The Madnol and Palinol
The madnol is literally the village day. Each village has its madnol, and in some cases it would seem that different villages of a clan might have different madnol, but in general the madnol is the same for the whole clan.
Certain things may not be done on the madnol:—
(i) ponkisthògadi, a feast may not be given (lit. feast may not divide, i.e., food must not be shared out).
(ii) kêdrvîtògadi, funeral ceremonies may not be performed.
(iii) kwadrtògadi, nothing may be given (from the village). Since buying implies the departure of money from the village, a secondary consequence is that nothing may be bought on the madnol, but if anything is given to an inhabitant of the village, he may bring it into the village on this day. [[406]]
(iv) Women may not leave the village, nor may women from other places come to the village.
(v) The people may not bathe nor cut their nails on the madnol, and the men may not shave. Clothes may not be washed, nor may the usual cleansing of the house with buffalo-dung be done. The ordinary meals may be prepared, but the people must not cook rice with milk.
(vi) The stone called tukitthkars may not be touched.
(vii) The dairyman may not leave the village, and the ordination ceremonies of a dairyman may not take place on this day.
(viii) The people may not migrate from one village to another, nor may the buffaloes be taken from one place to another.
Among the Teivaliol the madnol is the only sacred day of the week, but among the Tartharol there is also a dairy day or palinol, and if there is more than one dairy there may be one such holy day for each kind of dairy, each named after the dairy, the wursulinol, the kudrpalinol, or the tarvalinol. Similarly, Taradr has a kugvalinol and Kanòdrs a pohnol.
On these days milk and ghi may not be given out from the dairy, nor may they be sold. Butter and buttermilk may be distributed, but only to the people of the village. Buffaloes may not be driven on these days. Women may not leave the village, though women of other villages are allowed to come. Cleansing with buffalo-dung must not be done. There was some difference of opinion as to whether money might leave the village on these days. Some said not, but it seemed clear that at Kars money might be taken from the village on the palinol. The rules were said to be the same for the holy days of all kinds of dairy.
There are various recognised methods of evading the rules for the holy days, and of avoiding the inconvenience which the regulations might entail on a village.
Money may be taken out of the village on the day before the madnol and buried or left in some spot where it can be found on the following day, so that if there is an urgent reason why a purchase should be completed on the holy day this can be done. [[407]]
Similarly, women who wish to leave the village on a holy day do so before daybreak. They wait outside the village till the sun is up, then return to the village, have their meals and do any necessary work, and may then leave. Having left the village before daybreak, a woman is apparently regarded as ceremonially absent during her return to the village, and by making this false start she is held to be keeping the law.
If there is an urgent reason why a woman from another village should come on a madnol, she must arrive after sunset.
If any of these rules are broken, the culprit may have to perform the ceremony of irnörtiti or one of the other allied rites. It seemed quite clear, however, that this only happened if some misfortune should befall the offender, his family, or his buffaloes. It would seem that a man might habitually and notoriously desecrate the madnol, but no steps would be taken by himself or the community so long as things went well with the man. If he should become ill or if his buffaloes should suffer in any way, he would consult the diviners and they would then certainly find that his misfortunes were due to his infringement of the laws connected with the sacred days.
As a matter of fact, it does not happen, so far as I could find, that anyone habitually infringes the laws, and breaking the madnol or palinol rarely forms an occasion for the irnörtiti ceremony.