The Dairy
There are two forms of Toda dairy. One resembles very closely the ordinary hut, and, but for its situation and the higher wall which surrounds it, it might often be supposed to be one of the huts. The vast majority of dairies are now of this form. The other kind of dairy is circular with a conical roof. There are now only three or four of these buildings in existence, though others have only fallen into ruins in recent times. Breeks, who wrote in 1873, says[4] that at that time there were four, and a fifth in ruins.
The best known of these dairies is that at Nòdrs (the Manboa of Breeks), shown in [Fig. 13]. It has received the name of “the Toda Cathedral,” and is one of the show places of the Nilgiris. Another (shown in [Fig. 25]) is at Kanòdrs (the Mutterzhva of Breeks). Both are village dairies of especial sanctity; the Nòdrs building is in full working order, while that of Kanòdrs is only occupied occasionally. A third dairy of the conical form is at the ti place of Anto near Sholur (the Kiurzh of Breeks) and should be regularly visited once a year, though the year in which I was on the Nilgiris was an exception. The fourth dairy of the kind (called by Breeks Tarzhva) is at Tarsòdr on the Kundahs. It is also a ti dairy, but is now falling into ruins, having been disused for about twenty years. The ruined dairy mentioned by Breeks (Katedva) is said to be still in the same condition. It was used as a ti dairy, and is near Makurti Peak.
There is no doubt that conical dairies were at one time more numerous. There was one at the ti place of Enòdr, not far from Ootacamund. There was another at the village of Kars, and the circular wall which once surrounded the dairy still remains, and has been converted into a buffalo pen.
FIG. 13.—THE CONICAL DAIRY OF NÒDRS. THE STONE AT THE RIGHT-HAND END OF THE WALL IS THE ‘TEIDRTOLKARS’ (see p. [439]).
The various names given to the Toda dairies are at first sight very confusing. We have already seen that each kind of dairy is named according to the kind of buffalo connected with it—according to its position in the dairy-series connecting tarvali with ti. Each dairy has also its own special or individual [[45]]name; thus the kudrpali of Kars is called Tarziolv, and the wursuli of the same village, Karziolv.
In addition to these two sets of names, there is another distinction of a more general kind. There are two general names, poh and pali, and every dairy is one or other of these. The former name is given to every ti dairy, to every dairy of the conical form,[5] and to certain other dairies at the older and more important villages. Some of the latter are ordinarily called pali, but the name poh lingers in the name employed for the dairies in prayer (see [Chapter X]), or in the individual names of the dairies; thus the dairy at the ancient village of Nasmiòdr is ordinarily called a pali, but its individual name is Tilipoh. I think it probable that originally poh and pali were the names of the two forms of dairy, the conical kind being called poh and the ordinary kind pali. At the present time every existing conical dairy is a poh, and every dairy which is said to have been in the past of the conical form is called poh. It seems probable that in many cases a dairy, originally of the conical form, has been rebuilt in the same form as the dwelling-hut, owing to the difficulty and extra labour of reconstruction in the older shape; and that in some of these cases the dairy of the new form has retained the name of the old and is still called poh, at any rate on certain occasions. All the dairies to which the name poh is ever given are either ti dairies or are situated in villages of especial antiquity and sanctity.
There is now no definite rule as to the grade of dairymen who shall serve at a dairy called poh. The poh of a ti is, of course, occupied by a palol and kaltmokh. The conical poh of Nòdrs, the old conical poh of Kars, and several old dairies which are still called poh in the prayers are, or were, tended by dairymen of the rank of wursol, while several poh of the ordinary shape belonging to the Teivaliol are occupied by dairymen called palikartmokh. The only place at which the dairyman takes his name from the poh is Kanòdrs, where the conical dairy is occupied by a pohkartpol. [[46]]
FIG. 14.—THE LOWER PART OF THE CONICAL DAIRY OF NÒDRS, WHICH IS HIDDEN BY THE WALL IN [FIG. 13]. THE ‘WURSOL’ IS SHOWN EATING ‘AL’ FROM A LEAF-PLATE.
There is a considerable degree of uniformity in the orientation of dairies of all grades. The doors usually face in an easterly direction, and in the majority of those I observed the door faced north of east, the most frequent direction being some point between east and north-east. In one case, that of the ti poh at Mòdr, the door of the dairy faces south-east; but in front of the door there is a screen, and on leaving [[47]]his dairy the palol always turns to the left, so that he faces north-east as he goes towards his buffaloes. In a few dairies the door faces directly west, and, according to Breeks, this is the case at the conical dairy of Anto.