Constellations and Stars
The Todas have names for several stars or constellations. The Pleiades are called Kadsht and the constellation is believed to be composed of six stars.
Another heavenly body which I could not identify is called Keirt. Keirt has already been mentioned in [Chap. XIV]., and it is the evil influence of this body which is chiefly feared after [[594]]childbirth. It is said to be a star which is never present in the same part of the sky as Kadsht. The reason for this is that once Keirt and Kadsht fought together. Kadsht had six men and Keirt only one. Keirt broke the leg of one of the six men, so that now there are five stars close together in the Pleiades and one lags behind. On account of this quarrel Swami ruled that Kadsht and Keirt must never be together, but that when Kadsht is on one side of the sky, Keirt must always be on the other.
When talking about Keirt in connexion with the ceremony of going to the seclusion-hut, it was said that Keirt was near the sun and that the sun was dangerous because Keirt was near it. It seemed that Keirt was always near the sun, which led me to suspect at first that it was Venus. It was quite clear, however, that this was not so. No one could show me Keirt, nor was anyone clear as to the part of the sky in which it was to be seen at any time in the night, and I think it most probable that this mysterious inhabitant of the sky is not a star at all, but a being allied to the Hindu Ketu. On the other hand, at a funeral attended by Samuel, the setting of Kadsht and the appearance of Keirt was taken as the sign that the proceedings of the azaramkedr might begin, which looks as if Keirt was a real heavenly body. I think it is most probable that the whole idea of the injurious influence of Keirt is borrowed from the Badagas, and, if this is the case, the Toda word is probably merely an altered form of Ketu. I was told that Keirt was a Badaga word and that the Badagas feared its influence on women after childbirth.
A group of stars called Pòdimin, or porcupine star, corresponds to the stars in the sword of Orion. They are regarded as a porcupine from which the three stars of the belt are trying to escape.
A constellation of seven stars is called Katikâlmin. From the description it appeared to be the Great Bear. This constellation was not visible, but when I made a drawing of its seven chief stars, it was at once recognised as Katikâlmin.
A single star called Ishtkati is almost certainly Sirius. [[595]]This star was not visible in the evenings during my visit, and at first Jupiter was pointed out to me as Ishtkati, but this was certainly wrong. Ishtkati appeared to correspond to the Badaga etukaḍichi, which means “bull deceiving.” The origin of the name is that one night a Badaga went out from his house and saw a very bright star, so bright that he thought it was the morning star. So he let his bulls out from the enclosure in which he had put them for the night. When a long time passed and it did not become day, the man said, “Let the star be called etukaḍichi.”
A pair of stars to which the Todas give the names of Tûdrvalmokh and Tidiishti are near Aldebaran, forming part of the Hyades (probably γ and ε Tauri). The following story tells how these stars come to be in the sky.
Once on the hills there was a bird with young. The mother went away to get food and a snake came to eat the young ones. When the young birds saw the snake climbing up the tree, they called out to Kudursami, who is above. He heard their cry and took them to the sky. The name of the bird was tûdrval, and so one star is called tûdrvalmokh. The tûdrval still sings “Kudursami trrrrrr.”
According to another version, the bird tûdrval had offended Swami, and as a punishment Swami took its young and they became the two stars.
This story appears to be a well-known Indian folk-tale, and it has certainly been a recent acquisition of the Todas.
It will be seen that there is much reason to believe that the greater part, if not all of the ideas of the Todas about the stars have been borrowed. In their own folk-lore there seems to be very little concerning the heavenly bodies except in the story of the man and the honey, and I even suspect this to be a borrowed legend which has been somewhat modified by Toda ideas.
It is interesting, and I think important, that references to Swami occur in these stars-myths. In an earlier chapter I have given it as my opinion that the idea of Swami has only recently been acquired by the Todas, and I attach importance to the occurrence of the name in legends which have certainly been borrowed from another race. [[596]]