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Chapter Six. Death in the Rain |
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Chingyang was proud to belong to the Oukheang morung, the oldest men's house of Wakching, built in the old times by the founder of the village. As the first morung, it still retains a certain ceremonial precedence over the other four morung -- Thepong, Balang, Bala, and Angban, each forming with the surrounding houses, a social and political entity with a strongly developed "patriotism." I heard many stories, some amusing, some tragic, of how, regardless of the rest of the village, the individual morung formed alliances with other villages, declaring war and receiving tribute from their own vassals. Yet the morung are in a certain manner dependent on each other, for they provide each other with wives. No man of the Oukheang, for instance, may flirt with a girl of his own morung or the "related" Thepong morung, but he must look for his girl-friends, and finally for his wife, among the daughters of the three remaining morung. |
