When the Kanòdrs people ran away there remained behind one old man called Muturojen and his wife Muturach,[4] who were living in a village near Kanòdrs called Mîtâhârzi. When the people left, the old man went to the Kanòdrs dairy to churn the milk left there by those who had run away, and he stayed there, sleeping in the kwotars or calves’ hut, as the dairyman should do at Kanòdrs. His wife used to come every day as far as a place called [[196]]Pîtipem, where she rubbed a place with buffalo-dung and sat down.
While sitting there one day an eagle (kashk) sat on her head, and she became pregnant, and went back to the village and gave birth to a son. When Kwoten heard of this he wished to kill the child and set out to do so. The old woman’s daughter, who had married a Kars man, sent her husband to warn her parents that Kwoten was coming to kill them. The Kars man met Kwoten and ran away from him towards Kanòdrs, followed by Kwoten’s dog. When he came to a hill above the village he called out that Kwoten was coming. When the old man heard him, he cursed Kwoten and those with him; the latter became stones and Kwoten himself (according to the story as told by the Kanòdrs people) was stung by honey bees and died. The people of Kanòdrs are descended from the son born to the old woman. If this old woman was not a Toda, as her name and that of her village suggest, this would seem to point to a tradition that the people of Kanòdrs are descended from an ancestor of a different race from the other Todas (see p. [640]).
Owing to the behaviour of Kwoten to the Kanòdrs people there has ever since been karaivichi (trouble) between the people of Pan and Kanòdrs. They do not intermarry and no Kanòdrs man may go to one of the chief villages (etudmad) of the Pan people nor may a Pan man go to an etudmad of Kanòdrs.
According to the above account Kwoten died after being cursed by the old man, but this is only a feature of the story as told by the Kanòdrs people, and in the account given by others Kwoten had many other adventures and finished his life in this world in a very different manner. He married a second wife, who, like the first, objected to her husband and preferred a man of Keradr, whose name was Keradrkutan. Kwoten lived with this wife at Kazhuradr, near Isharadr. At that time women wore the garment called än, which is dark grey like the tuni of the palol, and is now only used as a funeral garment. [[197]]
Keradrkutan used frequently to come to Kazhuradr, and this vexed Kwoten, who told his wife to have nothing to do with the man. She encouraged Keradrkutan, however, and this vexed Kwoten so much that he took off her än and brought a thorny bush called peshteinmul and beat her all over with the bush, so that she became covered with blood. Kwoten at this time wore the garment called tuni, which he then took off, dipped it in water, and rubbed it all over his wife so that she became the colour of tuni, and then he gave her back her än and went to his dairy. While he was in the dairy Keradrkutan came stealthily to the village. When the woman saw Keradrkutan she cried very bitterly and said, “Kwoten has beaten me very severely so that I shall die; come and see me.” When Keradrkutan went into the hut, the woman died.
Before this time, when Kwoten was one day beating his wife, she abused him, saying, “Talrs ti oditha vai, Kòlrs kûv oditha vai; en puspad”—“You have no ti, you have no Kotas: why do you beat me?” This was to reproach Kwoten because the Pan people had no ti buffaloes and had no Kotas to make things for them. So Kwoten went and complained to his brother Teikuteidi. Teikuteidi was very sorry, and in order to remove the reproach he persuaded Elnâkhum of Nòdrs to give certain buffaloes of the kind called unir from the Nòdrs ti. Elnâkhum gave a two-year-old calf (pòl) and a one-year-old calf (kar), and also two bells (mani) to put on their necks. The two bells were called Tarskingg and Takhingg. The calves were then standing at Kuladrtho and were taken by Kwoten to the tars poh of Pan. He tied the two bells to one of the calves called Kazhi. These bells ought properly to have been tied to the buffalo called Enmars which remained behind at Kuladrtho. Then Enmars went to Anto and complained as follows:—
“kî mêdr, “inferior neck, kî kevi, inferior ear, ninkûtth to your council pòrâni”[5] I will not come”
i.e., “I will not come to your presence with naked neck and [[198]]ear.” Anto told him not to grieve because he had lost the mani, and that instead
Melgarsol Melgars man teirpülk pül of Anto to mudâ mâ in front go may nî pud you come Antosh at Anto pep ûn pep drink
i.e., “When you go to Anto, a Melgars man shall go in front of you to the pül of Anto; when you come to Anto you shall drink pep.” To this day, when the buffaloes of the Nòdrs ti go in procession to Anto a Melgars man goes in front and the buffalo called Enmars drinks pep at Anto. At the same time Anto prophesied to Enmars that a misfortune would befall Teikuteidi, saying