At the especially sacred dairy of Kanòdrs, where ancient procedure is likely to have lingered, the buried mu is still used as a receptacle for buttermilk. When this dairy is unoccupied, a certain amount of buttermilk is kept in the buried mu, and when the dairy is again occupied, this buttermilk is used to add to the milk. In this case the continuity of the dairy procedure is directly kept up by means of the buried vessel, and this procedure of the Kanòdrs dairy is strongly in favour of the view that the buried vessel was formerly a receptacle for the pep.
There are other indications that the mu is the most sacred of the dairy vessels. It is this vessel which is touched by the wursol the kugvalikartmokh of Taradr and the pohkartpol of Kanòdrs, as the final act which gives them their full status at the ordination ceremonies, and we shall see later that in the funeral ceremonies at Taradr a temporary building is made to represent a dairy by placing in its inner room a mu. In this last case, it would seem that the mu is regarded as the emblem of the dairy, and that placing a mu in the inner room of the temporary building makes it a dairy.
The representative of the mu at the ti dairy is the peptòrzum, but it does not seem that this vessel is specially distinguished from the rest, and it does not appear to have the sanctity and importance which attaches to this kind of vessel at the village dairy.
There seem to be two chief possibilities in explaining the existence of the buried mu. It may be that it was at one time the custom to bury the pep while the village was unoccupied, and that this custom now only persists at Kanòdrs, the mu at other places being no longer used for this purpose, though it has continued to be of ceremonial importance. The other possibility is that, as the pep acquired increased importance in the dairy ritual, the sanctity of the buttermilk was transferred to the vessel which contained it, and the [[244]]sanctity of the vessel became so great that it was not thought right to leave it exposed to the dangers it might incur in the dairy, especially in the various migrations, and it was therefore buried in the buffalo pen of the chief village of the clan. It is probable that the custom arose in the way suggested by the procedure of the Kanòdrs dairy, but that the full development of the custom has been largely due to the belief in its special sanctity.
The obscure observance of having a ball of food larger than can be eaten at one sitting occurs twice in the various dairy ceremonials. It is a feature of the ceremonies which the kaltmokh has to undergo on the day after the migration of the Nòdrs ti to Anto, and the superabundant portion of food has also to be eaten by the candidate for the office of palol in the preliminary ceremony called tesherst. In each case the food is of the ceremonial kind called ashkkartpimi. I can offer no suggestions as to the meaning of the observance, nor do I know of any parallel for it.
Purity and Impurity
The idea of ceremonial purity is one running through the whole of the dairy rites. Many of the details of the ritual, the purification of new vessels and of dairies revisited after a period of disuse, the ordination ceremonies of the dairyman, the elaborate ceremonies accompanying the making of new pep, all show a very deeply engrained idea that men and things have in themselves some degree of impurity, and that in order to be made fit for the service of the gods, they must be purified and sanctified by appropriate ceremonies.
As regards man two grades of impurity are recognised: (i.) the impurity of the ordinary man which is perhaps an absence of ceremonial purity rather than actual impurity; and (ii.) the special impurity which is the result of certain events and especially of those accompanying birth and death.
The impurity of the ordinary man does not prevent him from visiting the dairies of the lower grade, but it prohibits him from taking any part whatever in the actual dairy operations. With certain exceptions, he is rigorously excluded [[245]]from actual contact either with dairies or dairymen of the higher grades. He is perhaps regarded as unsanctified rather than impure. The definite impurity which is the condition of those who have attended funeral ceremonies or have been in relation with a woman in the period of seclusion after childbirth is something very different. Such a man is not merely unsanctified, he is unfit to hold any sacred office; even the prolonged ceremonies of ordination would not fit him to hold office in the dairy or to perform any part in the tendance of the sacred buffaloes, and he is not allowed even to approach the members of the higher grades of the dairyman-priesthood.