Seclusion after Childbirth
Two or three days after childbirth the mother and child go to the seclusion-hut, or puzhars, the same structure being used as after the hand-burning ceremony. Various rites are performed, both when going to and leaving the seclusion-hut, and these have many points in common with those which take place before and after the hand-burning. As in that case, the procedure for the Tartharol differs considerably from that of the Teivaliol.
The general name for the ceremony of going to the puzhars is pòlk pòtha nir utpimi—“to the calf back (or hind quarters) water we pour,” from one of the chief features of the proceedings. The ceremony takes place either in the early morning or in the evening.
FIG. 46.—TERSVELI SITTING AT THE DOOR OF THE ‘PUZHARS’ AT KARIA WITH HER FACE TURNED FROM THE SUN.
The woman who is to be secluded, whether she be Tarthar or Teivali, rubs ashes on her head and face (pûthi adipimi, ashes we rub), and comes out of the ordinary hut in which she has been living since the delivery. She holds over her head a branch of the ‘Nilgiri holly,’[14] which has spreading leaves so that it resembles an umbrella; this leafy umbrella is called tòrikwadr, and the act is called tòrikwadr patipimi, “we hold the umbrella.” The head is also covered with the putkuli. From the moment she leaves the hut the woman is very careful to keep her face turned away from the sun, not on account of its noxious influence, but in order to avoid the star or other body called Keirt, which is supposed to be near the sun. The child is carried in front of the mother by another woman, who also holds a tòrikwadr to shelter the infant from the evil influence of Keirt. Among the Tartharol a small artificial dairy is made, exactly as in the urvatpimi ceremony, and four reeds are cut to represent dairy vessels. [[325]]As the woman walks towards the place where the pülpali has been erected, another woman lays on the ground before her a leaf of kakud on which she puts some threads taken from a madtuni—i.e., the garment worn by the wursol. These threads are called tunikar,[15] and they are taken up by the mother and put in the string round her waist on the right side.[16] Water is then poured by the husband from the imitation patatpun over the hind quarters (pòtha) of a calf, so that it falls into the ertatpun just as in the urvatpimi ceremony. Before the woman drinks this water, three drops of it are put into the mouth of the child and a four-anna piece (panm) into its hand. The mother then drinks three times [[326]]and bows down at the threshold of the imitation dairy, after which she goes into the seclusion-hut. During the whole of the proceedings she is careful not to turn her face towards the sun.
Among the Teivaliol there is no imitation dairy and, as in the urvatpimi ceremony, only two reeds are used as ertatpun. A fire is made on an improvised fireplace of three stones, and lighted by means of thatch brought from the hut,[17] and food is put on a fragment of an earthenware vessel and placed over the fire.
After the woman has drunk of the water which has been poured over the back of the calf, she breaks the earthenware fragment over the fire, saying, Namavku, “to Namav,” this rite being called Namavtur kwudrtpimi, “to Namav we give.” The woman then goes to the seclusion-hut, being assisted by her husband, who now acquires the impurity which is called ichchil, and any one else who touches the woman after this ceremony also becomes ichchil.
I saw the ceremony of going to the puzhars on two occasions, the woman each time belonging to the Teivaliol. The most striking feature of each occasion was the obvious and intense dread of Keirt. In one case, soon after leaving the hut, the woman, Sintagars, called out for another umbrella as she feared that the tòrikwadr was not sufficient to shelter her from Keirt, and during the rest of the proceedings she held over herself both the leafy umbrella and one of the ordinary kind.
I was told that all the chief incidents of the ceremony—the rubbing on of ashes, the holding of the leaf umbrella, the pouring of water over the calf and the giving to Namav—were all designed to avert the evil influence of Keirt, which they call Keirtpudrivuti (see p. [269]).
After the woman has gone to the seclusion-hut she is visited by relatives and friends, who stand at a distance, just as they did after the hand-burning ceremony. They bring rice with them as a present and call out
Marsvut Confined sivn life mikh remaining mokh son (or kugh) (or daughter) udpatia? had you? [[327]]
“Have you had a son (or daughter) and are yet alive?” The visitors then go to the huts of the village and are entertained.
The woman and child stay in the seclusion-hut, accompanied by the husband and by a woman who is usually the assistant at the birth. If the child is not the first, the mother remains in seclusion till a few days before the next new moon, this kind of seclusion being called nâtersper. If the child is the first-born, the stay in the seclusion-hut is longer and is called kadrthersper. In this case the woman stays in the hut till a month has elapsed after the new moon following the birth. Thus Sintagars went into seclusion on Sunday, October 19th, and came out on Thursday, November 27th, 1902, exactly four weeks after the new moon of October 31st.
The proceedings on leaving the seclusion-hut are like those which take place after the seclusion following the urvatpimi ceremony, but with a few additional rites.
Among the Tartharol there is only one ceremony, called marthk maj atpimi, in which a buffalo is milked on the morning of the day by a Melgars man. Before the woman drinks the milk in the evening, another woman lays threads of tuni on leaves of kakud, and puts them on the ground before the mother, who puts them in the right side of her waist-string as when going to the seclusion-hut. After returning to the hut the woman drinks Melgars buttermilk and eats food cooked in Melgars buttermilk in exactly the same way as after the hand-burning ceremony.
Among the Teivaliol the return to ordinary life takes place in two stages, as after the hand-burning ceremony. The woman first goes to the aliars, or to the hinder part of the merkalars, after drinking water, which has been supposed to be turned into milk by pretended milking from a pregnant buffalo. I saw this ceremony on one occasion ([Fig. 47]) when the pretended milking was done by a small boy, Pongudr (52), and the supposed milk was poured into the leaves and given to the mother by a woman who had not been present in the seclusion-hut with her. The person who pretends to milk the pregnant buffalo becomes ichchil by doing so, and the reason [[328]]why a young boy was chosen for this office was that the adult members of the family might escape the disabilities attendant on this condition. On this occasion especial care was taken that the mother should sit facing the sun during the ceremony. She at first sat down with her face turned away from the sun, and she was made to turn round, so that she directly faced it. This was the exact opposite of the procedure followed when going to the seclusion-hut.
FIG. 47.—SINTAGARS DRINKING AT THE ‘MARTHK MAJ ATPIMI’ CEREMONY. THE BOY, PONGUDR, IS SITTING BEHIND HER.
After being in the aliars or merkalars for a week there follows the ceremony of marthk maj atpimi, which is the same as that after the urvatpimi ceremony, with the addition that a representation of a hut is made with five or six sticks of [[329]]the kind called kwadrikurs. A boy goes within the imitation hut with a brass vessel (achok), and coming out gives this to the woman, who bows down (nersatiti) with her child at the threshold of the imitation hut. She then takes butter and buttermilk which have been placed by the palikartmokh on fire-brands (see p. [318]). After taking the mixture the woman goes to the dwelling-hut and resumes her ordinary duties.
It is the custom for everyone present on this occasion to give the child a four-anna piece (panm), and near relatives may often give more. A small loincloth (tadrp) provided with a pocket called terigs is put round the child, and into this pocket the money is put, this action receiving the name of terigs katpimi, or “we tie the terigs.” I did not hear of this pocket in any other ceremonies, and, so far as I know, it is only made in the tadrp used on this occasion, or if a constant feature of the tadrp, it has no other ceremonial use. So far as I am aware, the representation of a house is only used by the Teivaliol, while the imitation dairy made on going to the seclusion-hut after hand-burning and childbirth is only made by the Tartharol.
It is tempting to suppose that the water poured in these ceremonies from an imitation dairy vessel over the back of a calf is regarded as milk, and if this is so, the drinking of milk, real or fictitious, would be the essential feature of all these ceremonies. Further, the conjecture is natural that the drinking is designed to promote the formation and flow of milk in the woman. It is perhaps in favour of this that in the ceremony after childbirth, when this motive would be especially important, the water is poured over the hind-quarters of the calf and not over the middle of its back, as in the earlier ceremony. But if the promotion of lactation is the leading motive of the ceremonies, it is difficult to see why a buffalo in full milk should not have been chosen instead of a two-year-old calf.
It is possible that there is some reason why an adult buffalo should not be used on such an occasion, and that a calf is used as a substitute, and, on the whole, the view that some features of the ceremonies had their origin in the motive [[330]]suggested is the most probable one; but this can only be conjecture, for it is, I think, quite clear that the ceremonies have now become purely ritual, and are performed with no other reason than that they are prescribed by custom.
The use of an artificial dairy among the Tartharol, however, has almost certainly a deeper meaning. It is a striking fact that a pregnant woman and one soon after childbirth should have relations with a dairy, even if only artificial, when in ordinary life they have nothing to do with it or its ceremonial. Still more remarkable is the fact that a Tarthar woman after childbirth puts round her waist threads from the garment worn only by dairymen, a garment which has a distinctly sacred character. If this were done only in the case of a male child, it might be supposed that the idea is one of initiation into the life connected with the dairy, but the artificial dairy after the hand-burning ceremony is made when the sex of the child is unknown, and, so far as my information goes, the use of the dairy and the threads from the tuni occurs after the birth of either a boy or girl. It is possible that the ceremonial observances are relics of a time when women had more to do with the dairy and its ritual than they have at present; or it may be that contact with the sacred objects, real or fictitious, is held to neutralise in some way the dangerous nature of pregnant and parturient women.
There is some reason to believe that the material of which the tuni is made is the same as that of the ancient clothing of the Todas, the cloth called än. As we shall see later, the än is still used in the funeral ceremonies, and it is possible that the threads of tuni are used in these ceremonies as relics of the ancient clothing of the Todas, and that they are obtained from the madtuni because it is the most convenient way of obtaining the ancient material. If this had been the motive, however, I think the word än would almost certainly have been used, as it still is in the funeral ceremonies. Nevertheless, this remains as a possible alternative explanation of the use of a sacred dairy garment by a woman after childbirth.
A further mysterious feature of these ceremonies is that [[331]]the two rites which seem to bring women into special relation with the dairy are limited to the Tartharol. If these rites be regarded as relics of a time when women had more to do with dairy operations than at present, the possibility follows that this former function of women was limited to one division of the Todas.
I could obtain no explanation of the meaning of the word pülpali, used for the imitation dairy made in the Tarthar ceremonies. Püli means tamarind, and in a ceremony of the Nairs of Malabar called pulikati, performed in the ninth month of pregnancy, the woman drinks tamarind juice.[18] It is possible that the two ceremonies have a common origin, the only indication of which in the Toda ceremony lingers in the name of ‘tamarind dairy.’ It is, however, possible that the dairy is so called because it is made on the outskirts of the village, though I do not know definitely that the word pül would be used for outskirts in this special sense.