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

REi-ko could also mean torch. Fire, as a contrast to darkness or rain,
it seemed to me, had a peculiarly life-affirming quality. After the
hard labour of rice planting, the Ranke was a communal statement of
cultural solidarity against the natural world, Whatever the elements
might bring, Kiranti and hill tribes in general were going to enjoy
themselves and initiate liaisons of courtship with the possibility of
future marriages, which would ultimately ensure that there would be a
next genera t ion to do the same,
7.3 Mi~rat ion
Basantapur bazaar was a window on the outside world, a border
between the known and the unknown, offering a frisson of uncertainty
which was a mainstay of its allure. This section looks at the world
beyond Basantapur and way in which it was encountered by Tamaphok Yakha
moving from their natal homes outwards.
In the previous chapter, we were introduced to the Nepali term
dukh8. In Yakha the word was pronounced tukhi, and we heard it used
most in relation to the suffering involved in living in a village, where
it was often tagged alliteratively with the Yakha word for village to
make tukhi ten.", This section looks at migration as a potential source
of sukha to replace this dukhEi.
Opinions vary amongst academics as to the relative weight of 'pull'
and 'push' factors (Rana and Thapa, 1974:82) on migration from the hills
of Nepal, and the situation differs markedly in different regions and
amongst different strata of society.' The economic hardships faced by
people in the hills should never be under-estimated, and migration for
wage labour or settlement was often designed to alleviate these