Plate 22. The keynote of house field production was variety.
Summer crops grown included spinach (pglun. KO) ,2. christophine (iskus),
cucumber (k8-kro) , suger cane (m), balsam pear, (the more bitter ti to