The Kaltmokh
The kaltmokh is usually a boy, but he may occasionally continue to hold office till he is about twenty years of age. He must belong either to the Teivaliol or to the Melgarsol. He is a general assistant to the palol, and has also certain definitely assigned duties, such as giving buttermilk to the palol and blowing the horns at night. He also takes part in several important ceremonies.
When away from the dairy and its immediate surroundings he wears an ordinary cloak, but always with his right arm outside. When engaged in his work at the dairy or in the pül of the ti, he must be naked except for the kuvn. When he has been away from the ti he may not return by the path used by the palol, but must use a special path, carrying the cloak folded and hung over his shoulder. At the Mòdr dairy, however, I noticed that the kaltmokh sometimes kept his cloak in a tree just outside the ti mad, and then went in and out by the same path as the palol.
The kaltmokh sleeps in the same hut as the palol, from whom he receives his food. When there are two palol and only one kaltmokh, the two dairymen divide the duty of feeding the boy between them.
The kaltmokh never goes into the dairy, but he may put his hand into the outer room to take out those vessels which he is allowed to touch. He may never touch the vessels of the inner room.
There are two grades in the office of kaltmokh, a lower called perkursol and a higher called tunitusthkaltmokh or full kaltmokh. The latter wears a piece of tuni called petuni on the left side of the string (kerk) supporting the perineal cloth.
The perkursol is allowed to go to certain places and do certain things which are not allowed to the full kaltmokh. Whenever it is necessary that the kaltmokh should do any of [[106]]the forbidden things, or even if he is likely to be in such a position that he may have to do these things, he becomes perkursol. This he does by throwing off the petuni and dipping one leg either into the pool of water called tarupunkudi (see p. [177]) or into the dairy stream (pali nipa) of an ordinary dairy (if he dipped his leg into the ars nipa, or part of a stream used for ordinary household purposes, he would at once lose his office entirely and become an ordinary person). As soon as he has dipped his foot, he becomes perkursol and may do the following things summed up in the general expression tarskwarârkûdthodi. He may pass a village where there is a woman in the seclusion-hut (puzhars), or where the relics of the dead are being kept between the two funeral ceremonies; he may go to a place where the people have been in communication with a village in which either of these conditions exist; he may pass a river by a bridge, and he may go to the wursuli of a Tarthar village. If the full kaltmokh does any of these things, even unwittingly, he would at once become an ordinary person (perol). The kaltmokh degrades himself to the rank of perkursol even when there is merely the danger that he may infringe any of the restrictions; thus, one day when there was a woman at Karia who was in seclusion after childbirth, the kaltmokh at Mòdr, Katsog (55), was going to the hut of the forest guard near Paikara. He would not have to pass Karia, but there was a chance that the forest guard might have been in communication with the people of Karia, and therefore Katsog became perkursol. A perkursol is regarded as of the same rank as a wursol, and the people spoke of perkursol as a ti word for wursol—i.e., a wursol at the ti was called perkursol, just as a madth (churn) at the ti was called kòghlag. In order to regain his rank as full kaltmokh, the perkursol has to perform the same ceremony as that which takes place at the end of the ordination to this office (see [Chap. VII]).
While the kaltmokh is degraded to the rank of perkursol he may not touch any dairy vessels; he may not pour buttermilk for the palol, nor may he blow the horns—i.e., he may do none of the more important and sacred duties of his office. [[107]]