The earth-throwing ceremony is of especial interest, because it would

seem to be a relic of burial. Earth is thrown three times on the corpse

before it is burnt. In connexion with the idea that the ceremony is a

relic of a previous stage, in which the Todas buried their dead, it may

be mentioned that a ceremony with some points of similarity is

performed at the funerals of the Hill Arrians of the Western Ghats,

[174] who bury their dead. A man of the same clan as the deceased takes

a new cloth and tears from it a narrow strip which he fastens upon

himself. He then goes backwards to the place fixed for the grave and

digs with a hoe, removing three hoes full of earth. In this ceremony he

is said to be calling on the earth to give up six feet for the dead.

There is a suggestive resemblance between the ceremonies performed by

these two hill tribes of South-west India, which lends some support to

the view that the earth-throwing ceremony of the Todas is a relic of

inhumation.

It perhaps may be regarded as a fact inconsistent with this view that

the earth-throwing ceremony is performed at both funerals, and again

the throwing of earth into a buffalo pen is so essential a feature that

it is possible the whole ceremony may have some other meaning.

It is tempting to extend the conjecture by supposing that the dead were

at one time buried in the tu or buffalo pen, but there is, as far as I

know, no evidence that this was ever done by the Todas or by any other

Indian tribe. Unless, indeed, the azaram is the representative of a tu,

in which case the burial of the ashes at the entrance of the azaram may

be a survival of a time when the body was buried at the entrance of a

pen.

The custom of burning the hut at a woman’s funeral is probably a

survival of the common custom of burning the house of a dead person,

but it is possible that in the case of the Todas this may have been

associated with the belief that the hut would be useful in the next

world. The funeral hut of a man is not burnt, and this is almost

certainly because it is, or represents, a dairy. The motive for the

burning of the house of a dead person is probably to remove a place

which the ghost may haunt, and the sanctity of the dairy was probably

such as to render this precaution unnecessary after the death of a man.

The Toda custom of cremating their dead is accompanied by a belief that

the dead go to a distant spirit-world. It seems quite certain that the

Todas believe that the dead do not set out on their journey to the next

world till after the second funeral ceremonies, but I am not at all

clear what is supposed to become of the spirits of the dead in the

interval between the two ceremonies. The spirit of a Melgars man during

the interval is said to be a kazun or malignant spirit, but I was

unable to obtain a full account of the Toda belief about the kazun, nor

was I able to find out whether there is any belief in the malignity of

the spirits of the dead of other clans. [175] That such spirits are

impure is, I think, shown conclusively by the impurity of the relics of

the dead and of all those who have been in contact with them. The

intense objection to the sacred ti buffaloes or their guardians coming

into relation, however indirectly, with the relics is evidence of the

belief in the impurity, if not in the malignity, of the spirits of the

dead between the two funeral ceremonies.

There is one rite which seems to point to the influence of the spirits

of the dead on the living, and this is the obscure ceremony of

tersamptpimi, which is performed on the day after the marvainolkedr of

a Tarthar man (see p. 333). The ceremony consists in cutting a lock of

hair from a young child. One obvious explanation would be furnished if

we supposed that the spirits of the dead are malignant and that the

ceremony was postponed till after the spirit had set out on his journey

to Amnòdr, but there are two objections to this explanation. If the

Todas had had this in their minds, they would have said that the

ceremony might not be performed while there was kedr among the

Tartharol, i.e., while the funeral ceremonies of a Tarthar man were

still incomplete. For the tersamptpimi ceremony, however, it seems that

a child has to wait till after a marvainolkedr even if there has been

no recent death among the Tartharol. Further, if the proposed

explanation had been correct, there is no reason why the karvnol, or

day immediately after the funeral, should have been appointed for the

ceremony. The fact that this day is prescribed points rather to some

beneficial influence which it is hoped may emanate from the dead.

CHAPTER XVII

SACRED DAYS AND NUMBERS

We have seen that nearly every Toda ceremony has its appointed day or

days, and that the choice of these is often dependent on another Toda

institution, the sacred day, either of the village or of the dairy.

Every clan has certain days of the week on which people are restricted

from following many of their ordinary occupations, although they are

not the occasions of any special ceremonies. These sacred days are the

madnol or village day, and the palinol or dairy day. Another occasion

to which the same kinds of restriction apply is the arpatznol, the day

of the week corresponding to that on which the father of a man has

died.

THE MADNOL AND PALINOL

The madnol is literally the village day. Each village has its madnol,

and in some cases it would seem that different villages of a clan might

have different madnol, but in general the madnol is the same for the

whole clan.

Certain things may not be done on the madnol:—

(i) ponkisthògadi, a feast may not be given (lit. feast may not divide,

i.e., food must not be shared out).

(ii) kêdrvîtògadi, funeral ceremonies may not be performed.

(iii) kwadrtògadi, nothing may be given (from the village). Since

buying implies the departure of money from the village, a secondary

consequence is that nothing may be bought on the madnol, but if

anything is given to an inhabitant of the village, he may bring it into

the village on this day.

(iv) Women may not leave the village, nor may women from other places

come to the village.

(v) The people may not bathe nor cut their nails on the madnol, and the

men may not shave. Clothes may not be washed, nor may the usual

cleansing of the house with buffalo-dung be done. The ordinary meals

may be prepared, but the people must not cook rice with milk.

(vi) The stone called tukitthkars may not be touched.

(vii) The dairyman may not leave the village, and the ordination

ceremonies of a dairyman may not take place on this day.

(viii) The people may not migrate from one village to another, nor may

the buffaloes be taken from one place to another.

Among the Teivaliol the madnol is the only sacred day of the week, but

among the Tartharol there is also a dairy day or palinol, and if there

is more than one dairy there may be one such holy day for each kind of

dairy, each named after the dairy, the wursulinol, the kudrpalinol, or

the tarvalinol. Similarly, Taradr has a kugvalinol and Kanòdrs a

pohnol.

On these days milk and ghi may not be given out from the dairy, nor may

they be sold. Butter and buttermilk may be distributed, but only to the

people of the village. Buffaloes may not be driven on these days. Women

may not leave the village, though women of other villages are allowed

to come. Cleansing with buffalo-dung must not be done. There was some

difference of opinion as to whether money might leave the village on

these days. Some said not, but it seemed clear that at Kars money might

be taken from the village on the palinol. The rules were said to be the

same for the holy days of all kinds of dairy.

There are various recognised methods of evading the rules for the holy

days, and of avoiding the inconvenience which the regulations might

entail on a village.

Money may be taken out of the village on the day before the madnol and

buried or left in some spot where it can be found on the following day,

so that if there is an urgent reason why a purchase should be completed

on the holy day this can be done.

Similarly, women who wish to leave the village on a holy day do so

before daybreak. They wait outside the village till the sun is up, then

return to the village, have their meals and do any necessary work, and

may then leave. Having left the village before daybreak, a woman is

apparently regarded as ceremonially absent during her return to the

village, and by making this false start she is held to be keeping the

law.

If there is an urgent reason why a woman from another village should

come on a madnol, she must arrive after sunset.

If any of these rules are broken, the culprit may have to perform the

ceremony of irnörtiti or one of the other allied rites. It seemed quite

clear, however, that this only happened if some misfortune should

befall the offender, his family, or his buffaloes. It would seem that a

man might habitually and notoriously desecrate the madnol, but no steps

would be taken by himself or the community so long as things went well

with the man. If he should become ill or if his buffaloes should suffer

in any way, he would consult the diviners and they would then certainly

find that his misfortunes were due to his infringement of the laws

connected with the sacred days.

As a matter of fact, it does not happen, so far as I could find, that

anyone habitually infringes the laws, and breaking the madnol or

palinol rarely forms an occasion for the irnörtiti ceremony.

THE ARPATZNOL.

Another sacred day is the arpatznol or arpasnol. This is the day of the

week on which the father of a man has died. The father of Kutadri and

Kòdrner died on a Friday, and every Friday is the arpatznol of these

men. I could not learn definitely what are the restrictions for this

day, but they seem to be of the same kind as those for the madnol,

though I am doubtful whether they are very strictly kept. Kutadri and

Kòdrner once drove their buffaloes from Kars to Isharadr on a Friday;

the buffaloes were sick, and they moved them without thinking that it

was their arpatznol. Soon after Kòdrner fell ill and one of the

buffaloes died, and the teuol found that the desecration of the

arpatznol was one of the causes, though they had also bought things on

a Monday, the madnol of Kars.

There is much variety in the days appointed as the madnol or palinol of

different villages and clans. My records are very incomplete, but they

show the most frequent days to be Wednesday and Friday, which are

sacred in six clans. Sunday is sacred in five clans, Monday and Tuesday

in three, and Thursday in two, while in no clan, so far as my records

go, is Saturday a holy day.

It will have been noticed that funeral ceremonies may not be held on a

madnol, and it seems to be exceptional that funeral ceremonies should

take place on one of the dairy days. There is very little doubt that it

is the prohibition of funerals on village and dairy days which chiefly

determines the choice of funeral days. Thus, at Nidrsi, Wednesday is

the madnol, Monday is the wursulinol, Friday is the tarvalinol, while

the funeral of a male is held on Saturday or Sunday and that of a

female on Tuesday or Thursday. Similarly, the village and dairy days of

Melgars are Monday and Friday, while the funeral days for males are

Sunday and Tuesday, for females Thursday and Saturday. At Kwòdrdoni,

the village and dairy days are Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, the

funeral days Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

In a few cases, it would seem that funerals may be held on dairy days;

thus, at Kars Monday is the madnol, Tuesday the wursulinol, and

Thursday the kudrpalinol, while the funeral days for males are Sundays

and Tuesdays, for females Thursdays and Saturdays. If a mani is used,

however, a male funeral must be held on Sunday, and I suspect that the

holding of a male funeral on Tuesday is an innovation, and probably the

same holds good for the choice of Thursday as a funeral day for

females.

The funeral rites are not the only ceremonies which have their

appointed days. Nearly every ceremonial occasion among the Todas has

its prescribed day, and of these ceremonial days Sunday seems to occupy

an especially favoured position. As many ceremonies are appointed for

this day as for nearly all the other days of the week put together. It

is also the most frequent day for the funerals of males, and it seemed

to me that whenever it was possible this day was chosen.

Several clans, however, have Sunday as the madnol, and if the laws of

this day are observed ceremonies of which feasts form a part could not

be performed on this day in these clans; thus, though I have no

definite information on the point, I have no doubt that the irpalvusthi

ceremony could not be performed.

It so happens that the clans which have Sunday as their madnol or

palinol are Pan, Kanòdrs, Päm, Kwòdrdoni, and Pedrkars, all clans

seated in outlying parts of the hills about which my information is

less complete than in other cases. None of the larger and more

important central clans about whose customs I obtained the fullest

information had either madnol or palinol on a Sunday, and I have very

little doubt that in those clans which have Sunday as a madnol,

ceremonies, at any rate of a festive nature, would not be performed on

this day. There is little doubt that the great prominence of Sunday as

a feast day would have come out less strongly if my information about

the outlying clans had been more complete.

I must leave this point uncertain, but I have little doubt that with

fuller information about the customs of different clans we should find

that the choice of days for ceremonies is chiefly, if not entirely,

determined by the necessity of holding these on some day other than the

madnol or palinol.

At the same time, there can be no doubt that Sunday is one of the days

appointed for a festival or ceremony very frequently, and this is

especially the case at the ti, the procedure of which is to a large

extent uninfluenced by considerations concerned with the madnol and

palinol. Even here, however, these days are not altogether without

influence, for certain ceremonial days at the ti are feast days for the

clan to which the ti belongs, and this would make it necessary that the

ceremonies should not be held on the madnol of the clan. Certain days

were said to be feast-days throughout the whole Toda community, but I

have no knowledge as to how these days would be kept by those clans on

whose madnol they might fall.

Several previous writers, when recording the choice of certain days for

the funeral ceremonies, have ascribed to the Todas a belief in lucky

and unlucky days, in days of good or evil omen. One man, when telling

me that Sunday, Wednesday, and Saturday were days on which the

irpalvusthi ceremony might be performed at the tarvali, referred to

them as lucky days.

I think it is extremely doubtful whether the Toda in general has any

such belief, and if he has, it is probable that the idea is a recent

importation borrowed from the Hindus, among whom the belief in lucky or

unlucky days is of course very prevalent. The distinction among the

Todas is rather into feast and fast days, using the latter term in a

wide sense.

It is possible that the institutions of madnol and palinol have grown

out of the belief in unlucky days; that certain things were not done on

these days because they were unlucky days, and that so there came into

existence a code of rules prescribing what might and what might not be

done.

The chief difficulty in the way of this view is the fact that the

different clans of the Todas have different sacred days. One would

expect lucky and unlucky days to be the same for the whole community.

The sacred days place very definite restrictions on the intercourse

between different clans, and this inconvenience must be increased by

the fact that the different clans have different madnol, and there is

no obvious reason why this difference in the choice of sacred days

should have come about.

The distinction between madnol and palinol is, again, one which can

hardly have grown out of the belief in unlucky days, though perhaps,

given a village day, it is not an unnatural step for the Todas to have

decided that they would have a dairy day also.

Whatever the origin of the laws regulating Toda custom in this respect,

I think there is little doubt that when at the present time a given act

is done or not done on a given day, the action is not based on a belief

in lucky or unlucky days, but, as nearly always among the Todas, on

custom prescribing that the act shall or shall not be done on that day.

There are, however, other restrictions or relaxations connected with

certain days of the week which have probably arisen out of a belief in

lucky and unlucky days.

There is a regulation (now almost a dead letter) that the Todas must

not cross the Paikara and Avalanche rivers on Tuesdays, Fridays, or

Saturdays. Sundays and Wednesdays, on the other hand, are the days on

which the wursol is allowed to sleep in the hut with ordinary people,

and Mondays and Thursdays are the days on which the palol is visited by

Todas other than the mòrol. Such facts suggest that the three days on

which the rivers should not be crossed are unlucky days, but, on the

other hand, the days which I was once told were lucky days included

Saturday. The evidence at our command is conflicting, and does no more

than suggest that the restrictions or relaxations common to the whole

community may be connected with the belief in lucky and unlucky days.

Attention may here be called to the fact that the Todas evidently

regard the first half of the month as most auspicious for their

ceremonies, and it would seem that in most cases the first appropriate

day of the week after the new moon is the proper day for nearly every

Toda ceremonial. I met with no case in which any ceremony was appointed

for the period of the full moon or for the second half of the moon’s

period. At the present, it seems that such ceremonies as those

connected with the migrations of the buffaloes may take place in the

second half of the month, but I have no doubt that this is only a

result of modern laxity.

The definite values assigned to different days of the week is a very

special feature of Toda custom, and in the madnol we have an

institution very closely resembling that of the Sabbath. In a busier

community than that of the Todas, the existence of different madnol for

different clans of the community would soon become a serious obstacle

to carrying on the business of life, and such a community would

probably agree that all clans should have the same holy day. At present

the madnol is undoubtedly more sacred than the other sacred days, and

if the latter were then to be neglected, we should have a community in

which various activities were prohibited on one day of the week, and

the institution so arising would differ very little from the Hebrew

Sabbath. It is possible that the Todas show in an early stage the

institution of a Sabbath in which the whole community has not yet

settled on a single and joint holy day.

SACRED NUMBERS

Certain numbers recur with great frequency in the dairy ceremonial, and

may be regarded as having a special sanctity on this account. There

seems to be a general preference for uneven numbers, and this

preference comes out very strongly in the tesherst ceremony, in which

an uneven number of men must take part on any one occasion. The number

of men performing this ceremony together must be three, five, seven,

nine, &c.

In the dairy ritual the numbers which occur chiefly are three, seven

and nine, but other numbers have also been singled out in other

branches of Toda lore. The numbers which occur in ceremonial may now be

considered in detail.

Three.—A large proportion of the ritual acts of the dairy are performed

three times, usually with the accompaniment of the sacred syllable Oñ

uttered thrice, once with each performance of the act. This three-fold

performance is especially marked in the ceremony of putting milk or

curds on the sacred bells and in the ceremonial drinking of buttermilk.

In the ordination ceremonies, the number occurs less frequently. The

purificatory drinking is always done seven times or some multiple of

seven, but after drinking, the candidate rubs himself three times with

the shoots or bark, and, at the ordination of a palol, the candidate

drinks three times seven on several occasions. Other acts during the

ordination of the palol are also performed thrice, and the same number

occurs in the ordination of the kaltmokh.

Acts are performed thrice with special frequency in the ceremonial of

the ti, and, at the ordinary dairy, this number is especially connected

with the ‘feeding’ of the sacred bell, and there is no doubt that it is

a number regarded as especially sacred. Whenever the sacred syllable Oñ

is used, it is nearly always uttered thrice, and there seems to be a

special association between the number three and this word.

In the erkumptthpimi ceremony three branches of tudr leaves are used,

and they and the log with which the calf is killed are passed round the

body of the animal thrice. Later in the ceremony three pieces of wood

are thrown over the fire.

In the ceremonies connected with childbirth, the woman drinks thrice on

various occasions, in the pursütpimi ceremony the name of the bow is

asked and the answer given three times, and in the ceremony of

name-giving three grains of barley are put into the mouth of the child

and three into his hair.

At the funeral ceremonies, earth is thrown three times on the corpse

and three times into the pen, the body is swung on the fire three

times, and at the final scene of the azaramkedr the man who rings the

bell goes round the burial place of the ashes thrice. Three oviônikârs

are thrown by the man who crosses the pathway of the dead. The number

three is not limited to the dairy ritual, but is of frequent occurrence

in the whole of Toda ceremonial.

The number three also appears in connexion with magical or semi-magical

practices. The various methods of treatment used by the utkòren are

carried out three times and never more frequently than this, and the

sufferer who drinks hot water to allay the effects of fright also does

this thrice. A remedy is probably held to be more potent if repeated

the same number of times as in the case of so many sacred acts.

Five.—This number does not occur in the dairy ceremonial except in

certain ceremonies at the Nòdrs ti which are repeated five times

because there are five groups of buffaloes belonging to this dairy. The

number in this case has, however, no ceremonial significance, and is

merely a consequence of the fact that one palol at this ti has three

groups and the other two groups of buffaloes. The only other occurrence

of the number is at the Kars ti, where the ancient lamp probably had

five cavities, but even this is doubtful.

The number five comes in one place into Toda magic. The sorcerer, who

wishes to injure one who has not granted his request, hides five stones

tied together with hair in the thatch of his enemy’s hut.

Six.—This number does not occur in the dairy ceremonial, but it seems

to be regarded as an auspicious number in some ways. In Teitnir’s

lament for his wife, reference is made to the hope that they might have

had six children and six buffaloes, and in the prayer on the occasion

of the ear-piercing ceremony, one clause runs “may he have six sons.”

Six sticks are used to make the artificial dairy of the hand-burning

ceremony, but this is an obvious result of the fact that the dairy has

to have two rooms.

Seven.—This number is especially prominent in the ordination

ceremonies. The purificatory drinking out of leaf-cups is always done

seven times or some multiple of seven, the palikartmokh drinking seven

times only, the wursol seven times seven, and the palol three times

seven, seven times seven and nine times seven at different periods of

his prolonged ordination ceremonies. At the dairies of Taradr and

Kanòdrs, the number occurs in a different form, seven different kinds

of leaf being used in the purificatory ceremonies.

The number occurs again in connexion with the lamp. At the Nòdrs ti and

at the Pan ti, and possibly at other dairies, there used to be lamps,

each of which had seven cavities and seven wicks. Some of these lamps

have been lost, but two remain at the dairies mentioned. I have already

referred to the fact that some of the ancient lamps were said to have

had five wicks, but it seems clear that in the only two examples which

survive there are seven wicks, and it is possible that this was the

number in all.

Another occurrence of the number seven is in the old dairies of the

Nòdrs clan which had seven rooms. The funeral dairies, which are

undoubtedly very ancient institutions, have three rooms, and the Nòdrs

dairies, also undoubtedly ancient, had seven, but I heard of no case in

which a dairy had four, five, or six rooms.

Outside the dairy ceremonial, the only occurrence of this number is in

the lament of Teitnir for his wife, in which he speaks of their

visiting seven courts and seven ships.

It is perhaps significant that the number seven should be a sacred

number to a people who have so highly developed the cult of different

days of the week. It is possible that the purificatory drinkings of the

ordination ceremonies were at one time performed seven times with the

idea that the candidate was sanctifying himself for each day of the

week, but at the present time it is clear that the act is performed

seven times because this number is prescribed by custom. It would be

interesting to ascertain whether the sanctity of the number seven

occurs predominantly in the religious cults of peoples who have a

seven-day week.

Nine.—This number only occurs in the dairy ceremonial during the

ordination of the palol when the seven-fold purification with tudr is

performed nine times.

Twelve.—I only met with this number once, in the prayer at the

pilinörtiti ceremony, when the expression “12 years” is used as if it

were equivalent to “for ever.”

Sixteen and Eighteen.—The chief interest of these numbers is that they

are used in connexion with the gods. There are said to be 1600, 1800

gods, and these numbers are mentioned in the prayer of the Kanòdrs

dairy and in the legends. The numbers are probably used in the way in

which we should use the word ‘infinite,’ but there must be some reason

why they should have been chosen.

The number 18 occurs in another connexion in the rule that the palol

should perform a certain ceremony after eighteen years of continuous

office.

I have one possible clue to the choice of the number eighteen. The

Todas say that a species of Strobilanth growing on the Nilgiris as a

shrub only flowers once in eighteen years. They call this shrub püvkat,

and it was in flower during the year of my visit. Albert, my

interpreter, had only seen it in flower once or twice, but had not paid

special attention to the duration of the flowering period. The number

of times that several Todas had seen the flowers agreed approximately

with their probable ages. Thus, Kutadri saw the flowers in 1902 for the

third time, having seen them for the first time when he was twelve

years old. This would make his age forty-eight, which seemed from other

sources of information to be approximately correct. The Todas use the

flower as a record of age, and some Todas are reputed to have seen the

flowers seven times, which, taking five years as the age when they were

first seen, would make them over 110 years.

There is another Strobilanth called tirparikat which is said to flower

every twelve years, and another every six. I do not know of any

confirmation of the flowering periods of these plants except the last,

which probably refers to Strobilanthes sexennis.

Whether the Toda belief in the eighteen-year period of the plant they

call püvkat is correct or not, it seems probable that it may have

furnished the suggestion for the special position taken by the number

eighteen in Toda lore.

CHAPTER XVIII

SACRED PLACES AND OBJECTS

The Todas show undoubted signs of reverence to various material

objects. Many of the objects so reverenced have been mentioned

incidentally in the account of the dairy ritual and in other places,

and in this chapter I propose to consider how far these objects are

regarded as sacred, and to give an account of some sacred objects not

hitherto noticed.

Of the various objects of reverence the following are the most

important: hills and rivers; villages, dairies, their thresholds and

contents; bells; the buffalo and its milk; trees and plants; the sun,

fire and light; and stones.

HILLS AND OTHER PLACES.

Any place connected with the gods is reverenced by the Todas, and this

is especially the case with the hills where they dwell. Only some

hills, however, are shown reverence by means of the kaimukhti

salutation. One of these is the hill of Nòtirzi (Snowdon), and every

Toda visiting this hill salutes with hand to forehead in all

directions. Another place where a similar salutation is performed is a

spot at Avalanche Top. When I visited this place with Kutadri he

saluted in all directions with both hands to his face, and told me that

a man who once omitted to do this was killed soon after by a tiger. In

this case I could not learn that Kutadri was saluting any particular

hill or other spot. He seemed to be saluting the region of the Kundahs

on which he was about to enter.

There are doubtlessly other places where the same sign of reverence is

used.

The sanctity of the hills will be further considered in the next

chapter, when discussing in what sense at the present time the gods are

believed to dwell on their summits.

RIVERS

There are two sacred rivers, the Teipakh (Paikara) and the Pakhwar

(Avalanche), both identified with or inhabited by gods. They are the

two largest streams on the Nilgiris, and there are numerous indications

of their sanctity. Every Toda crossing either of these streams must put

his right arm outside his cloak (kevenarut) while he is doing so. The

only exception to this rule is in the case of a widower who is wearing

his cloak over his head, and he shows his respect by putting out his

right hand below the cloak. On cold days the Todas wrap their cloaks

closely around them, and I have often seen them put out their right

arms just before they stepped on the bridge near the Paikara bungalow,

and put them in again with obvious relief the moment they had reached

the other side.

At one time these rivers might only be crossed on certain days of the

week. The Toda believed that if they crossed on a Tuesday, Friday, or

Saturday, consequences might ensue which could only be set right by the

irnörtiti ceremony. This prohibition is no longer in force, but its

influence is still shown in another way.

When two matchuni cross either of these rivers in company they usually

perform a ceremony to be described on p. 501, but this ceremony is

omitted on the three days above mentioned, probably because the people

should not properly be there at all.

The palol may not cross either of the rivers except at certain spots

which are not the places used by ordinary people. In the old days there

were certain fords, and the palol had his own ford. At the present

time, when the Todas habitually cross the Paikara by means of a bridge,

the restriction is put in the form that “the palol may not cross the

river by the bridge.” The kaltmokh also may not cross the river by the

bridge except when he is degraded to the rank of perkursol.

There is a small stream near Nòdrs which may not be crossed at a given

spot, this being the place where Teikirzi is reputed to have shared out

the buffaloes among the Todas.

The only other restriction on crossing water was of a different kind.

One who had been bitten by a snake might not cross a stream, and this

applied to any stream and not only to the two sacred rivers of Teipakh

and Pakhwar.

VILLAGES

It is difficult to distinguish how far the sanctity of a village is due

to its dairy. No village without a dairy is regarded as sacred, but

there is no doubt that the village itself may have some sanctity, and

it is probable that the chief village of a clan which no longer had a

dairy might nevertheless continue to be treated with some degree of

reverence.

Reverence is shown to every village which is called an etudmad, but

this word is used in two senses. The chief village of the clan from

which the people of the clan take their name is the etudmad of the clan

or madol, but the same name is also given to any village to which any

special idea of sanctity attaches, and this is especially marked if its

dairy should possess a mani. The sign of reverence paid to an etudmad

is the salutation called kaimukhti or kaburlti. Whenever a man comes

within sight of one of these villages he purifies his mouth by chewing

some grass, and then salutes the village by placing his hand in front

of his face in the way shown in Fig. 10. The salutation is performed

with the right hand outside the cloak (kevenarut), and if a man is

wearing a turban he will take it off, as is shown in the figure.

When a man salutes in this way he may be two or three miles from the

village, the salutation being made, according to some accounts,

directly the man sees the village, and according to others, not until

he sees the dairy. When my guide Kòdrner was saluting the sacred

village of Kiudr, I could see neither the hut nor the dairy of this

village, though I could see the grove in which I knew them to be. When

going from Ootacamund to Paikara by the bridle path the village of

Taradr is saluted at a spot about two miles from the village in a

straight line.

When a man leaves an etudmad he turns towards the village when it is

about to pass out of view, chews some grass, and salutes in the same

way as on first viewing it. On all the chief routes over the hills the

Todas know the exact spots at which different villages become visible,

and I have noticed that the salutation to a given village has been made

by different Todas and on different occasions from exactly the same

spot.

In a few cases there was some doubt as to whether a given village

should receive the kaimukhti salutation or not. It seemed that there

were certain etudmad more sacred than the rest, and they would be

saluted by every Toda, irrespective of the division or clan to which he

belonged, while in other cases the salutation was only obligatory on

the members of the clan to which the village belonged, though these

villages were often saluted by others who were scrupulous in following

the observances of their people. The villages which must be saluted by

every one are the seventeen chief villages of the clans (excluding

Kidmad and Karsh), and two others, Kiudr and Miuni, the former because

it is a satimad (see p. 421) and the latter because formerly the Toda

gods used to hold their naim or council there. I made a list of the

villages of each clan to which the salutation is paid by the members of

the clan, and found that they were villages with dairies of sanctity,

and in every case, so far as I could tell, villages of great antiquity.

Many of the villages so honoured are mentioned in legend, and I believe

this salutation to be a useful indication that a village is ancient. I

shall have to discuss later whether Kavidi, near Gudalur, in the

Wainad, is an ancient village or one of modern growth, and I attach

importance to the fact that it does not receive the kaimukhti

salutation even from the members of the clan to which it belongs.

Certain villages are called kalolmad, or “old man villages,” where only

buffaloes and men may live. They are usually villages where there is

plenty of grass for the buffaloes, and are in general visited for short

periods. The only explanation which could be given was that owing to

the short time they are occupied it is not worth while to transfer the

whole family to the place. It seemed, however, certain that women were

definitely forbidden to live at these villages—a village where a woman

may live being distinguished as ishnidvaimad—and this suggests that the

institution is based on something more than mere convenience, and that

the villages have some kind of sanctity which makes it undesirable that

women should live in them.

The following are the only existing villages of this kind:—Taradrkirsi,

the male funeral village of Kars; Kudrmas and Telgudr, belonging to

Taradr; Perg, belonging to the Panol; and Pirsush, belonging to Kuudr.

Three of these, Taradrkirsi, Kudrmas, and Pirsush, receive the

kaimukhti salutation, and are certainly ancient and sacred villages,

while there was some doubt as to whether Telgudr should not also be

saluted. The only kalolmad I visited was Taradrkirsi, where there is

now only a dairy, so that there is a clear reason why women cannot live

there, but this did not appear to be the reason at other places.

Again, I could not ascertain why they should be called “old man

villages,” and their existence must, I am afraid, remain a mystery,

though I think we may be confident that there is, or has been in the

past, some ceremonial reason to explain their existence.

Two Todas villages are known as satimad. If a dispute arises between

two men they are taken to the front of the dairy of the satimad, and

are made to state what has happened, and anything a man says under

these conditions will be believed. It is thought that if a man does not

speak the truth, he will fall sick and his buffaloes will die.

According to some accounts there is only one true satimad, the village

of Kiudr, which we have already seen has several signs of especial

sanctity, such as the mention of its house in the prayer, the severe

restrictions on its women during pregnancy, and the homage rendered to

it by Todas of every clan.

According to other accounts the village of Kanòdrs [176] is also a

satimad, and Todas of all clans may be brought there to make

statements. It seems most probable that both places are satimad, but

that the custom of using Kanòdrs as a touchstone of truth is now no

longer followed, Kiudr only being used for this purpose. It will be

remembered that both Kiudr and Kanòdrs have features of dairy ritual

peculiar to themselves, and that in some respects there is a close

resemblance between the ritual of the two places.

In his book written in 1832, [177] Captain Harkness says that the Todas

have a temple dedicated to Truth, but identifies this with a ti dairy

(teriri). It is probable, however, that his statement was based on what

he was told of the satimad, either of Kiudr or Kanòdrs.

THE DAIRY

As we have already seen, there is some doubt whether the reverence paid

to a village is paid to the village as a whole or to the dairy. There

is no doubt, however, that the dairy draws to itself most of the

veneration which a village excites.

Whenever a devout Toda visits a strange village, he goes to the dairy,

and prostrating himself at its threshold, utters a prayer. My ordinary

guide, Kòdrner, was not devout and did not pay this reverence, but his

brother, Kutadri, was very scrupulous in performing these duties,

especially when he went with me to the Kundahs. I could not obtain from

him the prayer that he employed on these occasions.

The contents of the dairy are regarded as sacred, and, as we have seen,

definite means are taken to prevent these objects from contamination by

the gaze or touch of ordinary mortals. Of the objects kept in the dairy

the bells are undoubtedly the most sacred. The most sacred of the

vessels is the mu, which is not kept in the dairy but is buried in the

buffalo-pen, and is only used on certain ceremonial occasions.

This mu is closely associated with the general sanctity of the dairy.

The prosperity of the dairy is dependent on its condition, and it would

seem to have very much the same ideas attached to it as we meet in the

life-token. It may also be regarded as the emblem of a dairy, and in

the case of the funeral hut of Taradr, we have seen that a building

becomes a dairy when a mu is placed in its inner room.

In his account of the Todas, Breeks identifies the special name of the

dairy with that of the presiding god of the dairy or village. If he is

right, it would seem to follow that the Todas personify the dairy in

some degree. The use of the name of dairies in such a formula as that

used at the end of the irnörtiti ceremony (see p. 303) might be

regarded as evidence of this personification of the dairy. I do not

believe, however, in this personification, and if the dairy has

attained in some measure to the dignity of a god, there is no doubt

that this god belongs to a category very different from that of the

true Toda gods of the hill-tops.

THE THRESHOLD

As we have just seen, a man in paying reverence to the dairy bows down

and touches the threshold with his forehead, and the threshold also

frequently plays a part in the dairy ceremonial. The dairyman bows down

and touches the threshold of his dairy before entering upon his work,

and this is also one of the acts performed on his entrance into office

on ordination.

The Teivaliol at an ordination also sweep the threshold with the grass

called kakar, and the same grass is used to sweep the threshold of the

dairy by the young girl who performs this office on reaching the new

village during the migration ceremony (see p. 128). In the tuninörtiti

and pilinörtiti ceremonies the offering is laid on the threshold of the

dairy, and in the ceremony of uncovering for the first time the face of

a boy, the child is put down by his father so that his forehead touches

the threshold.

BELLS

These are the most sacred of the sacred objects of the Todas. It is

necessary, however, to distinguish three kinds of bells, the mani, the

tukulir mani, and the kwungg, and it is only the first of these which

has any great sanctity.

The tukulir mani is only used in the koòtiti ceremony of the second

funeral (p. 376), and between these occasions is kept by the Badagas or

Kotas. I am doubtful whether it is a true Toda object, and suspect that

it is a Badaga or Kota bell which is used in a ceremony borrowed by the

Todas from one or other of these peoples.

The kwungg is the household bell and is kept in the hut. It is used in

the funeral ceremonies on two occasions, being hung on the neck of one

of the ordinary buffaloes before the animal is killed, and it is also

the bell which is rung in the final scene of the azaramkedr. The bell

may be touched or carried by women, and I have seen a kwungg removed

from the neck of a slaughtered buffalo by a Kota who handed it to a

woman. Though the bell is used in ceremonial, the fact that it may be

touched by both Kotas and women shows clearly that it is not regarded

as possessing any sanctity whatever. In general appearance, however,

the kwungg probably differs little from the mani, being a large bell of

the same oblong shape which is characteristic of cattle-bells.

The mani is a bell which, so far as I could ascertain, never has a

tongue, though this loss may be nothing more than a sign of its

antiquity.

There are several kinds of mani. At the ti dairy there are two distinct

varieties: the mani proper which is kept in the inner room and is hung

on the neck of a chosen calf of the persinir on the occasion of the

migration ceremonies, and the kudrsmani which is kept outside the door

of the dairy. The latter appear to have little sanctity, but the former

are probably the most sacred of Toda objects of veneration. They are

said to be extremely ancient; some are reputed to have come from

Amnòdr, and others are believed to have had miraculous origins, one

having been born in a vessel of milk while the buffaloes were on their

way from Amnòdr, while another came from the sea. The Todas believe

that some of these bells are of gold, and one was reputed to be made of

three metals—gold, silver, and iron. The bell born in milk is said to

be of iron.

It seems probable that each of the more sacred herds at the village had

at one time its own mani, and that a clan which possessed both wursuli

and kudrpali would have had two bells of this kind or two sets of such

bells.

At the present time, many of the clans have lost their sacred bells,

and those which possess mani have only one or two of them. My most

definite account for the Tartharol comes from Kars, where it is clear

that the wursuli has two bells, the same as those reputed to have been

hung on the neck of Enmon in the legend of Kwoto. [178] The kudrpali

also had two bells which have now been lost, but the place where they

used to hang still shares in the dairy ritual and is fed with milk just

as the bells would have been if they had been there.

Since it is the wursol who takes the prominent part in the funeral

ceremonies of a male, it seems also clear that the bells which are hung

on the necks of the slaughtered buffaloes are those of the wursuli, but

I did not definitely ascertain whether the bells of a kudrpali might

not be used for this purpose, and indeed I am not altogether certain

that any rigorous distinction is made between wursuli mani and kudrpali

mani.

One striking distinction between the dairies of the Teivaliol and

Tartharol was said to be the absence of mani among the former, except

in the Piedr clan, and here there was something exceptional, for when

this bell is used at a funeral it is hung on the neck of the buffalo by

a Tarthar man belonging to Nòdrs. I was often told that, with this

exception, the Teivaliol had no mani, and it was only towards the end

of my visit that I became aware of the existence in the dairy of Kiudr

of six bells called mani, two distinguished as patatmani and four as

ertatmani.

Among the Tartharol there was no distinction of this kind, and it

seemed that these bells were looked on by the Todas in a different

light to other bells, and were not thought of when they told me that

the Teivaliol had no mani. It was quite clear that they were not used

at funerals. The suggestion which I have made in the chapter on the

dairy ritual would provide an explanation of this apparently

exceptional position of the Kiudr mani. If Kiudr is the relic of an old

ti dairy and the bells are the old mani of the ti, it becomes clear why

the bells have their exceptional character, and why they are not used

at a funeral, for the bells of a ti would never be allowed to suffer

the defilement to which this ceremonial use subjects them.

Most of the mani have milk, curds, or buttermilk offered to them during

the dairy ceremonial. The only exceptions of which I heard were some of

the bells of the ti dairy, the bell called Keu at the Nòdrs ti, and

that called Pongg at the Pan ti, which are not ‘fed,’ to use the common

Toda expression.

At the village dairy the ‘feeding’ is a regular part of the dairy

ritual, curds being put on the bells in the earlier, and some of the

milk from that first brought into the dairy, in the later part of the

proceedings. I only heard of one instance in which bells were given

buttermilk. This was done with the ertatmani of the Kiudr dairy, and if

the supposition given above is correct, this should, therefore, also be

the procedure with the kudrs mani of the ti dairy. It is quite possible

that this is one of the details of the dairy ritual which escaped me,

or it may be that it was a special custom of the ti dairy from which I

suppose the Kiudr dairy to have been derived.

Some writers on the Todas have regarded the bells as the Toda gods, and

there certainly is some evidence which would justify one in regarding

them as idols. The ‘feeding’ is a definite indication that the bells

are, to a certain extent, regarded by the Todas as living beings, and

in the legendary accounts of the origin of certain bells, belief in

their activity is obvious. One bell is born and another comes from the

sea and sits on the side of a milking vessel. It is quite clear,

however, that the bell belongs to a different category in the religion

of the Todas from that occupied by the gods. Possibly the Todas may

have some clear ideas about the connexion between their bells, gods,

and dairies, but I could not discover them, and am inclined to believe

that the people are now very hazy about the exact place of the bell and

the god in their theology.

It was quite clear that they believed an offence against the dairy was

punished by the gods, and I cannot say definitely that in this case the

bell may not have been personified as a god, but I do not think that

this was so.

It seems to me probable that the present sanctity of the bell has come

about by a process of transference [179] from the buffalo to the object

worn by it. Probably at one time the buffaloes were more directly

venerated than they appear to be at present. There is evidence that

even in recent times the bell-cow or buffalo which carried the bell was

an object of especial veneration. In such books as those of Harkness

and Marshall, the bell-cow seems to occupy a more prominent position

than, so far as I could tell, it occupies at present.

In the present day the mani of the ti is only hung on the neck of a

buffalo at the migration from one ti mad to another and at the Nòdrs

ti, only for a few minutes even then. At the village dairy, the mani is

never, so far as I could tell, put on the neck of a buffalo except at

the funeral ceremonies. The idea in the latter case seems to be that a

sacred buffalo should wear its bell, and in order that the buffalo

slaughtered at a funeral should go to Amnòdr with its bell, the mani is

hung on its neck while it is being killed. The legend of Kwoto and

Punatvan shows that the bells are believed to travel to Amnòdr with the

buffaloes.

The following may be suggested as a sketch of the probable evolution of

the sanctity of the bell. At one time the buffaloes were the chief

sacred objects of the Todas. Then this sanctity was concentrated in the

persons of the bell-buffaloes, and later became partially attached to

the bells, and the Todas then probably reached a stage in which it was

doubtful how far the sanctity of the bell-buffalo was due to its

position as chief of the herd, and how far to the bell it carried. It

is possible that this was the stage of evolution of the idea in which

the earliest visitors to the Nilgiris found the Todas. We may suppose

that gradually the sanctity became more and more attached to the bell,

less and less to its possessor, until now the Todas seem to have

reached a position in which the bell-buffalo has little or no sanctity

above its fellows, and the sanctity resides almost wholly in the bell.

The original use of the bell now only survives in the ritual

accompanying the migration of the ti buffaloes and in the funeral

ceremonies.

There is one small fact which may perhaps be taken to indicate that the

word mani is now applied to any object of a sacred or magical nature.

The armlet put on the wrist of a child at the naming ceremony is called

kansutimani. If the last part of this word is the same as the name of

the bell, it would seem to indicate that the word may be used for an

object the significance of which is magical rather than religious, and

in connexion with a practice which has probably been borrowed.

RELICS

The Todas have a few relics of heroes which are regarded as objects of

veneration, and are kept in the dairies. One of these, which is

believed to be the armlet of the Kars man who went with the ti

buffaloes in the story of Kwoto, is kept at Kuzhu, and has milk put on

it during the dairy ritual in the same way as if it were a bell.

Another object is the ring of Kwoten which was found on the sambhar

skin after the disappearance of this god. I saw this ring, which is of

silver and far more massive than the rings worn by the Todas at the

present time. Breeks states that in his time the Todas also claimed to

have had in their possession the spear of Kwoten.

THE BUFFALO AND ITS MILK

In discussing the sanctity of the bells of the Toda dairies we have

seen that there is some reason to think that these objects have

attained their sacred character, at any rate in part, by a process of

transference of sanctity from the buffaloes by which they were borne.

It is in favour of this view that the buffaloes seem at one time to

have been more sacred, or to have received more definite signs of

reverence than at the present time. The evidence of the legends points

to a time when buffaloes were regarded as having anthropomorphic

characters, and they probably indicate a belief in the sacred nature of

these animals. When the buffaloes of the Nòdrs ti first came from

Amnòdr, they talked like men, and the buffalo who founded the ti mad at

Makars was a very human animal.

In his book, Captain Harkness (p. 16) states that as the buffaloes of

the village are about to be penned for the night, the whole family,

male and female, salute them by bringing the hand to the face. So far

as I could ascertain, this is no longer done, and the only definite

sign of reverence paid to the buffaloes, so far as I could learn, is

the salutation made, partly to them and partly to the sun, by the palol

when he leaves his dairy. Whenever in my journeys about the hills we

came across herds of sacred buffaloes, even those of the ti, no

salutation or sign of respect was made by the Todas who were with me,

though a dairy, especially if it contained a mani, would receive

obvious signs of veneration. Except in connexion with ceremonial there

was nothing in the behaviour of the Todas towards their buffaloes to

indicate that they were sacred animals, and it seems probable that the

sanctity of the buffaloes has been to a great extent transferred,

partly to the mani and partly to the milk given by the animals.

The milk is undoubtedly regarded as a sacred substance. There are

distinct restrictions on its use which become more onerous as one

ascends in the scale of dairies, and we have seen that there is reason

to believe that the whole complicated daily ritual of the dairy may be

designed to neutralise the dangers attendant on the conversion of the

milk into substances which may be used by the outside world.

Throughout this book I have spoken of sacred buffaloes to distinguish

them from those which take no part in the dairy ritual, but it is a

question whether the sanctity does not attach much more closely to the

objects connected with the buffaloes than to the buffaloes themselves.

I think it is clear that at the present time none of the Toda buffaloes

are so sacred that their milk in the form of ghi may not be used. Some

writers have supposed that no profit is made from the sacred buffaloes

of the ti, but at present this is certainly not so, and the ghi made

from the milk of the sacred buffaloes is sold with the rest and may be

used by all.

In earlier days, when the Todas led simpler lives than at present, when

the bazaars of Ootacamund and Coonoor were not in existence to act as

incentives to the acquirement of gain, it is possible that the Todas

did not sell the ghi made from the milk of their more sacred buffaloes,

and, as I have already suggested, it is even possible that at one time

they were content to allow these animals to suckle their calves and

made no use of their milk. Even at the present time a sacred buffalo

will not be milked unless it is provided with the appropriate dairy and

dairyman. The buffaloes of a ti which has no palol, or of a wursuli

which has no wursol, are not allowed to be milked though they may be

looked after by other men. With this exception, however, I believe

that, at the present time, every buffalo, even of the most sacred

herds, is a source of profit by the sale of the ghi which is made from

its milk.

The various offerings of buffaloes made in connexion with ceremonial

are also not allowed to interfere with the economic value of the

animals. In the irnörtiti ceremony of the village, the offered buffalo

simply passes from one division of a clan to another, and when a

buffalo is said to be devoted to the gods, it does not mean that the

owner profits a whit the less on account of the oblation, but only that

he may not kill it at a funeral, and must allow it to die a natural

death.

Even the slaughter of animals at the funeral ceremonies appears to be

managed so as to interfere as little as possible with the profits

obtained from the sale of the milk. I think there is little doubt that

it is an established custom to kill old and barren buffaloes on these

occasions. An animal is not sent to the next world till its owner has

got the utmost out of it in this.

Only on one point is it clear that the Todas make no direct gain from

their buffaloes. When once a buffalo is dead, the Todas seek no further

profit, and the carcases become the property of the Kotas. But even

here there is an indirect gain, for the bodies of the buffaloes form a

large part of the equivalent received by the Kotas for the many

services they render to the Todas.

OTHER ANIMALS

The Todas have so highly developed the cult of one animal that they

show few traces of belief in the sanctity of others. I will put

together here the whole of the scanty evidence which I possess

concerning their relations with animals in general.

The Tiger.—The Todas have a legend that at one time the tiger used to

watch over the buffaloes for them during the day and hand over his

charge in the evening. One day the tiger was very hungry and its hunger

made it angry. When it brought the buffaloes back to the village it saw

a cat catching a rat. Then the tiger asked the cat for some of the

flesh, but the cat said, “There is no fool like you; why don’t you eat

some of the buffaloes you look after?” At that time the tiger usually

slept at the village, but on this evening it went into the wood and at

midnight came slowly back and took one of the buffaloes out of the pen,

and since then it has always done this.

According to another legend (see p. 185), buffaloes have been killed by

tigers ever since the arsaiir of the Kwòdrdoni ti failed to come to the

general gathering which assembled to bid farewell to Ön when he went to

rule over Amnòdr.

Jervis [180] states that the natives of the hills salaam to the tiger.

He does not say definitely that it is the Todas who do this, but it is

probable that he is referring to them. He also states that the women of

the village throw themselves on their knees before a tiger which has

been killed, and touch his bristles with their foreheads. I do not know

whether these practices are still followed.

As we have seen (p. 417), there is a belief that a man who fails in the

performance of certain sacred duties may be killed by a tiger, but the

Todas do not appear to fear this animal except on behalf of their

buffaloes, and I could only learn of one case in which a Toda had been

killed, and as his name was not known it must have occurred very long

ago, or may have been altogether mythical.

The Jackal.—I was told by my interpreter that he had seen the Todas

saluting a jackal, but I did not hear of any beliefs associated with

the practice.

The Sambhar.—The most interesting point in connexion with this animal

is the fact that the Todas are undoubtedly permitted to eat its flesh.

Kutadri, who was most scrupulous in his obedience to the customs of his

people, had no reluctance in eating sambhar flesh, and when he had

fallen ill soon after, he never thought of ascribing his illness to

what was probably its real cause, which shows clearly that there could

have been no idea that he had done anything forbidden or unorthodox.

The fact that the Todas may eat the flesh of the sambhar while taking

that of no other animal, except ceremonially, might well be looked upon

as an indication that there may at one time have been totemic

restrictions on food. In their earlier homes, before they reached the

Nilgiri Hills, it is probable that the sambhar was an unknown animal,

and could not therefore have been a totem. Consequently, when they came

to the Nilgiris, they would have found there an animal on the eating of

the flesh of which there were no restrictions, and the absence of

restriction would, on this hypothesis, have continued to the present

day. The eating of sambhar flesh would be the proverbial exception that

proves the rule.

It seems to me possible, however, that there is a different reason for

the absence of any prohibition. The Todas have no weapons with which

they could kill a sambhar, and if this animal is ever killed by Kotas

or Kurumbas, the mere fact that it had been killed by these people

would probably be a sufficient reason why the Todas should not eat its

flesh.

It is possible that it is only since the advent of Europeans to the

Nilgiris, and the extensive slaughter of sambhar which followed it,

that the Todas have thought of eating the flesh of this animal, and as

no prohibition against the eating of its flesh has been handed down to

them, they have no reluctance in satisfying in this way the liking for

animal food which the erkumptthpimi ceremony keeps in existence, if it

does not actually stimulate it.

The Cat.—This animal, which is called koti or kwoti, is domesticated by

the Todas. The cat is mentioned in the legend of the tiger recorded in

this section, and the earliest writers on the Todas speak of them as

keeping these animals. I have seen them on the walls of the dairies,

and believe that they are allowed to go wherever they please. The only

occasion on which they come into ceremonial is at the erkumptthpimi

sacrifice, where the spleen is specially put aside to be given to the

cat, and is on this account called kwotinerûf.

The dog occurs in the story of Kwoten and several other animals are

mentioned in the prayers and incantations, chiefly as sources of danger

to the buffaloes. In the incantation for the relief of headache given

on p. 265, the names of many animals are uttered, probably with the

intention that their heads may acquire the pain which is being charmed

away from the head of the sufferer.

TREES AND PLANTS

The most sacred tree of the Todas is undoubtedly the tudr (Fig. 58).

This name is given by the Todas to two species, Meliosma pungens and M.

wightii, the two trees resembling one another closely.

The bark is largely used in the dairy ceremonial, and especially in the

ordination ceremonies of the palol and other dairymen drawn from the

Teivaliol and Melgarsol. Its use is especially connected with the

people of these sections of the Toda community, but the rest of the

Tartharol undergo a ceremony at the second funeral in which tudr is

used, and this was said to have the purpose that every Toda should be

purified with tudr before he enters on the future life.

A log and leaves of tudr are also used in the ceremony of

erkumptthpimi, and here it is used by both Teivaliol and Tartharol

alike.

The leaves of tudr used in any of these ceremonies must be perfect, and

the bark must be knocked off the tree by means of a stone, this being

one of the Toda practices which show the persistence of stone

implements in ceremonial. The identity of this sacred tree is

important, for it may furnish a clue to the home of the Todas. So

sacred a tree would almost certainly have been already known to the

Todas when they reached the Nilgiris, though it is, of course, possible

that it might have been chosen on account of its resemblance to some

tree sacred in their past history. The tree has, however, a wide

distribution in India.

Pope has suggested that tudr is connected with tulasi, Ocymum sanctum

or holy basil. This is a small flowering plant, and it is improbable

that there is any connexion between the two plants except a resemblance

in name.

Another tree which appears to be especially sacred is the kiaz tree

(Litsœa Wightiana). Whenever a tree is used to mark the spot where the

mani is laid during purificatory and other ceremonies, the tree must be

of this kind. The wood of this tree is used when making fire for most

sacred purposes.

The leaves of trees and shrubs are used in various branches of the

dairy ritual. Those in most frequent use are various kinds called

generically by the Todas muli, three of which belong to the genus

Rubus. The young shoots of the same plants are used in the ordination

ceremonies.

Grasses are also used in Toda ceremonial, and one of these, a slender

grass called kakar (Eragrostica nigra) is used on several occasions,

those of especial importance being the ordination of the Teivali

palikartmokh and the sweeping of the threshold of the dairy by a girl

at the migration ceremony. The same grass is also used in one of the

methods adopted to promote speedy delivery in childbirth.

Of the various kinds of grain used by the Todas, that called patm or

samai (Panicum miliare) seems to be in most frequent use in connexion

with ceremonial, but it cannot be said to be sacred in any way. Barley

(kodj) seems to have a peculiar place in Toda belief. The tòratthadi or

cooking-vessel of the dairy may not be used for this grain, although

any other kind may be boiled in it. On the other hand, three grains of

barley are put into the mouth and three into the hair of a boy at the

naming ceremony. In explanation I can only offer the surmise that

barley is not cooked in the dairy vessel because its use by the Todas

is an innovation, and that similarly the use of barley in the naming

ceremony is also an innovation borrowed from the Badagas or some other

tribe.

THE SUN, LIGHT, AND FIRE

There is no doubt that the sun is an object of reverence to the Todas.

It is the duty of every man when first he leaves his hut in the morning

to salute the sun by raising his hand to his face in the kaimukhti

salutation. The sun is also saluted by the palol as he comes out of his

dairy to milk the buffaloes. All my informants were unanimous in saying

that the salutation of the palol was both to the buffaloes and to the

sun. The doors of the great majority of the dairies faced more or less

in an easterly direction, so that the dairyman, on coming out of his

dairy in the morning, would see the sun, and when the dairy had a

different orientation, as at Mòdr, the palol had to turn so that he

would perform the salutation looking eastward. At the afternoon

ceremonial the salutation was performed in the same direction as in the

morning, so that, so far as the salutation is performed to the sun, it

would appear that it is to the place of the sun-rise rather than to the

sun itself.

The sun plays a part in the ceremony which takes place when a woman

goes to the seclusion-hut after childbirth, but there was some reason

to think that this was due to the belief in the noxious influence of

the mysterious body, Keirt, which is near the sun, and not to the

influence of the sun itself. When performing the ceremony on leaving

the seclusion-hut the woman faces the sun, and this may be an act of

reverence, since now Keirt is no longer feared. It seemed quite clear

that the moon is not saluted in the same way as the sun with the

kaimukhti salutation. No salutation is paid at all to the new moon when

it is first seen, but after a day or two, usually on the third day, it

is the custom to bow down the head, so that the forehead rests on the

corner of the putkuli lying on the ground. The salutation is that

called nersatiti shown in Fig. 44. I only heard of one custom

indicating reverence to the full moon. When the Todas throw away water

on the day of the full moon, they do not throw it towards the moon, but

away from it. Thus, if the moon is opposite the door of the hut, the

people will go round to the back in order to throw the water there.

Light is undoubtedly an object of reverence to the Todas. Captain

Harkness states that when the household lamp is lighted in the evening,

obeisance is paid to it by bringing the right hand to the face, and

this sign of reverence is still shown. In the dairy ceremonial the lamp

and the light it gives are also undoubtedly reverenced, and lighting

the lamp is, as we have seen, an act of a ceremonial character.

In some cases the lamps used in the dairies are certainly very ancient

and are believed to have come from Amnòdr, but it is clear that they

are not reverenced merely on this account, for a lamp of modern origin

would, when once consecrated, be treated with as much reverence as

those which had come down from antiquity.

I did not learn that any sign of reverence is paid to fire, but the

fire of the dairy may undoubtedly be said to have a sacred character.

Whenever a new dairy is visited or an old dairy is reconsecrated in

connexion with the pepkaricha ceremony, fire is made afresh by

friction. Once made, it was, so far as I could learn, kept continuously

alight; if on any occasion the fire should go out, it would have to be

made again by friction. In the ti dairy there are two fireplaces, one

in which fire burns continuously, while the other is lighted by brands

transferred to it from the other, and the lamp is lighted by a brand

taken from this sacred fire. Here it would almost appear as if the

former fire had a profane character, so that it would be regarded as

desecration to light the sacred lamp directly from it.

The fire of the tòratthwaskal is used to cook food which has come from

outside, and the use of an intermediate fire to light the lamp is in

keeping with the general law of the procedure of the ti dairy,

according to which the sacred objects are prevented from all possible

contamination from the outer world by employing vessels or other

objects as intermediaries.

Fire has also to be made by friction in other ceremonies, and

especially at those called teutütusthchi and erkumptthpimi and at the

funerals of males. At the first ceremony the fire is made by the palol,

and at the second by the dairyman conducting the ceremony. At the

azaramkedr of a man the fire is made by a man of the same clan as the

deceased, and this is probably also the case at the first funeral

ceremony. I did not definitely ask whether fire by friction is ever

made by a woman, but I am fairly confident that this would never

happen.

I only heard of one case in which men were prohibited from making fire.

The Kidmadol and Karshol, who suffer under several disabilities, are

not allowed to make fire by friction, and this is due to a quarrel with

their parent-clan many years ago.

Whenever fire is made for a sacred purpose [181] the fire-sticks must

be of the wood which the Todas call kiaz or keadj, except in the

tesherst ceremony, in which the wood of muli is used.

There are also definite regulations as to the kind of wood which is to

be burnt in the fires of all ceremonial occasions. In various

ceremonies I have recorded the Toda names of the woods prescribed, and

if more were known about their identity, it is possible that some light

might be thrown on the original home of the Todas, in the same way as

has been suggested in the case of the sacred tudr tree.

STONES

The Todas have many stones which may be held to have some degree of

sanctity; certainly many have their place in the religious ceremonial.

All these stones have names, either general or individual, but two

stones with the same name need not necessarily have the same function.

At the ti there are stones marking the spots where the dairy vessels

are taken up and put down during the migration ceremonies, but the most

interesting stones at these dairies are those called neurzülnkars. At

several dairies these stones are anointed, and their appearance

indicates that they have undergone the process for very long periods of

time; at other places they are so weathered and worn away that they

must obviously be of great antiquity. At some dairies of the Nòdrs ti

these stones take the place of the head of the kaltmokh in the

ceremonies accompanying migration, but at other places they are said to

have different uses.

At an ordinary village the stones usually belong to one of the

following classes:—

(a) Stones to mark off boundaries or places, such as the majvatvaikars,

marking the path or spot used by the women in fetching buttermilk from

the dairy.

(b) Stones used in the ceremonies in which offerings are made, the

irnörtkars and the pilinörtkars.

(c) Funeral stones, at which the buffaloes are killed. These are, of

course, only found at funeral villages, but there are certain other

stones, such as the imudrikars, which may be found in any village. Such

a stone may mark the spot where the body is laid, or may even, as in

the case of the imudrikars of Kars, form a mound on which the body is

laid.

(d) Stones in or near the tu or buffalo pen, such as the mutchudkars

and pudothkars. I do not know the origin or use of these, but in some

villages there are stones in the pen marking the places where the mu or

dairy vessels are buried, and it is possible that the above stones are

in some way connected with the buried dairy-vessels.

(e) The lifting stone or tukitthkars. This is usually a large round

stone which sometimes resembles in appearance stones of a ceremonial

character. [182]

(f) Commemorative stones. The teidrtolkars of Nòdrs (see Fig. 13), and

certain stones with the same name lying between Nòdrs and Teidr, had

their origin in events connected with the death of a man belonging to

the village of Teidr who was once wursol at Nòdrs. When he was told to

milk one of the buffaloes, he replied, “If I milk it, the milk will not

fill this place,” pointing to a small depression on his thumb. Still

the people told him to milk, and when he did so the milking-vessel was

completely filled. Then the palikartmokh was very angry, and, taking

the wand which the wursol was carrying, he struck him so that he flew

in the air and fell down midway between Nòdrs and Teidr. When the

people came to the place they found that the man was dead, and they

tried to take up his body and carry it to the funeral place. But the

body would not move and so they held the funeral on the spot and made a

tu. At the entrance of the tu they placed two women carrying pounders

[183] in place of the posts or tüli, and these women were changed into

stones and their pounders became the tasth of the entrance of the pen.

The stones which are now found on the spot are the remains of the pen

and the teidrtolkars of Nòdrs marks the spot where the wursol milked

the buffalo.

In the village of Tovalkan there is a mound shown in Fig. 59 which is

much like the imudrikars of Kars, but it is of modern origin, having

been made to mark the spot where Keirevan (26) fell out of a tree and

was killed.

(g) Stones connected with special features of the dairy ceremonial. I

only know of one stone of this kind at a village, the pârsatthkars of

Nidrsi, on which the palikartmokh puts milk every morning and evening.

Stones are often used for more than one purpose; thus, the irnörtkars

of Umgas (see Fig. 72) is also a boundary stone, and the menkars of

Nòdrs (see Fig. 12) used for the game called narthpimi, and the

teidrtolkars at the same village are also funeral stones at which

buffaloes are killed.

I have given a brief list of the chief stones which may be called

sacred owing to their coming in one way or another into Toda

ceremonial, but I should like to make it clear that no great idea of

sanctity attaches to these stones, and in no case are they shown any

definite signs of veneration or worship. They, and many of the other

objects described in this chapter, are not sacred in the same sense in

which the etudmad or the mani are sacred.

CHAPTER XIX

THE TODA RELIGION

The last seventeen chapters have been almost entirely devoted to the

religious institutions and ceremonies of the Todas. In the earlier

chapters I have described the ritual of the dairy and have discussed

some of the problems of general interest which this ritual suggests. In

later chapters I have described the ceremonies which are associated

with the chief incidents of life: birth, growth, and death. In these

and in the chapter dealing with sacrifice I have described many details

of Toda ceremonial which clearly establish its religious character, and

Chapter X is especially devoted to the formulæ which bring the

ceremonial into definite relation with the Toda gods. In Chapter XI I

have described practices and beliefs all of which stand in some

relation to religion, though most of them must be regarded as belonging

to a different category. In the last two chapters I have collected a

number of special features of the Toda religion, the existence of

sacred days and the part played by numbers, places and material objects

in the various religious observances, and I have discussed how far the

attitude of the Todas towards these objects can be described as one of

worship.

There remains the general nexus which binds all these beliefs and

practices into a whole so that they constitute the Toda religion. I

have given in Chapter IX the stories of the Toda gods, giving them in

this place because they were necessary for the proper understanding of

the dairy formulæ, and I can now discuss more fully than was then

possible the essential nature of these deities.

THE GODS

The Toda gods are definitely anthropomorphic beings, who are believed

to have lived in this world before man existed. Both man and buffalo

were created by the gods, and the Todas seem to picture a time when

gods, men, and buffaloes lived together on the Nilgiri Hills, and the

gods ruled the men. At this time the gods seem to have lived much the

same kind of life as the Todas themselves. Ön was palol to the

buffaloes of the Nòdrs ti, his son Püv was palikartmokh at Kuudr, and

other gods are believed to have filled dairy offices. From the earliest

times, however, the gods were connected with the hills—i.e., they were

believed to dwell on the summits of the hills of the Nilgiri plateau.

At first they seem to have mixed at times in human society and at other

times to have retired to their hill-tops. The earliest of the gods was

Pithi, who was born in a cave, and the Todas and many of their

buffaloes were created by his son Ön and his wife. Later death came to

the gods in the person of Püv, the son of Ön and Ön followed Püv to the

world of the dead, called Amnòdr, of which he has since been the ruler.

He left behind him as predominant among the deities Teikirzi, a

goddess, who ruled over the Todas. It is to her that the origin of most

of the Toda institutions is ascribed, and there is some reason to think

that she was predominant among the gods even before Ön went to Amnòdr.

The Todas seem to believe that Teikirzi was at one time a person living

among them, giving laws and regulating the affairs of the people. At

the present time she is believed to be all-pervading; and, though she

has her special hill, she does not dwell there only, as in the case of

all but one of the other Toda deities.

There seem to have been many other gods contemporaneous with Ön and

Teikirzi, and certain of these are believed to have been related to

these deities and especially to Teikirzi. The gods are believed to be

very numerous: the Todas speak of the 1,600 gods, the 1,800 gods, but

it would seem that these expressions are used in the sense of “an

infinite number.” The gods are believed to have held their councils,

meeting on some special hill, to which each god came from his own

hill-top. The hill of Pòlkab, near Kanòdrs, and the village of Miuni

are both renowned as meeting places of the gods.

There is a very definite association between the Toda gods and the

hills of the Nilgiri plateau. Nearly every one of the gods has his hill

where he dwells, and often when speaking of the gods the Todas seem to

identify the god with the hill. There are two river gods, Teipakh and

Pakhwar, associated with the two chief streams of the district, but

there is some reason to believe that even these gods have their hills

where they sometimes live, while at other times they inhabit or are

identified with their streams. In the case of Teipakh, the god and the

natural object seem to be very closely identified, and Kuzkarv, growing

up in the river Teipakh, is said to be sitting in the lap of his

maternal uncle. Again, one god is associated with a bubbling pool, but

he also has his hill-top and is believed only to visit the pool on

certain occasions. There can be little doubt that most of the Toda gods

are hill-deities and that the association of the gods with hills is so

strong that even the gods of streams and pools may be assigned their

hills in general belief.

There is one important feature which is said to be common to all the

hills inhabited by deities. They all have on their summits the stone

circles which the Todas call pun. My informants were very definite

about this and fully understood that these stone circles corresponded

to the cairns and barrows opened by Breeks and others.

I was not able to examine into the question for myself and ascertain

whether the circles called pun were actually present on the

god-inhabited hills, but I have no reason to doubt that this was

usually the case. Most writers on the Todas have been inclined to

suppose that the cairns and barrows, with their contents, were in no

way connected with the Todas, and they have based this opinion largely

on the indifference of the Todas to these monuments. The people who are

so jealous of their dairies that they will not allow anyone to enter or

even view their contents, will allow any stranger to open the cairns

and take their contents, and will even assist in the demolition. When I

asked the Todas what they thought of the rifling of the pun they showed

just the same indifference. They did not seem to think the matter any

concern of theirs, and yet they believe in a definite association

between the presence of a pun and the abode of a deity.

There seem to be three chief possibilities. One, that the cairns are

Toda remains and that the association of the stone circles above them

with the presence of a god is the last surviving relic of the fact. The

second is that when the Todas came to the Nilgiri hills they found

mysterious stone circles on certain hills, which marked out these hills

as possessing features out of the common, and that this gave them a

sanctity which led to the idea that they were inhabited by gods. A

third possibility is that the same peculiarities which led the original

builders of the circles to choose certain hills also led the Todas to

choose them as the abodes of their deities, and that it was only later

that they came to recognise the association between the circle and the

presence of a god.

Whichever possibility may give the true explanation, one would have

thought that the Todas would have objected to the disturbance and

excavation of the cairns. There is little doubt that they were ignorant

of the fact that objects were buried beneath the stone circles, but

they are quite intelligent enough to know that there is a connexion

between the stones and the objects beneath them when once these have

been found.

I have very little doubt that the true explanation of the indifference

of the Todas towards these monuments is that they have no definite

traditional injunction against interfering with the circles. The Todas

are the slaves of their traditions and of the laws and regulations

which have been handed down to them by their ancestors. Till the

Europeans came to the hills, it had never occurred to anyone to meddle

with these stones or explore the soil beneath and around them. In

consequence there was no reason why injunctions against interference

should be handed down, and when the European arrived with his spade and

pickaxe the Todas found nothing in their traditional laws telling them

that it was wrong to interfere with these places, and they exhibited

the indifference which led the explorers to suppose that there was no

connexion of any kind between the Todas and the monuments. [184]

Although the Toda deities seem to be in general a development of

hill-spirits, there can be little doubt that some of the gods are

deified men. In the case of Kwoten, the account of his life is so

circumstantial as to leave little doubt that he was a real man who was

deified after a mysterious disappearance, believed to have been due to

intercourse with a female deity, and around whose life there have

clustered certain miraculous incidents. Similarly, his servant Erten,

and his relatives Teikuteidi and Elnâkhum are probably deified men.

Another possible instance of a deified man is Kwoto or Meilitars. The

account of his life is again so circumstantial that it seems most

likely that he was an exceptional man who was deified while various

incidents in his life acquired a miraculous setting. It is perhaps in

favour of the comparatively recent origin of these gods that objects

belonging to them, or which come into their lives in some way, are

still preserved, and perhaps a still more cogent argument in favour of

the recent deification of Kwoten is the fact that the prohibition

against marriage between the clans of Pan and Kanòdrs, believed to be

due to the murder of Parden by Kwoten, still persists.

Of these deified mortals one became associated with a definite hill

while the other was not assigned any special hill, but it was believed

that all places should form his province.

There is little doubt that these mortals were deified as heroes and not

as ancestors, and there is little to indicate that ancestor-worship has

played any part in the evolution of the Toda religion. When a person

dedicated a buffalo on account of some fault committed, it seemed that

the action might be spoken of indifferently as dedication to the gods

or to the ancestors of the dedicator. Thus, when Teitnir gave a buffalo

after the death of his wife, some said it was given to the gods, while

others said it was given to Teitnir’s grandfathers, and when I tried to

inquire more definitely into this point the two things were said to be

the same. The ideas of the Todas seemed to me, however, to be so

indefinite and vague on this point that I am inclined to attach little

importance to this one piece of evidence.

Against the identification of gods with ancestors is the fact that the

dead go to another world, and are believed to return to this world

after a long interval as ordinary mortals, while most of the gods

belong to this world and are believed to have belonged to this world

before death came to either gods or men.

There is little to support the idea that the gods are personifications

of the forces of nature. There is no evidence whatever that any of the

gods are personifications of the sun, of other heavenly bodies, of

thunder, lightning, or other elemental forces.

We have already seen that there is evidence that light is reverenced,

and that this reverence extends to the sun, and it is probable that

definite worship of the sun may at one time have formed a prominent

part of the religion of the Todas. But there is not the slightest

evidence which would lead to the identification of any one of the Toda

deities with the sun.

There is no evidence of phallic worship among the Todas. One of the ti

villages in the Kundahs is known to the European inhabitants of the

Nilgiris as “Ling mand,” but the supposed Ling stone at this place is

evidently a neurzülnkars. [185]

In the last chapter we have seen that it has been supposed that

divinity attaches to some of the sacred objects of the Todas, and

especially to the dairy and the mani or bell. I cannot say definitely

that the dairy and the bell are not regarded as gods, but I do not

believe that they are so, and, as I have endeavoured to show in the

last chapter, I think it probable that the sanctity of the bell has

arisen by a gradual process of transference of sanctity from the

buffalo to the object worn by it, and I think it not unlikely that this

transference may have reached its full development in comparatively

recent times.

If my view be accepted, it would still leave open the religious status

of the buffalo, and especially of the bell-buffalo, and here, scanty as

the evidence is, it seems to me probable that the buffalo was never

regarded as a god in the same sense in which this word is used for the

anthropomorphic beings of the hill-tops. In the oldest legends, in

which the buffaloes spoke like men, it is clear that they were in

subjection to the gods, and were in no way regarded as themselves

divine.

Some writers on the Todas have supposed that the palol is regarded as a

god, but at the present time it is certain that he is in no way divine.

He is treated with respect, but nothing of the nature of worship or

adoration is paid to him. His position among the Todas is exactly that

of a priest upon whom it is incumbent to maintain a very high degree of

ceremonial purity. That his isolation is not a sign of divinity is, I

think, shown by the results of infringement of his isolation. If the

palol is touched by an ordinary man he loses his office and at once

ceases to be a sacred personage, but the person who touches incurs no

penalty. The sacrilege, according to Toda ideas, would attach not to

him, but to the palol who, in spite of being touched, should persist in

performing the duties of his office.

Whether the palol may ever have been more sacred in the past I cannot

say. An indication that he may at one time have been regarded as divine

is to be found in the special clauses of the Kiudr prayer which are

uttered on the occasion of the migration of the buffaloes of the Nòdrs

ti. Here the kwarzam of the palol is eupalol, which stands for

teupalol, or “god palol,” but in the next kwarzam the same prefix is

given to his garment, the tuni, and I have little doubt that these

kwarzam simply refer to the sanctity which attaches to the palol and

his garment as part of the sacred institution of the ti. There is no

doubt, however, that, according to tradition, the gods held the office

of palol and that the palol of the Nòdrs ti is the direct successor of

the god Ön, but to whatever extent Ön may have passed on his divine

character to his immediate successors, there is little doubt that at

present the palol has lost any divinity which may at one time have been

ascribed to him.

It is very difficult to ascertain how far at the present time,

according to Toda belief, the gods intervene in human affairs. Each

clan is believed to have its nòdrodchi, or ruling deity, but I could

not learn what he is supposed to do. In general the nòdrodchi of a clan

is a god dwelling on a hill near the chief village of the clan, and two

clans living near one another may have the same ruler. Thus Teipakh is

connected with both Piedr and Kusharf, Atioto with both Kwòdrdoni and

Pedrkars, while Etepi, who is the nòdrodchi of Keradr, and Kuzkarv, the

nòdrodchi of Keadr, are almost certainly one and the same deity. In the

two latter cases a Tarthar clan has the same god as a clan of the

Teivaliol.

Little can be said about the nature of these connexions between gods

and clans, but it is possible that when a clan or a member of a clan is

said to incur the anger of the gods it is the nòdrodchi who is chiefly

offended and inflicts punishment in the form of death or disease to man

or buffalo. The Todas certainly believe that misfortunes are due to the

anger of the gods. It is clear that the various offerings described in

Chapter XIII are piacular and propitiatory. They are designed to atone

for wrong done and to avert any future evil consequences of the offence

which has been committed.

The power of the gods is believed to show itself in various ways. In

several cases dairies have been disused because the dairymen have died

in office, and this was said to have happened because the gods of those

places were severe. It was apparently believed that they had visited

infringements of the laws regulating dairy ritual with death.

The various misfortunes which befell different members of the community

as the result of my visit were all ascribed to the anger of the gods.

Again, the untoward incidents of the funeral of Sinerani (see p. 391)

were ascribed to the anger of the gods because there had been an

infringement of funeral custom. These and other cases show clearly that

the gods are held to be the source of punishment for sins committed by

the Todas, and that they may be appeased by offerings.

Each of the ti dairies has connected with it many deities whose names

are especially mentioned in the prayers, and it is probable that for

infringements of their ritual these gods are the avenging deities.

The attitude towards the gods shown by the formulæ used in the dairy

ceremonial has already been considered. Though there is no direct

evidence in these formulæ that there is actual supplication to the

deities, it is almost certain that this supplication is implied. The

formulæ used in other Toda ceremonies have the same general form as

those used in the dairy ritual; and here, again, though there is no

direct appeal to deities in the words of the formula, such appeal is

almost certainly implied. The formulæ of the various ceremonies of the

Todas are almost certainly of the nature of prayers in which the gods

are asked to give blessings and avert evils. Apart from the formulæ of

the definite ritual, there seems to be no doubt that the Todas offer

supplications to their gods for help and protection.

In the formulæ used in Toda sorcery appeal to the gods is even more

definite than in the prayers of the dairy ritual. In them the names of

four most important gods are mentioned, and it seems quite clear that

the sorcerer believes that he is effecting his purpose through the

power of the gods.

Another definite way in which the gods of the Todas are believed to

intervene in human affairs is in divination. During the frenzy into

which the teuol or diviners fall they are believed to be inspired by

the gods. The diviners are chiefly consulted in the case of misfortune,

and they are believed to reveal the reasons for the divine displeasure

which has been the cause of the misfortune, and to communicate the ways

in which the gods may be appeased. The diviners are believed to be

directly inspired by the gods, and their name, teuol, or “god men,”

shows how definitely this belief is present in the Toda mind. In this

case each diviner is believed to be inspired by a special deity, though

sometimes more than one deity may reveal himself by the same man.

In the process of divination men are possessed by gods; and another

example of possession by the gods may be mentioned here, as I have not

found a suitable place for it elsewhere. If any of the gods should sit

on the back of a buffalo, the animal will go to the hill called

Kûrâtvan, near Neduvattam, and this is said to have happened to two

buffaloes in recent times. A buffalo which goes to this hill is allowed

to find its own way back, and, provided the buffalo goes only to

etudmad, its course will not be interfered with. One of the two

buffaloes above-mentioned travelled back by way of Taradr, a place

called Panmtu, Nòdrs, Miuni, and then went to its own village.

In the chapter on divination I have pointed out that many of the

deities who inspire the diviners are not true Toda gods, and this

suggests that the practice of divination may have been borrowed from

surrounding peoples, in which case caution would be needed in drawing

conclusions from the beliefs associated with the practice. I believe,

however, that the information given to me on this point is based on

recent utterances of the teuol themselves when in a state of frenzy.

Each teuol was asked by whom he was inspired, and I think it not

unlikely that the answers were influenced by the recent associations of

the Todas.

At the present time none of the gods are ever seen by mortals. As we

have already found, the hills where they are supposed to dwell are, in

some cases, regarded with reverence; but I obtained no evidence that

the Todas avoid the summits even of those hills where the most

important deities are supposed to be, though unfortunately I omitted to

put this to the test by asking any of the more scrupulous Todas to

accompany me to these places. The god-inhabited hills, however, are, in

most cases, the sites of cairns and barrows, and the whole experience

of those who have excavated these sites seems to show that the Todas

exhibit no special reluctance to visit these dwelling-places of the

gods.

I think that there can be little doubt that most of the individual gods

of the Todas are becoming very unreal beings to those who talk of them.

The stories of the earlier gods are now being forgotten, and the ideas

of the Todas about them are very vague. On the other hand, certain gods

of obviously more recent origin seem to be replacing, to some extent,

the older gods. The lives of Kwoten and Meilitars can be related by

many in great detail, but though they seem to inspire more interest

among the Todas I cannot say that I observed anything to show that they

receive any special worship or reverence. Meilitars is especially

mentioned in the Kanòdrs prayer, but this would only put him on a level

with many objects of no great amount of sanctity. The attitude of the

Todas towards these two beings seemed to me to be rather that of people

towards heroes than towards gods, though the mythology has raised them

to the level of the gods.

Nevertheless, the idea of “god” is highly developed among the Todas and

I am inclined to believe that the most satisfactory explanation of the

Toda deities is that the people came to the Nilgiri Hills with a body

of highly developed gods; that round these gods have clustered various

legends connected with the Toda institutions; that these old gods have

gradually through long ages lost their reality; that certain heroes

have been raised to the ranks of the gods and that the lives of these

heroes, founded to some extent on actual fact, have more interest to

the Todas and are remembered and passed on while the legends of the

older gods are gradually becoming vaguer in the progress towards

complete obliviscence; that the gods as a whole, however, are still

regarded as the authors of punishment and that there is a tendency to

make an abstraction of the power of the gods.

The Todas, then, show us a stage of religious belief in which gods once

believed to be real, living among men and intervening actively in their

affairs, have become shadowy beings, apparently less real, invisible

and intervening in the affairs of men in a mysterious manner and

chiefly in the case of infraction of the laws which they are still

believed to have given.

The present state of the Toda religion seems to be one in which ritual

has persisted while the beliefs at the bottom of the ritual have

largely disappeared. The Todas are an example of a people whose lives

are altogether dominated by custom and tradition, and on the religious

side this domination has taken a form in which ritual has become

all-important, while the religious ideas which underlie the ritual have

become blurred and unreal or have disappeared altogether. It seems to

me that the Todas have had a religion of a comparatively high order for

people living in such simple circumstances. During a long period of

isolation there has come about an over-development of the ritual aspect

of this religion. Year after year, and century after century, the

priests have handed on the details of the ceremonial from one to

another. The performance of the prescribed rites in their due order has

become the all-essential of the religion and the ideas connected with

it have suffered. This is shown most clearly in the prayers, in which

we have seen that the prayer proper has gradually come to take a

relatively subordinate position, and is even in danger of disappearing

altogether, while the importance of the kwarzam by which the sacred

objects of the dairy are mentioned has been magnified. The dairy

utterances, which were probably at one time definite prayers calling on

the gods for help and protection, are now on their way to become barren

and meaningless formulæ.

Just as the prayer of the Todas seems to have almost degenerated into

the utterance of barren formulæ, so is there reason to believe that the

attitude of worship which is undoubtedly present in the Toda mind is

becoming transferred from the gods themselves to the material objects

used in the service of the gods. I acknowledge that I am here on less

sure ground than in the case of the dairy formulæ, but the general

impression left on my mind by the study of the beliefs and sacred

institutions of the Todas is that the religious attitude of worship is

being transferred from the gods themselves to the objects round which

centres the ritual of the dairy. If I am right in these surmises, we

find the Todas to possess a religion in process of degeneration. I do

not suppose that this degeneration has been in progress only during the

short time that the Todas have been exposed to the injurious contact of

the outer world. The study of the Toda religion makes it seem to me

most probable that the Todas came to the Nilgiri Hills with a religion

of a higher order than they possess at present, with a developed system

of gods who were believed to direct and govern the affairs of men, and

that by a long and slow process these gods have become unreal, the

supplications of the people for their guidance and assistance have

become mechanical, and worship has been transferred from gods, not to

stocks and stones, but to bells and dairy vessels.

At the present time it would seem that even the ritual of the Toda

religion is often carried out less carefully than of old. Among the

former occupants of dairy offices of whom I made inquiries, I found

some who gave accounts so full of inaccuracies and omissions that it

seemed unlikely that they could have performed the duties of their

offices in a satisfactory manner, and when I had the opportunity of

observing parts of the dairy ritual it seemed to me that the ceremonial

acts were performed by some of the dairymen in a very perfunctory and

slovenly fashion. We have already seen that some of the features of

Toda ritual have entirely disappeared, and it seems not unlikely that

the same fate may overtake the whole at no great distance of time.

In the case of both custom and ritual, the Todas are now often content

if they keep the letter of the law, and several examples of the evasion

of ceremonial laws have been recorded. We have seen that several of the

laws concerning the madnol are certainly not kept in the spirit, and

only by a stretch of imagination, in the letter. A woman evades the law

that she may not leave the village on the madnol by leaving it before

daybreak and returning after daybreak till her work is done. A man

takes money out on the day before the madnol and, burying it elsewhere,

is able to carry out business which the spirit of the law forbids. In

ceremonies, ritual duties which involve discomfort or restraint are

assigned to young boys, to whom the restraint is no restraint. A man

goes near the palol whom properly he should not approach, but since he

does not speak nor is spoken to, he is regarded as ceremonially absent.

Objects of value which should be burnt for the use of the dead are sent

to the next world ceremonially by swinging them over the fire, and are

then removed. The emblems of womanhood are taken out of the hut when

the wursol goes there to sleep, but the women themselves remain.

Probably the behaviour of the kaltmokh in the sleeping hut during the

ceremony after migration (p. 142) is a sign that he should not be

there, and is evading an uncomfortable and perhaps dangerous custom.

The Todas seem to show us how the over-development of the ritual aspect

of religion may lead to atrophy of those ideas and beliefs through

which the religion has been built up and then how, in its turn, the

ritual may suffer and acts which are performed mechanically, with no

living ideas behind them, may come to be performed carelessly and

incompletely, while religious observances which involve trouble or

discomfort may be evaded or completely neglected. The Todas, in fact,

show us, in little, the general traits characteristic of the

degeneration of religion.

To people living in the simple surroundings and with the simple life of

the Todas we might well look for material to help us to understand the

evolution of religion, but, if I am right, we must look for this in

vain. If the religion of the Todas is a product of degeneration, it is

hopeless to seek among the customs of this people for evidence of the

mode of growth of religious ideas and practices. Thus, it is natural

that we find among the Todas no clear trace of totemism, or of those

ideas connected with animals which are probably allied to totemism.

There are several reasons why the Todas should not furnish any clear

evidence of this frequent starting-point of religion. In the first

place, they are people to whom one animal has become so predominantly

sacred that it might be expected that any other relations with animals

of a sacred character would have disappeared; the cult of animals in

general would have been swamped in the cult of the buffalo. Secondly,

if I am right in the supposition I have advanced in this chapter, it is

probable that the Todas came to the Nilgiri Hills with the cult of the

buffalo or other milk-giving animal already to some extent developed,

and if at this time they had customs and beliefs connected with other

animals, these would naturally soon disappear if these animals were

absent in the new country. At the same time, it is perhaps not without

significance that the Todas are allowed to eat the flesh of the

sambhar. In their former home, in the low country, it is almost certain

that this animal would not have been a totem, and therefore it would be

natural that on their reaching the Nilgiris they might be permitted to

eat it. [186]

It is doubtful how far the Todas have an idea of a supreme god. At the

present time they speak of and constantly appeal to Swami, and they

will say that Swami is above all the gods, but I have very little doubt

that this is a recent idea. Swami was chiefly spoken of and reverenced

by the younger men, and it is quite clear that the name should not

properly occur in the formulæ of any Toda ritual. Nevertheless, the

possibility cannot be excluded that the idea is old. It is probable

that at one time there existed direct appeal to gods in the Toda

prayer, and this direct appeal may have been to some supreme being who

was addressed as Swami.

Apart from this question of the meaning of Swami, two deities stand out

from the remainder of the Toda gods. One of these is Meilitars, whose

cunning was able to deceive the gods, and who was able to perform

miracles which were regarded as beyond the powers of the other gods.

His story seems to show one way in which a god might rise above his

fellows, and might become a supreme god, but this has certainly not

happened in his case. There is not the slightest evidence to show that

Meilitars is in any way worshipped as a supreme god. There is a much

stronger case for the supremacy of the goddess Teikirzi. Teikirzi is

said to be the foundress of many of the Toda institutions; the final

explanation of all things in the Toda mind is that “it is the will of

Teikirzi.” She is said to be all-pervading, and is regarded as the

ruler of this world; she is mentioned in many of the sacred formulæ,

and of the occasional kwarzam uttered by the Todas on various occasions

by far the most frequent are those of Teikirzi Tirshti.

Teikirzi is undoubtedly the most important Toda deity, and yet she is

not so pre-eminent that she can be said to be in any way a supreme god.

Though she is the ruler of this world, it is Ön who rules the world of

the dead.

INFLUENCE OF OTHER RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS

The Todas show undoubted signs of the influence of Hinduism on their

religion. It would be quite easy for a visitor to the Todas to talk to

some of the younger and more sophisticated men and to go away believing

that the Todas differed little from the surrounding tribes in their

religious beliefs. In my first conversation with the Todas on religious

matters I was told that they worshipped the following six

gods:—Nanjandisparan, whose temple is at Nanjankudi in Mysore; Petkon

or Betakarasami, whose temple is at Gudalur; Punilibagewan, whose

temple is called Punilikudi and is near Cheirambadi; Mari, a female

deity, with a temple called Marikudi near Pokapparam; Magòli, another

female deity, with a temple near Kodanad on the Nilgiris, and

Karmudrangan, [187] whose temple is near Mettapollayam.

Four or five of these gods are probably Hindu deities, while Magòli may

be a deity of the Kurumbas or Irulas. At the present time there is no

doubt that their temples are visited by the Todas and offerings made to

them. The most frequent motive for these offerings appears to be the

desire for children. The Todas now pray to these gods, most commonly

for this purpose to Nanjandisparan, Magòli or Karmudrangan, and if a

child is born it is taken when one year old to the temple, its head is

shaved, and an offering, usually in the form of an image of the child,

given to the priest. Rice is also given, sufficient, it is said, to

feed 101 men, and the proceedings are said to cost the Todas from 40 to

100 rupees. They have a rule that, however much money they take away

with them from their villages, all must be spent and none brought back.

If the Todas wish to obtain more buffaloes they offer silver images of

these animals to the temples.

I do not know how long these Hindu gods have been worshipped by the

Todas, but my informants were emphatic that Nanjandisparan and Petkon

had been worshipped by the Todas for very long, and that annual

offerings of small sums were made to them by every Toda family.

This worship and appeal to Hindu deities appears to me to have gone on

side by side with the proper religion of the Todas, but to have

influenced it little. It shows how people of low culture make use of

the gods of other races as well as of their own, and in the same way I

believe that the Todas reverence the gods of Badagas, Kurumbas, or any

other of the tribes with which they have dealings, and if asked

point-blank if the gods of these people are their gods they will

assent.

It is probable that Hinduism is now having more influence on the Todas

than ever before, and, as I have already pointed out, I believe that

the reverence to Swami and the frequent utterance of his name is a sign

of the increasing influence of Hinduism, perhaps combined with that of

Christianity.

Christianity has so far had no appreciable influence. The Church

Missionary Zenana Society has for some years employed two catechists to

work among the Todas, and one of them, Samuel, who by the kindness of

the Society was allowed to act as my interpreter for a large part of my

stay, ought to have been successful if earnestness and honesty are of

any avail, but his efforts, carried on for ten years, had borne very

little fruit.

In the whole of the mythology and ceremonial there are few features

which suggest the probability of Christian influence, and the chief of

these is the incident in the legend of the origin of mankind where

woman is created from a rib taken from the right side of a man. It is

very unlikely that this is a recent accretion to the legend, and, if it

is due to Christian influence, I think it must have arisen long ago. We

know that, three centuries ago, priests visited the Todas and preached

to them, and it is stated (see p. 720) that one chose the Hebrew story

of the creation for his lesson, and it may be that the incident,

striking the fancy of the people, was incorporated into their own

tradition of the origin of man. The resemblance between the Toda madnol

and the Sabbath may also excite the suspicion that the former

institution is founded on ideas borrowed from Christians or Jews. I

think we may be confident that, if this has been the case, the

borrowing took place very long ago. I hope to show in the last chapter

that it is probable the Todas came from Malabar, and it is possible

that their migration to the hills took place after the settlement of

Christians or Jews in that district. If Christianity has affected the

religious beliefs or practices of the general body of the Todas, I

think it is certain that this influence has not been recent.

MAGIC AND RELIGION

A word may be added, at the end of this chapter, on the relation

between the magic and the religion of the Todas. I have already pointed

out reasons for believing that the Toda religion is one in process of

degeneration, and we must not therefore expect to find among this

people material for the study of the evolution of religion from magic

or for the method of divergence of the two from some original stem

which was neither magic nor religion.

The chief interest of the Todas from this point of view is that they

show how side by side with a relatively high form of religion there may

exist a body of beliefs crystallised in magical formulæ which bear a

very close resemblance to the formulæ of the religious ritual. Their

aim and their general nature leave no doubt that the formulæ given in

the later part of Chap. XII are magical in nature, and yet they show

more distinct evidence of appeal to deities than is to be found in the

definitely religious formulæ of the dairy. These magical formulæ of the

Todas seem to show us a stage of magic in which religion has been

called to its aid. The sorcerer does not endeavour to effect his

purpose merely by the belief in the efficiency of like producing like,

or other ideas which dominate the lower forms of magic, but has called

to his aid the power of the gods and uses a form of words almost

identical with that used in the religious ritual. Magic and religion

are here closely allied, but it is possible that this alliance is but

one of the products of the degeneration to which I believe the Toda

religion is subject. It is possible that we have here evidence that

during the process of degeneration of religion, religion and magic may

approach one another—an approach which recalls their common origin from

those low beliefs and ideas of the savage to which the name of neither

magic nor religion should perhaps be properly applied.

CHAPTER XX

GENEALOGIES AND POPULATION

The preceding chapters have dealt with the ceremonies and religious

aspect of the life of the Todas. This and succeeding chapters will deal

with the social organisation and the more secular side of the life of

the people.

The social organisation has been studied largely by means of the

genealogical record which is given in Appendix V. Before going to India

I had worked out the details of the system of kinship, of the

regulation of marriage, and of the social organisation generally of two

Papuan communities on the basis of the pedigrees preserved by those

communities.

It is a familiar fact that, both in ancient writings and in the

memories of peoples to whom writing is unknown, long lists of ancestors

may be preserved, going back in some cases to mythical times. Among

existing peoples good examples of such genealogies are found in

Polynesia and Uganda, but such a genealogical record is of little value

for the investigation of social organisation.

The records which I obtained in Torres Straits were of a different

kind; they only extended back for three or four generations, but

included all collateral lines, so that a man was able to tell me all

the descendants of his great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather,

and knew the descent of his mother, his father’s mother, his mother’s

mother, and his wife as fully as that of his father. By this means I

was able to collect [188] a record of the great majority of marriages

which had taken place in the community for the last three or four

generations, was able to work out the laws which had regulated these

marriages and to study in detail the system of kinship.

On going to the Todas, one of my first objects was to discover if their

pedigrees were preserved with the same completeness and fidelity as

among the Papuans of Torres Straits.

It seemed at first as if I was to be disappointed. Those to whom I

first broached the subject professed not to know the names of their own

fathers and mothers. Some said they had forgotten them, but their

demeanour excited the suspicion that reticence, and not ignorance, was

the cause of the failure, and it soon became clear that this suspicion

was correct.

There was a taboo on the names of the dead, and especially on those of

dead ancestors. No Toda liked to speak of the dead by name, but to

utter the name of a dead elder relative was strictly forbidden, and to

the end of my visit I never heard the name of a dead man from one of

his descendants. Thus the last piece of genealogical information which

I collected was that of the names of the father and mother of Kòdrner,

my constant attendant. The fact that he was always with me had

prevented my inquiries into his parentage.

Having discovered the cause of failure it soon became evident that the

Todas preserved their pedigrees almost, if not quite, as fully as the

natives of Torres Straits. As in the islands, certain men had especial

reputations as repositories of genealogical lore, and I began my

investigations with the aid of one of the most famous of these, Parkurs

(8), an old man almost blind as the result of cataract and so feeble

that he had to be carried when he came to see me. With his aid and that

of many others I compiled the records given in Appendix V.

Throughout my visit, the collection of this genealogical material was

regarded as something which should not be done. I never carried on this

branch of my work during what I may call my public hours when I was

visited by anyone who chose to come. At these times I sometimes

obtained from a man the names of his wife and children, but always left

any further inquiries till the time reserved for my investigations into

more esoteric matters, when only one man was alone with me and was not

subject to the restraints imposed by auditors who might disapprove of

the utterance of the names of the dead.

One result of the taboo on the names of dead ancestors was that the

record of a man’s family was never obtained from one of that family;

but this was no disadvantage, for the genealogical knowledge of those

from whom I obtained my data was so wide that it covered the families

of the whole or nearly the whole of the Toda community. I have no doubt

that I could have obtained the whole of the material given in the

tables from two men, one of whom would have given me the genealogies of

the Tartharol, and the other those of the Teivaliol, and if I had

chosen my informants wisely, I believe that their information would

have been as full and accurate as that obtained from my many sources of

information. Further, I found that the Teivaliol had a wide knowledge

of Tarthar genealogies, and vice versâ, though a man of one division

usually refused to guarantee the accuracy of anything he told me about

the other division, and would often disclaim knowledge which some

chance observation later showed that he possessed, at any rate in some

measure.

Although certain Todas had special reputations for their knowledge of

pedigrees and were undoubtedly more proficient in this respect than the

general mass of the community, I believe that the knowledge was very

widely spread throughout the people. My guide Kòdrner never professed

to any special knowledge of genealogies, and yet chance observations

would often show that his acquaintance with the pedigrees of the

community was far more extensive and accurate than his professions

would have led one to expect.

The results of the inquiry are given in Tables 1–72. This large

accumulation of genealogical material was obtained from people who

professed at first not to know the names of their own fathers and

mothers. It would have been quite easy for me to have come away from

the Todas and reported them as a people who did not preserve their

genealogies.

The pedigrees are recorded in exactly the same manner as those which I

have published in the Reports of the Torres Straits Expedition, with

the modifications rendered necessary by the presence of polyandry and

infant marriage among the Todas. In any one table the descendants in

the male line only are given, descendants in the female line being

recorded in the genealogies of the husbands. Thus, if one wishes to

ascertain the descendants of Pilivurch in Table 1, it is necessary to

turn to Table 20 recording the genealogy of Teithi, the husband of this

woman. The names of males are in capital letters, those of females in

ordinary type, and the name of a wife always follows the name of her

husband or husbands. Under the name of each individual is placed, in

italics, the name of the clan to which the individual belongs, or, in

the case of a married woman, of the clan to which she had belonged

before marriage. The names of those now living are given in Clarendon

type, of which Mudrigeidi and Savdur in Table 1 are examples. The

abbreviation i.m. stands for “infant marriage.” The abbreviations d.y.

and d.n.n. stand for “died young” and “died before being named”

respectively. The latter implies that the child died within a few weeks

of birth.

When the names of men are enclosed in square brackets, polyandry, and

when the names of women are so enclosed, polygyny, is indicated.

In the Torres Straits Reports I have shown that there are definite

reasons why the people should have preserved their pedigrees so fully.

The pedigrees are not preserved for amusement nor out of idle interest

in the doings of ancestors or neighbours. In Torres Straits the complex

and far-reaching nature of the marriage regulations form the chief

motive for the preservation of the pedigrees, while the transmission of

property is perhaps of almost equal importance.

Among the Todas we shall see that the marriage regulations are far

simpler than among the Papuans of Torres Straits, and in their case the

chief motive is probably connected with the inheritance of buffaloes,

the only form of property in which the Toda takes much interest. In the

succeeding chapters we shall find several examples of social

transactions in which the knowledge derived from the genealogical

record has determined the issue.

THE VALUE OF THE GENEALOGICAL RECORD

In the succeeding chapters I shall show the value of the genealogies in

working out the nature of the system of kinship and in providing

statistical material for the study of the marriage regulations. The

greater part of my work on the social aspect of the life of the Todas

is based on material derived from the genealogies; or perhaps I should

rather say that most of the information I give has been checked, if not

entirely obtained, by means of the genealogies.

I wish, however, to draw attention here to a far wider use of the

genealogies in anthropological investigation. They bring a concrete

element into anthropological work which greatly facilitates inquiry.

The lower one goes in the social or intellectual scale in mankind, the

greater difficulty is there in dealing with abstractions. The savage

mind is almost wholly occupied with the concrete. Discuss his laws of

inheritance with him, and you probably soon become hopelessly entangled

in misunderstanding. Take a number of concrete cases, and his memory

will enable him to heap instance upon instance showing how property was

inherited in given cases. Similarly, in ceremonies, ask the savage to

give an account of a given ceremony, and he probably omits many

essential points, not because he forgets them, but because they are so

familiar to him that he thinks you, like himself, take them for

granted. Ask him to tell you exactly what A and B did when they

performed a given ceremony, and he forms a mental picture of A and B

going through the ceremony, and tells you exactly what they did and how

they did it. When another individual comes into the ceremony, he too

comes in as a concrete personage, and his sayings and doings are

faithfully recorded.

The Todas are so intelligent that the genealogies were not so essential

an instrument of investigation as was the case in Torres Straits, but

they were nevertheless of enormous value in giving concreteness to the

accounts of the Toda ceremonies. The Todas certainly gave fuller and

more faithful accounts of their ceremonies when they described actual

events, but such descriptions would have been of little value to me if

I had not had my pedigrees as a guide. An account of a Toda funeral,

for instance, with its many dramatis personæ would probably have

baffled my powers of comprehension if I had not had my book of

genealogies for reference.

I always worked with this book by my side whenever I was investigating

any ceremonial in which the social side of life was concerned. I asked

for a description of some ceremony recently performed of which the

memories were fresh. The chief actors in the ceremony were always

mentioned by name; and whenever a name occurred, I looked up the clan

and family of the person in question and noticed his relationship to

other persons who had taken part in the ceremony. The actors in the

ceremony were thus real people to me as well as to my informants, and

the account of the ceremony proceeded with the maximum of interest and

the minimum of fatigue both to myself and to my informants.