If this device is not employed or is unsuccessful the skin of the sacrificed calf is placed on the back of a female calf, and in this way the mother may be induced to suckle the latter. [[287]]When Teitnir performed the erkumptthpimi ceremony for my benefit, he did not succeed in getting the mother to suckle another calf and demanded 60 rupees[6] as compensation for the loss of milk which he would suffer till the buffalo had another calf. When he found that I had no intention of paying this sum, he adopted the second device just described, and this expedient was successful.
The erkumptthpimi ceremony was first mentioned by Harkness (p. 139), who witnessed the sacrifice. The details of the ceremony which he gives agree in general with those observed by myself. He calls the sacrifice “yerr-gompts.” A still more complete account which agrees closely with my own was given by Muzzy in 1844. Breeks mentions the ceremony, as is usual with him, under its Badaga name of kona shastra, and his account contains several features which disagree with those of Harkness, Muzzy, and myself.
I could obtain no satisfactory account of the origin of the sacrifice. Teitnir gave me a circumstantial story of the way in which Kwoto or Meilitars induced the gods to eat the flesh of a male calf. Teitnir stated that when Kwoto was visiting the gods in the form of a kite, and before he had tied down the sun (see p. [206]), he killed a male calf with exactly the same ceremonial as that practised since, and taking some of the flesh threw it into the midst of the gods, saying, “I have brought the flesh; it is sacred flesh; I have partaken of it, and if your counsel is to be right, you must partake of it.” At this the gods were very angry and blamed Kwoto, whereupon he said, “I am not blameworthy; if you blame a man who should not be blamed, why do you not eat flesh which should not be eaten?” Kwoto was then given the task of tying down the sun, and when he succeeded in doing this and had been acknowledged by the gods as their superior, the gods agreed to eat the flesh, and since that time the Todas have sacrificed a male calf, just as Kwoto did, and have eaten the flesh of the calf.
The truth of this account, given by Teitnir, was denied by every other Toda whom I questioned, and I have not therefore included it in the story of Kwoto given in [Chap. IX], but [[288]]I think it is possible that Teitnir was right, and that the denial of the other Todas was due to their reluctance that I should know the real belief about this ceremony. Even if not correct, Teitnir’s account is valuable as a record of an ingenious example of Toda reasoning.
At the ceremony I witnessed there was one feature of some interest. When it was found that the calf had not been killed by the blow with the log of tudr wood, the animal was belaboured over the testicles. This procedure had not been included in the account given to me before the ceremony, and I could not discover how far it is an established custom to kill the animal in this way if it is not killed by the blow. The interest arises from the fact that in the ancient Vedic sacrifices, the animal was killed by stopping its mouth and beating it severely ten or twelve times on the testicles till it was suffocated.[7] I have not been able to discover whether this method of killing an animal is still practised in India. If so, it has probably been borrowed by the Todas; but if not, this ancient Indian method may have been preserved by the Todas. I did not observe that the mouth of the calf was stopped at the sacrifice which I witnessed, but this was probably done.
The Erkumptthpimi Prayer of Kuudr
This consists of clauses of the form Atthkark per ma in which the following kwarzam of villages are mentioned: Atthkâr and Òners (Kuudr), Kidnârs and Toarsòdri (Ars), Moskar and Manêthi (Òdr), Keikòdr and Karsülh (Melkòdr), Kwoteiners and Kwelpushol (Kiudr), Tashtakhkush (Pirsush), Kwotirkwirg (Kwirg), Toarskâria (Karia), Pârners and Tîindeuk (Miuni). These are followed by the final two clauses, karsêram parsêram, Nòtîrzk êr usht mâ.
The chief features of this prayer are that the chief villages of the Kuudrol have each two kwarzam and that two kwarzam of Òdr, a Nòdrs village, are included (see p. [647]). [[289]]