The Todas

by W. H. R. Rivers

PRAYER

In the chapters in which the ritual of the dairies has been described, one of the most important features of the ceremonial has been passed over which must now be fully described. This feature is the prayer which is always offered at certain stages of the dairy operations. In the village dairies, of whatever kind they may be, no prayer is offered at the morning ceremonial. In the evening the prayer of the dairy is recited twice—once when lighting the lamp, and once when shutting the buffaloes in their enclosure for the night, the prayer on this occasion being said in front of the entrance to the pen.

At the ti dairy the palol prays both morning and evening. In the morning he prays when lighting the lamp and after he has finished milking; in the evening prayer is offered on both these occasions, and also when shutting up the buffaloes for the night. The palol also repeats a few clauses when going out to milk. Prayers are said on certain other ceremonial occasions, and clauses from the prayers are frequently uttered during the many ceremonies of the dairy.

At the evening ceremonial of the village dairy the prayer is said when the lamp is lighted, while during the morning ceremonial, at which the lamp is usually not lighted, there is no prayer. This suggests that the prayer is especially related to the lamp-lighting, and that some idea of worship of the light is involved, but occasionally for some special reason, such as unusual darkness, the lamp may be lighted in the morning, and on these occasions the prayer is not used. Nevertheless, the relation between lamp-lighting and prayer [[214]]both at the village and ti dairies has probably some significance, and, taken in conjunction with the undoubted salutation of the sun, it points to some degree of worship of light and its sources which may at one time have formed a more marked feature of the Toda religion than seems at present to be the case.

The prayer when shutting up the buffaloes for the night is common to both ti and village dairies. The night is the dangerous time for Toda buffaloes, which are not infrequently killed by tigers, and the prayer on the occasion of closing the pen is probably designed to promote their safety.

At the prayer uttered at the close of the milking at the ti dairy the palol adopts a special attitude which is shown in [Fig. 28]. He prays leaning on his wand, the pohvet, with his hands crossed over one another. This attitude is not employed in the village dairy, and only on this occasion at the ti dairy.

In all cases the prayer is uttered “in the throat,” so that the words cannot be distinguished by any one who may hear them. Whenever I listened to the recital of a prayer as it was being offered by a dairyman within the dairy, I heard only a gurgling noise in which no words could be distinguished. On one occasion I was allowed to approach the ti dairy at Mòdr while the first prayer was being offered by the palol. I heard the beating on the persin (see p. [92]) which accompanies this prayer, and at intervals in the monotonous sound produced by the voice of the palol there were pauses. As we shall see, the prayer of the ti has certain sections which are distinguished from one another, and it seemed possible that these pauses marked off the different portions of the prayer, but it was clear that this was not the case, the palol only stopping when the necessity for taking a new breath became imperative.

Each village has its own prayer, and so far as I could ascertain this prayer is used in all the dairies of the village; thus I believe that at Taradr the same prayer would be used in both kugvali and tarvali. This is not, however, a point on which I can speak positively, for there was much reluctance to talk about this subject and many of the Todas absolutely [[215]]refused to discuss it. One point seemed quite clear, at any rate among the Teivaliol, viz., that the different villages of a clan had different prayers, though often with many clauses in common.

In general, the prayer of the ti is longer and more elaborate than that of the village dairy. Different prayers are used at different dairies of the same ti, though here again they may have many clauses in common.

In all cases the prayer consists of two distinct parts: a preliminary portion consisting chiefly of names known as kwarzam, followed by a portion which may be regarded as the prayer proper.