The ti is the name of an institution which comprises a herd of buffaloes with a number of dairies and grazing districts tended by a dairyman-priest or priests called palol with an assistant called kaltmokh. Each dairy with its accompanying buildings and pasturage is called a ti mad, or ti village.

In most cases there are two kinds of buffaloes at each ti, and each kind should properly be tended by its own palol and kaltmokh. There is, however, only one ti which possesses two palol at the present time, and they share a kaltmokh between them, though a second is appointed on certain ceremonial occasions. In other cases one palol tends both kinds of buffalo, and in others, again, the dairies are unoccupied for the greater part of the year and the office of palol is only filled for certain limited periods.

Each ti is regarded as the property of a Tarthar clan, but the palol has to be taken from the Teivaliol, the choice being in some cases restricted to one or two Teivali clans; thus, the palol of the Nòdrs ti must belong either to Piedr or Kusharf. The palol is chosen by the Tarthar owners, but the latter do not seem to gain any material advantage from their possession. In fact, it involves them in some expense owing to the necessity of giving certain feasts, and this expense was put forward as one reason why a ti is often unoccupied. Nevertheless [84]the Tartharol are very proud of the fact that the institution of the ti belongs to their division, and whenever I asked a Tarthar man why he considered his people superior to the Teivaliol, the answer always ran that they had the ti and that the Teivaliol who tended the ti were their servants.

The buffaloes belonging to a ti are of two kinds, distinguished as persinir and punir. The former are the sacred buffaloes, and the elaborate ceremonial of the ti dairy is concerned with their milk. The punir correspond in some respects to the putiir of the ordinary village dairy, and their milk and its products are largely for the personal use and profit of the palol and are not treated with any special ceremony. The persinir are usually of various kinds, but the nature of their classification is different at each ti and its consideration may be postponed till later.

I obtained most of my information from people connected with the Nòdrs ti. During the whole of my visit the herds of this ti were at Mòdr, which is only about a mile from the Paikara bungalow. Owing to the restrictions on intercourse with so sacred a personage as a palol, it was not practicable to obtain all my information from those actually in office, and I found it best to work with men who had formerly held the post and had retired. I worked chiefly with Kaners (63), an old man who had been palol at the Nòdrs ti, and with Koboners (58), who had been at the Kars ti. For some time I worked with one or other of these two men every day, paying occasional visits to Mòdr to observe as much of the ceremonial as I was allowed to see. On these occasions I was also able to consult Karkievan, the chief palol, on points about which the ex-officials were doubtful.

Both Kaners and Koboners were trustworthy witnesses, but Kaners was old and had given up his office some time before, and in consequence often committed faults of omission. Koboners was an admirable informant, and the fulness of the account of the ti ceremonial is largely due to him. It must be remembered that I was only able to see for myself a few superficial features of the ceremonial, and that my account is based on the descriptions given by these and other men, but [85]nevertheless I have a considerable degree of confidence in its essential accuracy.

The dairy of a ti is always called poh, whatever its shape may be, and at those places where there is, or should be, more than one palol, each has his own dairy. In these cases the work of one dairy goes on quite independently of the other, each palol being only allowed to enter and work in his own building. In addition to the dairy, or dairies, there is at each ti mad a hut in which the palol and kaltmokh sleep and in which the latter takes his food. When there are two palol, both sleep in the same hut. There is a house for the calves called karenpoh, corresponding to the kwotars of the village dairy.

The milking-place of a ti mad is called pepkarmus instead of irkarmus, as at the ordinary dairy, and is usually enclosed so that the buffaloes are screened from the eyes of ordinary people.

There is always one buffalo-pen, or tu,1 for ordinary use, and at some places two others, called pon tu, or festival pens, used on the ceremonial occasions of migration from one place to another and of salt-giving.

The surroundings of the dairy are called pül, and there is a special part of the pül to which alone the ordinary Toda is allowed to go, and he may only go there by a special path. Each ti dairy which I visited was by the side of a wood and the place for ordinary Todas was in the wood.

At a little distance from the dairy there is the source from which the water for sacred purpose is drawn. This source is called kwoinir, and at Mòdr, where there was a kwoinir for each palol, it was a spring built in with stones, and not a stream as at most villages. In addition to the kwoinir there is also a stream from which water is taken by the kaltmokh, who is not allowed to go to the sacred spring.

There are various stones and other objects of ceremonial importance at most ti places, but the description of these may be given with that of the ceremonies in which they play a part. [86]

At Mòdr, the dairy place I know best, all the buildings and objects of the ti mad are shut off from the outer world either by walls or by the natural configuration of the ground or forest. Within this screen, partly natural and partly artificial, there is the large milking-ground which may be entered by the buffaloes from two directions, and on one side of this are the three pens, the two dairies, and other buildings.

The more important of the two dairies has situated close to it the sleeping-hut and two huts for the calves, and this small group of buildings, shown in Fig. 27, is surrounded by a wall like that round the ordinary village dairy, leaving little space between the wall and buildings. These buildings, being within the outer boundaries of the ti mad, are already well screened from the world, and in consequence the surrounding wall is low. The other dairy is situated on the boundary, so that it can be seen by anyone outside the ti mad, and the wall around it is therefore high, so that a person standing outside can see nothing of the proceedings of the dairyman. At Mòdr the water springs are at some distance from the dairies and there is a special path by which the palol goes from the dairy to fetch water.

At another dairy, that of Anto, there is one path by which the palol goes to fetch water and another by which he returns, but I do not know if this is so at all dairies.

Although I visited Mòdr on many occasions, I never had an opportunity to investigate the buildings closely. I was never allowed to go within the walls enclosing the dairies, much less to go inside these buildings. If the annual programme of the ti had been carried out, the buffaloes would have left this place before the end of my visit, and I intended to make a thorough inspection after they had gone; but owing to various causes I mention elsewhere (see Chap. VI) the herds stayed at Mòdr till after my departure, and I had no opportunity of ascertaining the exact plan of the dairies and their surroundings.

The dairy of a ti always has two rooms, an inner room, the ulkkursh, and an outer room, the pòrmunkursh. These are divided from one another by a screen, or patun, which stretches [87]about two-thirds of the way across the breadth of the building and is about three feet high. The palol stands in the outer room and performs the dairy operations proper to the inner room leaning over the top of the screen. The object of the screen is to keep the sacred objects of the dairy from the gaze of anyone who may look in, and especially from that of the kaltmokh; but in the only dairy of the kind into which I had the chance of looking, the screen was made of vertical sticks with wide intervals between them, so that I could easily see through. This dairy was, however, unoccupied, and if dairy vessels had been there, it is possible that they would have been screened from view in some way. In this dairy the screen extended from the right-hand wall as one looked in, but at Mòdr I was told that the screen was attached to the left-hand wall, and there were certain facts which make it almost certain that this statement is correct, though I had not the opportunity of confirming it by actual observation.

I did not discover whether there were any differences between the internal arrangements of the conical dairies and those of the dairies of the ordinary form. Breeks has given a description of the conical dairy at Anto, and from this it would seem that the dairy is divided into two rooms by a [88]partition extending to the roof, the two rooms communicating by a door. There are two possibilities as to procedure. It is possible that only one room of this dairy is used for the ceremonial and that it is again divided by an incomplete screen into inner and outer rooms, or it may be that the dairyman churns in the inner room. I have no information on this point, but the general nature of the churning procedure at the ti dairy makes it highly probable that the former supposition is correct and that the inner room is divided into two parts.

In the plan on p. 87, I have adopted the arrangement in which the patun, or screen, is attached to the left-hand side of the building, but this is certainly not the case in all dairies. In some dairies also the fireplaces are on the other side.

Another vessel, the mòrpun, is kept in the sleeping-hut, where two or more horns are also kept which are blown by the kaltmokh every night before going to rest.

The things of the inner room correspond in general to those of the patatmar in the ordinary dairy, and the things of the outer room correspond to those of the ertatmar. The [89]things of the outer room are sometimes called the alugpur, just as those in the village dairy are called ertatpur, but I did not hear of any corresponding term for the things of the inner room. I have no record of the place where the fire-sticks (nirsi) are kept, but they will almost certainly belong to the outer room, since, in the village, they belong to the ertatmar.

The nature of each of the vessels and other objects of the dairy is as follows:

Persin. This is an earthenware vessel containing about five kudi, i.e., 2½ gallons. The freshly churned milk is poured into and churned in three of these vessels. The persin corresponds to the patat of the village dairy.

Tòrzum. This is an earthenware vessel containing two or three kudi. Two of these vessels are kept in the inner room, one, called the karitòrzum, to hold water, and the other to hold the butter added while churning. The latter is called the peptòrzum because it is also used to give buttermilk to the buffaloes on certain occasions. When not in use the two tòrzum are placed on and act as covers for two of the persin. The tòrzum corresponds to the mu of the ordinary dairy.

Kòghlag. This is the churning-stick which corresponds to the madth. Both kòghlag and madth are alike in having the peculiar shape shown in Fig. 18 (see also p. 111). The thong by means of which the stick is turned, ordinarily called palv, is here called poinurs, and consists of a strip of the skin of a male calf. The kòghlag is made by the palol from bamboo growing on the Nilgiris. In addition to two used and kept in the inner room, five or six new churning-sticks are kept in the outer room.

Persinkudriki. This is a small piece of bamboo with a handle called tutth, used to knock against the persin when praying.

Pohvet (pohpet). A wand used when praying.

Kwoi. A bamboo vessel containing about three kudi. It is the vessel taken out by the palol to milk the buffaloes. It corresponds to the irkartpun of the village dairy and is made by the palol from bamboo obtained by the kaltmokh. [90]

Kwoinörtpet. A wand carried by the palol with the kwoi and used to keep away the calves when milking.

Tedshk. Rattan rings used when carrying the dairy vessels.

Idrkwoi. A bamboo vessel containing about one kudi. It is used to transfer butter and buttermilk from the vessels of the inner room to the vessels of the outer room, and is kept midway between the two rooms. There is nothing corresponding to it in the village dairy, except at the kugvali, where the kuvun is used in the same way.

Alug. Earthenware vessels used as receptacles for buttermilk and butter in the outer room. There are at least two of these vessels, usually more. This vessel corresponds to the pariv of the village dairy.

Uppun. A bamboo vessel which is used to hold the buttermilk which the palol drinks.

Mòrkudriki. A vessel used like a ladle to transfer buttermilk from the alug to the uppun or the mòrpun. It corresponds to the majertkudriki or ashkiok of the ordinary dairy.

Karpun. A bamboo vessel used to milk the punir, or ordinary buffaloes of the ti herds.

Turavali. The cooking-pot of which the ordinary name is tòratthadi.

Guduboi. An earthenware pot to hold nei or ghi. Its ordinary name is pathrs.

The mòrpun, kept in the sleeping-hut, is a bamboo vessel used by the kaltmokh to hold buttermilk both for himself and for certain privileged visitors called mòrol.

The earthenware vessels of the inner room are not obtained from the Kotas, like the ordinary vessels, but are made by Hindus, and are procured through the Badagas.

The palol has two garments, one of which, the kubuntuni, he wears when not engaged in dairy-work, while the other, the pòdrshtuni, is worn during the dairy-work or other ceremonial. The latter is kept in the outer room when not in use.

There are usually two kinds of bell at the ti, one kind connected with the more sacred buffaloes and another belonging to the punir. The bells of the first kind, called mani, are [91]kept in the inner room, and are tied on the necks of certain buffaloes for a short time on special occasions. The other bells, called kudrs mani, are kept outside the door of the dairy and are put on the necks of the punir on the same occasions.

There were several points of interest about the lamps used to light the dairies. At one time it seems that every palol was provided with an iron lamp with a number of cavities, each cavity being fitted with a wick. These lamps are reputed to have been as old as the foundation of the ti dairies. One of the lamps which is still in existence at the Nòdrs ti (that of the warspoh) is said to have been brought from Amnòdr. There is some doubt about the exact number of cavities and wicks in these lamps, but in the existing lamp of the Nòdrs ti there seems to be little doubt that there are seven cavities and wicks, and the lamp is called önavpelk, “the lamp of the seven holes.” All the seven wicks are only lighted on special occasions (ponnol), and on most days only one is used. At some dairies these iron lamps have been long lost, and in these cases the palol used to make lamps of the bark of the tudr tree. According to Marshall (p. 141), these lamps have five wicks, and this appears to be still the case at the Kars ti, where there were formerly two iron lamps, one with five cavities and one with four, and in the lamp now used at this ti they still keep up the use of five wicks on special occasions, using only two on ordinary days. It is possible that Marshall derived his information from a man who had been palol at this ti. At one of the dairies of the Pan ti there is an old iron lamp with seven cavities, and at the other, where a bark lamp is used, it has three wicks. At the present time the dairymen rarely trouble to make bark lamps, but are content with earthenware lamps procured from the bazaar. If these are broken and cannot be replaced at once, bark lamps are used during the interval. The wicks of the lamps, for whichever lamp they may be used, are always made of tuni taken from the garments worn by the palol, and the substance used in the lamps is butter.

Of the two fireplaces in the outer room, the tòratthwaskal is used for ordinary purposes, for cooking food, &c. The [92]other, called pelkkatitthwaskal, or sometimes persinkaftthwaskal, is used for lighting the lamp or for any other purpose directly connected with the vessels of the inner room.