The typical Toda god is a being who is distinctly anthropomorphic and is called a teu. In the legends he lives much the same kind of life as the mortal Toda, having his dairies and his buffaloes. The sacred dairies and the sacred buffaloes of the Todas are still regarded as being in some measure the property of the gods, and the dairymen are looked upon as their priests. The gods hold councils and consult with one another just as do the Todas, and they are believed to be swayed by the same motives and to think in the same way as the Todas themselves.
At the present time most of the gods are believed to [[183]]inhabit the summits of the hills, but they are not seen by mortals. Before the Todas were created, the gods lived on the Nilgiri Hills alone, and then it is believed that there followed a period during which gods and men inhabited the hills together. The gods ruled the men, ordained how they should live and originated the various customs of the people. The Todas can now give no definite account of their beliefs about the transition from this state of things to that which now exists.
Each clan of the Todas has a deity especially connected with it. This deity is called the nòdrodchi of the clan, and is believed to have been the ruler of the clan when gods and men lived together. I am doubtful whether there is at the present time any belief that the nòdrodchi exerts an influence over the clan with which he is connected.
There was no department of Toda lore which gave me greater difficulty than the study of the beliefs about the gods. There was no doubt that two gods stood out pre-eminent among the rest. One was a male deity whose name was Ön, and the other a female deity, Teikirzi. A simple question which I had the greatest difficulty in settling was the relation of these deities to one another. According to one account they were brother and sister; according to another, father and daughter. It seemed quite certain they were not husband and wife, and most probable that they were brother and sister. Others of the gods were believed to be related to one another, but on such points as this I found it almost impossible to obtain trustworthy information. It may have been reticence which made the difficulty, but I do not think so, and am inclined to think that the Todas have now only vague ideas about the histories of their more ancient gods, and have nothing like the definite traditions which they possess about deities of obviously more recent origin.
Sometimes there were discrepancies between different accounts which I could not clear up, and in such cases I give the account which seems to me to be the most trustworthy. [[184]]
Pithi
This god is the earliest of whom any tradition is preserved. His name is Pithi or Püthi, and he is often called Pithioteu. He was born near the sacred dairy of Anto in a cave which had the same shape as the ordinary Toda hut. According to one account, Pithi created Todas and buffaloes, but there seemed to be little doubt that this is not the correct tradition, which assigns the act of creation to his son Ön. There is a suggestive resemblance between the name of this god and the Sanscrit word for earth, Prithivi, which is in common use in Southern India.