In the case of the wursuli, I was especially told that this is the only occasion on which the milk of wursulir is used by people in general. At the kugvali, people of other clans are only given this food on the second day of the proceedings, and the distribution of the food is preceded by a ceremony in which some of the food is thrown into the fire. The milk used on this occasion is the milk of the buffalo which has recently calved, the ceremony being in celebration of this event.
At the wursuli it is noteworthy that the food is cooked by the wursol himself, the ceremony of irpalvusthi being the [[241]]only occasion on which a dairyman of this grade prepares food. Thus, when the milk of the wursulir is used ceremonially as a food by ordinary people, the food is prepared by the dairyman-priest. One feature of the irpalvusthi ceremony is that the work is performed kabkaditi in every dairy, and it is possible that this sign of increased respect is intended to counteract the desecration which is about to take place in the use of the milk by the profane. As I have already pointed out, the irpalvusthi ceremony has a strong resemblance to a sacrificial feast, in which people partake of the sacred animal, but in this case it is the milk of the animal and not the animal itself which is taken.
A further indication of the sanctity of milk is given in the prohibition against the drinking of milk by a widower or widow during a period which, as we shall see later, may extend to many months.
The restrictions on the use of the milk of the sacred animals have the general characters associated with taboos, and the whole daily ritual of the dairy would seem to be designed to remove the taboo. It is possible that at one time the milk of the sacred buffaloes was not used at all, and that these animals only suckled their calves. If then the Todas had begun to milk the sacred buffaloes, it is natural that the milking and churning should have been accompanied by ritual designed to counteract the evils to be expected from the profanation of the sacred substance and the breaking of the taboo. In certain circumstances even now the Todas do not milk their sacred buffaloes, but allow them to suckle their calves only. If a ti dairy, or even one of a lower grade, has no dairyman, the buffaloes are not milked, though they are still tended by some unsanctified person and are kept ready to take their part in the dairy ritual if a dairyman should again be appointed.
Special Dairy Customs
The general method of treating the milk in the dairy procedure seems to be the same as that generally followed in India and other hot countries. The milk is allowed to [[242]]coagulate and the curd is churned. The butter so obtained differs from that of European countries in containing the proteid as well as the fat constituents of milk. This butter is then clarified, but in this respect there is an important difference between the ordinary Hindu procedure and that of the Todas. The usual Hindu method is to heat slowly over a fire without the addition of any other substance. The Todas add grain or rice to the butter before clarification, and this sinks to the bottom of the vessel and forms a substance called by the Todas al, which is one of their chief foods. This deposit of grain or rice will carry down with it some, possibly all, of the proteid constituents, and the al will, therefore, be a nourishing food.
The only other detail in which the Toda procedure is peculiar[3] is in the addition of buttermilk from a previous churning to the newly-drawn milk, the buttermilk or pep being put into the vessel before milking. This addition probably hastens the process of coagulation, but its chief interest is derived from the fact that it has become the nucleus of some of the most interesting features of the dairy ceremonial.
This addition of buttermilk seems to be regarded as forming a thread of continuity in the dairy ritual, and the ceremony of pepkaricha, or making new pep, is held whenever this continuity is broken. The pep is connected with a dairy vessel of the kind called mu, which is buried in the buffalo pen, and if any evil befalls the mu, it is held to be a cause for making new pep—i.e., the usual course of the dairy procedure will be interrupted, in some cases for months.
The buried dairy vessel seems to be linked in some mysterious way with the fortunes of the dairy, and especially with the buttermilk which forms the element of continuity in the dairy procedure. The buried dairy vessel, or mu, is not one which is now generally used to hold buttermilk. There are two kinds of mu in the dairy, one which contains the butter added during the churning, while the other is used, [[243]]partly as a receptacle for the milk which is about to be churned, and partly to fetch water from the stream. It is highly probable that there was at one time a third mu in the dairy, which was a receptacle for the buttermilk added before milking.