Special Dairy Customs
The general method of treating the milk in the dairy procedure seems to be the same as that generally followed in India and other hot countries. The milk is allowed to [[242]]coagulate and the curd is churned. The butter so obtained differs from that of European countries in containing the proteid as well as the fat constituents of milk. This butter is then clarified, but in this respect there is an important difference between the ordinary Hindu procedure and that of the Todas. The usual Hindu method is to heat slowly over a fire without the addition of any other substance. The Todas add grain or rice to the butter before clarification, and this sinks to the bottom of the vessel and forms a substance called by the Todas al, which is one of their chief foods. This deposit of grain or rice will carry down with it some, possibly all, of the proteid constituents, and the al will, therefore, be a nourishing food.
The only other detail in which the Toda procedure is peculiar[3] is in the addition of buttermilk from a previous churning to the newly-drawn milk, the buttermilk or pep being put into the vessel before milking. This addition probably hastens the process of coagulation, but its chief interest is derived from the fact that it has become the nucleus of some of the most interesting features of the dairy ceremonial.
This addition of buttermilk seems to be regarded as forming a thread of continuity in the dairy ritual, and the ceremony of pepkaricha, or making new pep, is held whenever this continuity is broken. The pep is connected with a dairy vessel of the kind called mu, which is buried in the buffalo pen, and if any evil befalls the mu, it is held to be a cause for making new pep—i.e., the usual course of the dairy procedure will be interrupted, in some cases for months.
The buried dairy vessel seems to be linked in some mysterious way with the fortunes of the dairy, and especially with the buttermilk which forms the element of continuity in the dairy procedure. The buried dairy vessel, or mu, is not one which is now generally used to hold buttermilk. There are two kinds of mu in the dairy, one which contains the butter added during the churning, while the other is used, [[243]]partly as a receptacle for the milk which is about to be churned, and partly to fetch water from the stream. It is highly probable that there was at one time a third mu in the dairy, which was a receptacle for the buttermilk added before milking.
At the especially sacred dairy of Kanòdrs, where ancient procedure is likely to have lingered, the buried mu is still used as a receptacle for buttermilk. When this dairy is unoccupied, a certain amount of buttermilk is kept in the buried mu, and when the dairy is again occupied, this buttermilk is used to add to the milk. In this case the continuity of the dairy procedure is directly kept up by means of the buried vessel, and this procedure of the Kanòdrs dairy is strongly in favour of the view that the buried vessel was formerly a receptacle for the pep.
There are other indications that the mu is the most sacred of the dairy vessels. It is this vessel which is touched by the wursol the kugvalikartmokh of Taradr and the pohkartpol of Kanòdrs, as the final act which gives them their full status at the ordination ceremonies, and we shall see later that in the funeral ceremonies at Taradr a temporary building is made to represent a dairy by placing in its inner room a mu. In this last case, it would seem that the mu is regarded as the emblem of the dairy, and that placing a mu in the inner room of the temporary building makes it a dairy.
The representative of the mu at the ti dairy is the peptòrzum, but it does not seem that this vessel is specially distinguished from the rest, and it does not appear to have the sanctity and importance which attaches to this kind of vessel at the village dairy.
There seem to be two chief possibilities in explaining the existence of the buried mu. It may be that it was at one time the custom to bury the pep while the village was unoccupied, and that this custom now only persists at Kanòdrs, the mu at other places being no longer used for this purpose, though it has continued to be of ceremonial importance. The other possibility is that, as the pep acquired increased importance in the dairy ritual, the sanctity of the buttermilk was transferred to the vessel which contained it, and the [[244]]sanctity of the vessel became so great that it was not thought right to leave it exposed to the dangers it might incur in the dairy, especially in the various migrations, and it was therefore buried in the buffalo pen of the chief village of the clan. It is probable that the custom arose in the way suggested by the procedure of the Kanòdrs dairy, but that the full development of the custom has been largely due to the belief in its special sanctity.
The obscure observance of having a ball of food larger than can be eaten at one sitting occurs twice in the various dairy ceremonials. It is a feature of the ceremonies which the kaltmokh has to undergo on the day after the migration of the Nòdrs ti to Anto, and the superabundant portion of food has also to be eaten by the candidate for the office of palol in the preliminary ceremony called tesherst. In each case the food is of the ceremonial kind called ashkkartpimi. I can offer no suggestions as to the meaning of the observance, nor do I know of any parallel for it.