The bone or lime is then buried in a wood near the village of the man who is to suffer the misfortune. [[260]]
When the misfortune comes, and the diviners have discovered its cause, the matter is arranged by a nedrvol as in the other kind of sorcery, and it is usually settled that the sufferer shall give a one- or a two-year-old calf to the sorcerer. When the matter is arranged, the sorcerer visits the village of the bewitched man, who does kalmelpudithti to the sorcerer, and the spell is removed with the following words:—
teu udâsnûdr, an nòdr udâsnûdr; taned peu mâ; term ai peu mâ[5]; mokh son madrik children an to his kûdûpel family elmk; all to; in this mel after en my mans mind elm all tülsvînem cleared from guilt (as I) in uli this well agi be mâ; may; nûv disease put, leave, nudri troubles put leave peu go mâ. may.
The sorcerer is then given food and goes away with his calf, and later he goes secretly and takes the bone or lime out of the ground.
I have already mentioned that these methods of casting and removing spells were obtained with great difficulty and only from one man. This man, Teitnir, was one of the most intelligent of the Todas, but was not a very trustworthy guide. In this case, however, the account he gave was so consistent in itself and with the general character of Toda customs and beliefs that I have no doubt that his methods are those actually in use. It is more than probable, however, that other sorcerers may use other methods, and even that Teitnir’s account is not a wholly accurate description of the methods of any one sorcerer. The other Todas had told me that Teitnir was himself a sorcerer, but even after he had given me the above account, he denied that he had himself magical powers, but said that he had learnt the methods from Ishkievan. I had been told of one instance in which Teitnir had practised sorcery on Teikudr (63), but Teitnir gave a different account of this event. Teitnir and Teikudr had quarrelled and in consequence Teitnir had been angry with Teikudr, a condition which the Todas call murthvichi. Teitnir belonged to the chief family of the Kuudrol, which is known as the mani kudupel; “it is a bad thing for one of so important [[261]]a family to have murthvichi” and any one who has been the cause of such a state of things is liable to suffer misfortunes. When therefore some of Teikudr’s buffaloes died and Teikudr consulted the teuol, these diviners gave as the reasons for the misfortunes the murthvichi, not the piliutvichi, of Teitnir. According to Teitnir, Teikudr was himself a sorcerer and there were reports that the recent death of Teitnir’s wife was due to the piliutvichi of Teikudr, and just before I left the hills, I was told that the teuol had arrived at the conclusion that Teikudr had had a hand in her death.
The Toda sorcerers are not only feared by their fellow Todas but also by the Badagas, and it is probably largely owing to fear of Toda sorcery that the Badagas continue to pay their tribute of grain.
The Badagas may also consult the Toda diviners. In one recent case a Badaga consulted Mongudrvan, who found that the misfortune from which the man was seeking relief was due to the sorcery of Kaners. Kaners was, no doubt, propitiated by the Badagas, and it is probable that the belief of the Badagas in the magical powers of the Todas is turned to good account by the latter.
In some cases Todas have been killed by the Badagas owing to this belief. About ten years ago Pushteidi of Nòdrs (6), the elder brother of Keitan, was a very notable sorcerer, much dreaded by both Todas and Badagas. He visited the Badaga village of Nanjanad on the occasion of a feast, and soon after a Badaga child died and its death was at once ascribed to the sorcery of Pushteidi. Not long after, Pushteidi’s dead body was found near his village, and there seemed to be no reason to doubt that the Badagas had killed him, but owing to the fact that the Todas held the funeral and burnt the body before they made a report to the police, the crime could not be thoroughly investigated nor the murderers brought to account.
One of the events which the Todas ascribe to sorcery is failure of the milk to coagulate. If there is much trouble in getting the milk to form adrpars, the teuol are consulted, and they sometimes find that it is due to sorcery and sometimes [[262]]that some offence against the dairy has been committed. I have no information, however, as to the method which the sorcerer uses to prevent the coagulation of the milk of any one who has offended him.
The only other indication of Toda methods of sorcery came to me from a Badaga source. A Badaga maistri said that he had been given an account by a Toda. According to this account, the sorcerer takes three leaves of each of the plants which the Badagas call jakalmul, pemmul, and tupumul (evidently varieties of the muli of the Todas), puts the nine leaves in a new earthenware pot and buries the pot in a wood after saying certain formulæ in which he wishes evil to a given man whom he mentions by name. When the man falls ill and the diviners say by whom his illness has been produced, a reconciliation is effected and the sorcerer digs up the pot of leaves when the sufferer again becomes well. This information came from a Badaga source and I could not obtain confirmation of it from the Todas but it is possibly an approximation to the method employed in one form of Toda sorcery.