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

8 Tapai- arth ffarnuhos
(Promise you will then)
9
Ak~rko shrimiin ma arth ffardina.
(I can't promise to that type of husband).
A Doll was said to be a traditional form of courtship based on
verbal dexterity, which resulted either in a clever verbal put-down
(such as here! or the other person making a mistake. If the man won, or
the woman let him win, then the woman was supposed to go off with him.
If the woman won, then usually the courtship had failed. However, there
was plenty of room for manoeuvre. In the above case, all the couplets
began with a rhyming tag, except for the last two (which perhaps
indicated the climax and temporary cessation of the Do!i at that point),
We only heard a small part of the duel, and it was doubtless going to be
returned to later on. The tune used was known as laibare, which our
informant said identified the singers as Magar. Yakha were said to sing
a version known as hakpare, a1 though the songs in general were said to
be losing their popularity.
Unlike the regular bazaars held in Basantapur, the Ranke bazaar was
more than just a trading and meeting point. It was a major event in
what might be called the social calendar of the Kiranti, and other
tribes of the eastern hills.7. Participation in the non-trading aspects
of the event, the Basantapur night-life in contrast to the Chitre day-
life, was a marker of one's ethnic affiliation. I wondered about the
timing of the event, at what was probably the height of the monsoon. It
was more than just an outlet for the first warm-weather fruits, R&-ke,
we were told, was also the name for a fungal disease of maize which
sends the leaves red or yellow, like fire, if the weather was too wet.