The Todas

The first distinction to be made concerns the buffaloes. These animals are divided into those of a sacred character and those which may be called ‘ordinary buffaloes.’ The latter are known as putiir; they may be kept at any village, are tended by the men and boys of the village—in Toda language, they are tended by perol, or ordinary persons—and their milk is churned in the front part of the dwelling-hut. There is no special ritual of any kind connected with these buffaloes or with their milk, and there are no restrictions on the use of the milk or its products.

The classification of the sacred buffaloes is very different in the two divisions of the Toda people. The Teivaliol possess only one class of sacred buffalo and these buffaloes are called collectively pasthir. The Tartharol, on the other hand, have several classes of sacred buffalo, and, so far as I could ascertain, they have properly no collective term for all of them, though they are often spoken of by the Teivali term, pasthir.

Possessing only one kind of sacred buffalo, the dairy organisation of the Teivaliol is comparatively simple. The milk of the pasthir is churned in dairies at the more important villages of each clan. The dairy is, in general, called pali,1 and the dairyman is called palikartmokh, ‘dairy watch-boy,’ or palikartpol, ‘dairy watch-man,’2 according to his age; but, [40]probably owing to the general custom of employing youths or young men to fill the office of dairyman, the term palikartmokh is in far more general use, and is often employed even when the dairyman is an elderly man.

At many of the chief Teivali villages, there are two dairies; a large dairy, called etudpali, and a smaller, called kidpali. Each of these dairies should have its own palikartmokh, and this is still the case when both dairies are used, but at most villages at the present time one of the two dairies has been disused and there is in consequence only one dairyman.

Both ordinary and sacred buffaloes are the property, not of the whole clan, but of families or individuals, and the buffaloes tended at the dairy of a village are, in general, the property of the family living at that village. A large clan with many villages, such as that of Kuudr, has many dairies in working order and a corresponding number of dairymen.

Among the Tartharol the organisation is far more complicated. Most Tarthar clans have more than one kind of sacred buffalo in addition to the ordinary buffaloes or putiir. In every clan there is one kind of sacred herd which may be said to correspond to the pasthir of the Teivaliol. The milk of these buffaloes is churned in a dairy called pali by a dairyman called palikartmokh or palikartpol. There are, however, two grades of dairy corresponding to these buffaloes. The lower grade is called the tarpali, or more commonly tarvali, and is served by a tarvalikartmokh. The higher grade is called kudrpali, tended by a kudrpalikartmokh. There is no distinction of buffaloes corresponding to this distinction of dairies, the same buffaloes being tended sometimes at a kudrpali and sometimes at a tarvali. The distinguishing feature of a kudrpali is the possession of a mani, or sacred bell, and the greater elaboration and stringency of its ritual is due to the presence of this sacred object.

In addition to the buffaloes tended at the tarvali or kudrpali, most Tarthar clans possess other sacred buffaloes called wursulir. These buffaloes are tended by a dairyman called wursol and their milk is churned in a dairy called wursuli or wursulipali. One point which marks off this branch of the dairy organisation from the preceding is that [41]the dairyman, or wursol, must belong either to the Teivaliol or to the Melgars clan of the Tartharol. Both tarpalikartmokh and kudrpalikartmokh are chosen from the Tartharol, either of the same or of a different clan from that of the dairy, but the wursol must be taken either from the members of the other chief division of the Todas or from one special clan of the Tartharol, a clan which has many other peculiar privileges and occupies a position in some ways intermediate between Tartharol and Teivaliol.

The ritual of the wursuli is distinctly more elaborate than that of either tarvali or kudrpali, and the wursol is a more sacred personage, so far as one can judge from his rules of conduct and the elaboration of his ordination ceremonies.

Two Tarthar clans have dairies of especial importance and sanctity, in both of which there are distinctive features of ritual.

The people of Taradr possess a herd of buffaloes called kugvalir which take their name from the dairy, the kugvali or kugpali, meaning the chief or great dairy. The kugvalir are tended by a kugvalikartmokh, who must belong to the Taradrol. The six chief families of this clan take charge of the buffaloes for periods of three years in rotation, and the head of the family in charge selects the kugvalikartmokh.

The other Tarthar dairy which occupies an exceptional position is that of Kanòdrs, which is called a poh, and is tended by a dairyman called pohkartpol. The ritual both of this dairy and of the kugvali of Taradr resembles in some respects that of the most sacred Toda dairies, the dairies of the institution called the ti.

The number and nature of the dairies are different in the different Tarthar clans and in different villages of the same clan. The Melgars clan has only one kind of dairy, the tarvali. The Nòdrs clan now has a tarvali and a wursuli, and at most Kars villages there are both kudrpali and wursuli, but formerly both at Nòdrs and Kars there were three kinds of dairy, tarvali, kudrpali, and wursuli. Some Pan villages have tarvali and wursuli, others kudrpali and wursuli. At Taradr there are both tarvali and wursuli in addition to the special institution of that clan, the kugvali. [42]

All these various kinds of dairy are situated at the villages where the people live. In addition, five Tarthar clans possess dairies where are kept herds of great sanctity, the herds of the ti or the tiir. These buffaloes are kept at special dairies far from any village where people live. A place where such a dairy is situated is called a ti mad, or ti village, and each sacred herd moves about from one ti mad to another at different seasons of the year, and the group of places, together with the herds connected with it, is known collectively as a ti.3 The ti is thus the name of a special institution comprising buffaloes, dairies, grazing grounds, and the various buildings and objects connected with the dairies.

The ti is presided over by a dairyman-priest called palol, who is assisted by a boy or youth called kaltmokh or, more rarely, kavelol. Formerly it was the custom in most cases that a ti should have two palol, each of whom had his own herd of buffaloes and his own dairy, so that each ti mad had two dairies. This custom now persists in full at one ti only, though in other cases there are still two dairies, of which one is not used, or is only used on special occasions.

Though the ti is, in every case, regarded as the property of a Tarthar clan, the palol must be chosen from the Teivaliol, and in some cases the choice is restricted to certain Teivali clans. The kaltmokh must belong either to the Teivaliol or to the Melgars clan of the Tartharol. The dairy of a ti is always called a poh.

The ritual of the ti reaches a far higher degree of complexity than is attained in any village dairy. The palol is a far more sacred personage than the wursol or the palikartmokh; his life is far more strictly regulated, and the ceremonies attendant on his entrance into office are far more elaborate. The ceremonies connected with dairy or buffaloes are more numerous, and when they correspond to ceremonies performed at the lower grades of dairy, they are much more elaborate and prolonged. [43]

There are two forms of Toda dairy. One resembles very closely the ordinary hut, and, but for its situation and the higher wall which surrounds it, it might often be supposed to be one of the huts. The vast majority of dairies are now of this form. The other kind of dairy is circular with a conical roof. There are now only three or four of these buildings in existence, though others have only fallen into ruins in recent times. Breeks, who wrote in 1873, says4 that at that time there were four, and a fifth in ruins.

The best known of these dairies is that at Nòdrs (the Manboa of Breeks), shown in Fig. 13. It has received the name of “the Toda Cathedral,” and is one of the show places of the Nilgiris. Another (shown in Fig. 25) is at Kanòdrs (the Mutterzhva of Breeks). Both are village dairies of especial sanctity; the Nòdrs building is in full working order, while that of Kanòdrs is only occupied occasionally. A third dairy of the conical form is at the ti place of Anto near Sholur (the Kiurzh of Breeks) and should be regularly visited once a year, though the year in which I was on the Nilgiris was an exception. The fourth dairy of the kind (called by Breeks Tarzhva) is at Tarsòdr on the Kundahs. It is also a ti dairy, but is now falling into ruins, having been disused for about twenty years. The ruined dairy mentioned by Breeks (Katedva) is said to be still in the same condition. It was used as a ti dairy, and is near Makurti Peak.

There is no doubt that conical dairies were at one time more numerous. There was one at the ti place of Enòdr, not far from Ootacamund. There was another at the village of Kars, and the circular wall which once surrounded the dairy still remains, and has been converted into a buffalo pen.

The various names given to the Toda dairies are at first sight very confusing. We have already seen that each kind of dairy is named according to the kind of buffalo connected with it—according to its position in the dairy-series connecting tarvali with ti. Each dairy has also its own special or individual [45]name; thus the kudrpali of Kars is called Tarziolv, and the wursuli of the same village, Karziolv.

In addition to these two sets of names, there is another distinction of a more general kind. There are two general names, poh and pali, and every dairy is one or other of these. The former name is given to every ti dairy, to every dairy of the conical form,5 and to certain other dairies at the older and more important villages. Some of the latter are ordinarily called pali, but the name poh lingers in the name employed for the dairies in prayer (see Chapter X), or in the individual names of the dairies; thus the dairy at the ancient village of Nasmiòdr is ordinarily called a pali, but its individual name is Tilipoh. I think it probable that originally poh and pali were the names of the two forms of dairy, the conical kind being called poh and the ordinary kind pali. At the present time every existing conical dairy is a poh, and every dairy which is said to have been in the past of the conical form is called poh. It seems probable that in many cases a dairy, originally of the conical form, has been rebuilt in the same form as the dwelling-hut, owing to the difficulty and extra labour of reconstruction in the older shape; and that in some of these cases the dairy of the new form has retained the name of the old and is still called poh, at any rate on certain occasions. All the dairies to which the name poh is ever given are either ti dairies or are situated in villages of especial antiquity and sanctity.

There is now no definite rule as to the grade of dairymen who shall serve at a dairy called poh. The poh of a ti is, of course, occupied by a palol and kaltmokh. The conical poh of Nòdrs, the old conical poh of Kars, and several old dairies which are still called poh in the prayers are, or were, tended by dairymen of the rank of wursol, while several poh of the ordinary shape belonging to the Teivaliol are occupied by dairymen called palikartmokh. The only place at which the dairyman takes his name from the poh is Kanòdrs, where the conical dairy is occupied by a pohkartpol. [46]

There is a considerable degree of uniformity in the orientation of dairies of all grades. The doors usually face in an easterly direction, and in the majority of those I observed the door faced north of east, the most frequent direction being some point between east and north-east. In one case, that of the ti poh at Mòdr, the door of the dairy faces south-east; but in front of the door there is a screen, and on leaving [47]his dairy the palol always turns to the left, so that he faces north-east as he goes towards his buffaloes. In a few dairies the door faces directly west, and, according to Breeks, this is the case at the conical dairy of Anto.

The Toda buffalo is a variety of the Indian water-buffalo, but the life on the hills seems to have produced a much finer animal than that of the plains. Although thoroughly under the control of the Todas, the buffaloes are semi-wild and often attack people of a different race from their owners, and Europeans have frequently been severely injured by the onslaught of these animals.

The Toda name for the male buffalo is er, and for the female ir, but either term may be used when the people speak of buffaloes collectively. Calves have different designations at different ages. A young calf is kar, one from one to two years of age is pòl, and a three-year-old calf is nakh.

Defective buffaloes, and especially those with only one horn, are called kwadrir, and those whose horns bend downwards are kughir. Barren buffaloes are called maiir.

There are considerable differences of colour among the buffaloes. Those much lighter than the rest are called nerir or pushtir, and there is a legend about the origin of these buffaloes, which, however, I failed to obtain. The only obvious way in which the animals differ from one another in marking is that some have a black stripe running down either side of the neck very much in the position which would be occupied by the chain suspending a bell.

There do not seem to be any physical differences between the buffaloes of different classes, and, as we shall see shortly, the nature of the breeding of the Toda buffaloes is such as would have entirely destroyed any distinctions of the kind if they had ever existed.

Every adult female buffalo has an individual name, which is usually given when her first calf is born. The number of buffalo names is limited, so that many buffaloes bear the same name. [48]

The following are among the buffalo names of which I have records:—Kûdzi or Kûrsi, Kâsimi, Pän or Pern, Kiûd or Kiûdz, Enmon, Koisi, Keien, Ilsh or Idrsh, Kârsthum, Perûv or Perov, Kebân, Enmars, Persud, Nerûv, Kôzi, Perith, Pülkoth, Persuth, Tòthi, Kerâni, Keirev, Püthiov, Peires, Nersâdr, Tâlg, Ûf, Köji, Persv, Arvatz, Kòjiû, Pundrs, Purkîsi, and Òrsum.

Both Tartharol and Teivaliol have the same names for their buffaloes, and it seemed that a buffalo of any village herd might have the same name as one belonging to the ti. It is possible, however, that certain names may be restricted to the ti herds. I collected some names which occurred only in these herds, but I cannot say positively that they might not also be used for less sacred buffaloes.

Male buffaloes are unnamed and appear to have little or no sanctity even when born of cows of the most sacred herds. The greater number of male calves are either killed at erkumpthtiti ceremonies (Chap. XIII) or given away to the Kotas. A few are kept for breeding purposes, usually in the proportion of two to every hundred females.

There is a singular absence of care about the breeding of the buffaloes. The Todas have many herds of which every female has some degree of sacredness, and it might have been expected that the bulls of a sacred herd would have been carefully chosen from the male calves of that herd. So far as I could ascertain after repeated inquiries, there was no restriction of any kind in the mating of the sacred animals; a bull of the ordinary buffaloes (putiir) of a village might even mate with the highly sacred animals of a ti dairy. No importance seemed to be attached to the question of paternity among the buffaloes, and so far as I could ascertain the people were quite indifferent whether the male was related or unrelated to the female, whether of the same or of another herd.

I did not hear of the existence of any ceremonies connected with the chosen male buffaloes. Marshall states6 that a bull new from one of the sacred ti herds undergoes a process of sanctification before he is permanently installed, [49]by being isolated for a day and night in a small pen in the sacred woods of the ti, during which time he is deprived of food, though allowed access to water. Marshall also states that it is permissible to introduce a bull from an ordinary drove “after due sanctification.” Though I failed to obtain definite confirmation of Marshall’s statement, it is possible that something of the kind may at one time have taken place or may even still take place.

At the present time the buffaloes are tended entirely by males, and males only are allowed to take any part either in the work of the dairy or in those dairy operations which are performed in the house. There is a tradition that at one time women attended to the buffaloes at the time of calving, and one incident is recorded in which women performed Cæsarian section on a dying buffalo (p. 78), but this custom has now long ceased to be followed.

The first buffaloes were created by one of the chief Toda gods, Ön, and his wife. The buffaloes created by the male deity were the progenitors of the sacred buffaloes, while the ordinary buffaloes or putiir are descended from those created by the wife. Certain other buffaloes are descended from ancestors created by other gods, but the account of their various creations may be deferred till the chapter containing the legends of the gods. I was told by some that the sacred buffaloes were descended from a sambhar deer, but it was later found that this was only believed to be true of one special group of buffaloes belonging to one clan.

The general plan of the dairy procedure is the same in all dairies, the difference between different dairies lying chiefly in certain formalities accompanying certain stages of the procedure.

The day’s operations begin with the churning of the milk drawn on the previous evening. The milk is poured from the milking-vessels into earthenware pots, and during the night it will have coagulated. The coagulated mass is first broken up by the churn; water and butter already made are added, [50]and then the churning is continued till the milk separates into a solid part, which I shall speak of as ‘butter,’ and a liquid, which I shall call ‘buttermilk.’ It must be remembered, however, that these do not correspond to the butter and buttermilk of a European dairy. The milk coagulates before the cream has risen in any quantity, and there is no skimming. The ‘butter’ consists of both the fat and casein of the milk, while the ‘buttermilk’ ought perhaps rather to be called ‘whey.’

In order to avoid this ambiguity in the use of the words ‘butter’ and ‘buttermilk’ it might have seemed desirable to use the Toda terms for these products; but I have not done so, partly in order to avoid the too frequent use of Toda words, partly because the names are not constant among the Todas themselves, different terms being used in different dairies.

When the churning is finished, the butter and buttermilk are put into their appropriate vessels, and the dairyman goes out to milk the buffaloes, using for this purpose a bamboo milking-vessel, into which he has put some buttermilk from the previous churning. The newly drawn milk is poured into the earthenware vessels, in which it stands till the afternoon. By this time the milk will have become solid, and is churned as in the morning.

The ‘butter’ is used chiefly in the form of ghi, or clarified butter, for which the Toda name is nei. The butter is clarified by keeping it over the fire after the addition of grain or rice. The latter sinks to the bottom of the vessel, while the nei consists of the liquefied fat of the milk. The nei or ghi is partly used by the Todas, but is largely sold at the bazaar. The deposit of grain or rice is called al, and is one of the chief Toda foods. It is, no doubt, mixed with part of the proteid constituents of the milk precipitated during the process of clarification.

The milking-vessel is of bamboo, and several of the small vessels used in the dairy procedure are also made from bamboo of various sizes. The vessels into which the milk is poured and in which it is churned are of earthenware, and the vessels in which the butter and buttermilk are kept are also [52]of this kind. The earthenware vessels used in the ordinary dairy-work are made by the Kotas.

The names of the different dairy vessels vary according to the dairy in which they are used, and these, together with a complete list of the dairy vessels and implements, will be reserved till later.

The method of churning is shown in Fig. 15. The churning is always done within the hut or dairy, but in order to obtain a photograph of the process a staff was put in the ground outside a hut, so that the figure shows exactly the method used within the hut or dairy. The upright staff is called palmän, or ‘milk-tree’; the two rings by means of which the churning-stick is fastened to the palmän are called palkati, or ‘milk-ties.’ The cord by which the churning-stick, or madth is revolved is called kudinan or palv.

The general plan of the dairy operations appears to be much the same as that practised elsewhere in India. There are, however, two special features of the Toda procedure which, so far as I know, are not in general use elsewhere. One of these is the addition of buttermilk from a previous churning. This addition probably hastens the process of coagulation, and has a material use, but in the hands of the Todas it has become of great ceremonial importance, and forms the basis of some of the most interesting features of the dairy ritual.

The other special feature which does not seem to be generally found in India is the addition of grain or rice when clarifying the butter. Unlike the addition of buttermilk, this has no ceremonial value, and is chiefly important in providing the Todas with one of their favourite foods.