It is significant that the Palokhi Karen see the consequences of “crooked marriages” in terms of sanctions imposed by the Lord of the Water, Lord of the Land in the form of “hot land” and the “destruction of crops”. Quite clearly, the sanctions fall on the community as a whole rather than on the offending couple. It is also significant that part of the consequences of “crooked marriages” concern the immediate kin of the couple in such prohibited unions. It is said that their kin may be “affected by xae (ba’ xae). Here again, the consequences are transitive rather than reflexive, that is, they are “other” cathected. In both cases, the only secular sanctions which may be imposed are expulsion of the couple from the village, and a ban on participating in the ‘au’ ma xae rituals of their respective families. Although expulsion is never pursued unremittingly, it is said that the ban is strictly applied. The consequences of “crooked marriages”, therefore, are conceived of in terms of a disruption of the solidarity of the community and the domestic group.

What is noteworthy about the communal consequences of infringements of marriage rules, however, is that they are expressed in an idiom of “heat” and a breakdown of the cultivation system. “Heat” (tako) and its corollary in Palokhi, “cooling” (takhy), are idioms central to Palokhi Karen religious conceptions. As we have already seen, one aspect of the ritual significance of “heat” and “cooling” is the “cooling” of the Lord of the Water, Lord of the Land in the Head Rite through which harmonious and auspicious conditions necessary for the well-being of the community are established. This relationship is also of critical importance in agriculture; the simultaneous induction of a “cool” state in the rice crop and household members, for example, is a major theme of a rite called the “protection of swiddens”. The essence of the relationship between “heat” and “cooling”, which lies at the heart of these ritual performances, is quite simply the ritual management of “heat”.

“Crooked marriages” and the “heat” that they generate are, therefore, part of a larger complex of religious conceptions in Palokhi. In the case of infringements of marriage rules, this “heat” is managed through a rite that propitiates the Lord of the Water, Lord of the Land. According to the Palokhi Karen, the rite entails the sacrifice of a pig or buffalo. The throat of the animal is slit and the resulting flow of blood is directed into a hole in the ground. The animal is then butchered and cooked to be eaten first by the headman and elders, followed by other villagers. The offending couple eat last after which a wrist-tying ceremony is conducted for them which, in effect, sanctions the union. Adultery is also said to require the performance of this ritual because the consequences are the same.

Here it is appropriate, indeed essential, to consider the symbolic significance of ordinary or correct marriages in Palokhi. Ordinary marriage rites are characterised by a multiplicity and density of symbolic representations as I show in the following section. I shall therefore examine here only those aspects of the symbolism of ordinary marriages which are of immediate interest.

One conspicuous feature of marriage rites is, interestingly enough, ritual “cooling”. At various stages of marriage ceremonies, for example, water is used for “cooling” purposes and this is described by the same expression as that in the Head Rite, that is, “sprinkling with water to make cool” (pghi thi ma takhy). The Palokhi Karen claim that this has nothing to do with “hot” land. The evidence of ritual performances, however, indicates that there is a general, diffused state of “heat” with a specific source.

To follow the sequence of ritual performances, the bridegroom is first “cooled” as he begins his journey to the bride’s house or village. Immediately after this, he and his escort are showered with water from bamboo water vessels (thi toe) to “cool” them. The musical instruments which are brought and played along the way are also “cooled” but this is done with libations of rice liquor which are also offered to the Lord of the Water, Lord of the Land as well. On arriving at the bride’s house or village, the groom and escort are once again showered with water. Thereafter, on various occasions, the bride pours water over the feet of the groom as he crosses certain thresholds in making his way to the main room of the bride’s parents’ house. Significantly, the bride is not subjected to these “cooling” ministrations and showers at any stage. It is only after the final ceremony, when she has changed into the costume of a married woman and a formal sharing of rice liquor with the groom has been held, that she and her husband are jointly “cooled” by the officiating headman and elders.

The groom is, quite unmistakably, the primary focus of “cooling” and the reason, according to the Palokhi Karen, is that he is “hot” or is liable to be so. This is also said to be the case for his escort and the musical instruments. However, it is clear that as the principal focus of “cooling”, the groom is the source or centre of “heat” which his escort and the instruments share through their association with him. On the other hand, the bride who is not the focus of “cooling” cannot therefore be regarded as “hot”. It is only when the final ceremony is over, when she has become a married woman, that she shares in the state of “heat” which distinguishes the groom.

The inevitable conclusion that we are led to about a more general, abstract level of conceptualisation within the system of religious ideas in Palokhi can only be this: men are inherently “hot” while women are “cool” until they have gone through the ritual process of marriage.

It becomes immediately apparent that the “distribution” of “heat” parallels the distribution of the colour red in the Palokhi dress system, and the way in which men and women are distinguished according to the “procreative”/“non-procreative” dichotomy. As we have seen, there is a demonstrable isomorphism in the iconicity of these two systems resting on an identity between the colour red and “procreativity”. In the case of “heat” and “cooling”, the Palokhi Karen do indeed establish at a certain cognitive level an identity between the colour and “heat”. In the rite called “the protection of swiddens” (which is specifically concerned with “cooling”), there is a ritual text which places the metaphors for fire — “heat” (tako) and “redness’ (taghau) — in a metonymical relationship through semantic parallelism. In short, if the religious terminology of the Palokhi Karen is taken as a semiotic system at the levels of the terms “heat”, “cooling”, and “redness”, then we have yet another set of symbolic representations which express the same set of structural relations contained in the systems of dress and sex and gender differentiation.

The symbolism of marriage, however, is more complex than is indicated by the distribution of “heat”. In their everyday life, the Palokhi Karen are by no means concerned to manage the “heat” inherent in men and married women. It is only in marriage ceremonies that the ritual management of “heat” becomes critical. In other words, what is there in marriage ceremonies which makes “cooling” necessary that is not present in the normal course of events? I suggest that it is none other than what marriage ceremonies are all about: the conjoining of men and women or, more generally, the ritual conjunction of male and female in a process that actualises the fecundability or “procreativity” of females and thus increases the general state of “heat” which, therefore, requires its management.

This brings us to the crucial question: if “heat” is also present in ordinary marriages, in what sense then are ordinary or correct marriages different from the union of men and women in “crooked marriages” and adultery? The answer very much depends on what we understand by “crooked marriages” and, for that matter, adultery. I have already described, through various examples, what constitutes “crooked marriages” as the Palokhi Karen see it. Essentially, they involve unions between men and women in violation of untidy but, for all that, customary definitions of eligible mates. There are, therefore, two concerns here which need to be kept analytically separate: first, unions between men and women; second, the definitions of eligible or ineligible mates. It is important to bear in mind that the fact of wishing to marry someone who is considered ineligible does not of itself result in “hot” land or a state of “heat”. It is through the attempt to establish unsanctioned conjugal relations, or by actually controverting established relations as in adultery, that these consequences come about. Of course, given culturally held notions about marriage and the attitudes they predispose to, the community — or, more precisely, the headman and elders — not unexpectedly attempts to pre-empt such consequences by threats of expulsion, bans on participation in ‘au’ ma xae, and indeed by the propitiatory rite itself.

The heart of the matter, however, seems to be uncontrolled or unregulated sexual relations (or procreative behaviour) between men and women, however their eligibility as mates may be defined. This is, of course, the issue which stands out more starkly in adultery. To take the perspective of the Palokhi Karen, what they have are certain untidy definitions of who constitute appropriate marital partners; given this, the system of social controls, however imperfect it happens to be, is brought to bear on those who threaten the established cultural order. It is an order in which marriage not only has an important part but, indeed, plays a crucial role in maintaining as the belief in “hot” land and the breakdown of the cultivation system clearly shows.

It is here that the symbolism of marriage becomes “ideological”. For it is the headman and elders, acting on the impulses, values and attitudes fostered by the cultural order to which the symbolism of marriage is integral, who ritually manage “heat”. They are the mediators between the community and the Lord of the Water, Lord of the Land; in effect, they are the custodians of this order which is established in the Head Rite and, for all practical purposes, the system of social controls lies in their hands. Their role in marriage, therefore, is no other than the management of procreation or reproduction in younger generations by males in senior generations.

But, as we have seen, the cultivation of crops is also implicated in the symbolism of marriage in the form of the infertility of land, represented as it were by “hot” land. Thus, if the role of older men is the management of reproduction in younger generations, it is also concerned with the management of land and crops. To put it another way, the symbolic management of crops and agricultural production is effected through the management of marriages. It is in this sense that marriage and its symbolism are ideological as I defined it earlier. While the symbolism of marriage consists of a certain array of conceptual relations, its extension into the domain of crop cultivation constitutes a further level of relations which form an important part of what may be called the cultural ideology of the Palokhi Karen.