The Palikartmokh
The ceremony of ordination of the palikartmokh is called pelkkodichiti and very often muliniròditi, the latter being derived from the muli leaves used in the ceremony. The ordination may take place on Sunday, Wednesday, or Saturday. On the day before the ceremony the candidate goes to the dairy, takes his food there, and sleeps at night in the outer room. His food is prepared and given to him either by the outgoing palikartmokh or by some other man holding this office.
On the morning of the ceremony the candidate washes his hands in the pali nipa and goes to the front of the dairy, having a piece of the ordinary mantle round his waist. The assisting palikartmokh will have placed a small piece of the dark cloth called tuni on the threshold of the dairy, this small piece being called petuni. The candidate bows down (nersatiti), as in [Fig. 20], at the threshold to the petuni, which he then raises to his forehead and puts in the string of his kuvn on the left side.
The candidate then plucks seven leaves of the kind called muliers—i.e., leaves of a plant called muli (Rubus ellipticus). This plant is also often called pelkkodsthmul, after the ceremony in which it is used. He also plucks a handful of young shoots or nan of the same plant, and takes the leaves and shoots to the dairy stream. At the stream he pounds the shoots with water on a stone, takes up some water from the stream with the pounded shoots, drops this water into one of the leaves three times, raises the leaf to his forehead, drinks (see [Fig. 34]), throws the leaf over his head and puts the shoots down on one side. When he squeezes the water from the shoots into the leaf-cup he holds the former in his right hand and the latter in his left, but when about to raise the leaf-cup to his forehead and drink he transfers it to his right hand. The candidate then takes a fresh piece of the pounded shoots and repeats with a second leaf, and so on till the seven leaves are [[146]]finished, throwing the leaf over his head in each case after drinking.
He then takes all the pounded shoots which he has placed on one side, dips them in water, rubs them over his face and body three times, and puts them in his back hair, whence they are allowed to drop anywhere. In the only case in which I saw this ceremony I noticed that they remained in the hair till the end of the day.
FIG. 34.—PUNATVAN (53) DRINKING DURING HIS ORDINATION AS ‘PALIKARTMOKH’ OF KARIA.
The candidate then goes to the dairy, bows down at the threshold as in [Fig. 20], and enters. If there are two rooms, he bows down in the same way at the threshold of the inner room. If there is a mani, he salutes it (kaimukhti) with hand to forehead. He next bows down to the patatmar and to the ertatmar, and finally touches a vessel of the ertatmar, usually the majpariv, and a vessel of the patatmar, the patat, and by doing this becomes a full palikartmokh. He proceeds to light the fire and the lamp and goes to milk the buffaloes. [[147]]
There are a few small points in which the ordination of a Teivali dairyman differs from that of the Tartharol. The Teivaliol use three pieces of the grass called kakar, with which the candidate sweeps the threshold of the dairy before bowing down and entering, the grass being left on the threshold. Among the Teivaliol also the place of the petuni may be taken by the special kind of cloth called twadrinar, which is manufactured by the Todas, and in the case in which I saw the ceremony, the candidate wore this instead of petuni. The Tartharol must use petuni.
In the only case in which I saw this ceremony the ordination was to a Teivali dairy and the candidate was completely naked except for the kuvn. The Tarthar tarpalikartmokh wears part of an ordinary mantle as a loincloth during his ordination. The ceremony is the same for the kudrpalikartmokh as for the tarvalikartmokh, except that the former is quite unclothed except for the kuvn and that he alone has a mani to salute.