Then the people took up the dead body and went on to Kûrûvòrs, near Umgas, where they performed the funeral ceremonies.
In the various complicated ceremonies described in this chapter there are certain features which may be briefly discussed. [[401]]
There is no doubt that the buffaloes killed at the funeral are supposed to go to Amnòdr with the dead person. Sacred buffaloes are only killed at the funerals of men, for they would be useless to women, who, in the next world as in this, have nothing to do with dairies at which the sacred buffaloes must be tended. There is no evidence that the slaughter of buffaloes is in any way a propitiatory sacrifice, and there seems to be a very marked absence of anything resembling prayer or other forms of appeal to higher powers in the funeral ceremonies.[21]
Dairymen take part in the funeral ceremonies, but chiefly in connexion with the sacred buffaloes. The highest kind of dairyman, the palol, has no duties whatever, and loses his office if he takes part merely as a visitor. At Tarthar funerals the wursol has important duties, chiefly connected with the sacred buffaloes and with the mani, which is hung round their necks. He also takes the chief part in the koòtiti and accompanying ceremonies of the second funeral, probably because the sacred tudr bark is used. In one rite there is no obvious reason why the wursol should play a part—viz., in that of throwing earth. As this ceremony, however, is of especial importance, it suggests that formerly dairymen may have had more to do with funeral ceremonies than is the case at present.
Among the Teivaliol, the palikartmokh has less important functions. He probably kills the sacred buffaloes, though on this point I am not certain. Only one Teivali clan possesses a mani which is used at a funeral, and it is noteworthy that, though the bell is removed from its hiding place (see p. [354]) by the palikartmokh, it is taken to the funeral and hung on the neck of the buffalo by a Tarthar man belonging to the Nòdrs clan.
The facts that the wursol takes part in the funerals of men; that sacred buffaloes are killed; that dairies are used in these funerals, and that the funeral hut of a man is always [[402]]called pali or dairy, even when built for the occasion, all bring the funeral ceremonies of men into connexion with the religious dairy ceremonial of the Todas. On the other hand, even in those cases in which a dairy is used as a funeral hut, the dairyman of that dairy has nothing to do with the funeral ceremonies; thus, at Nòdrs the dairy in which the body of a dead man is laid is the tarvali, but the tarvalikartmokh has no duties in connexion with the funeral, and does his dairy work as usual, while it is the dairyman of the conical poh, the wursol who takes an active part in the funeral rites.
The earth-throwing ceremony is of especial interest, because it would seem to be a relic of burial. Earth is thrown three times on the corpse before it is burnt. In connexion with the idea that the ceremony is a relic of a previous stage, in which the Todas buried their dead, it may be mentioned that a ceremony with some points of similarity is performed at the funerals of the Hill Arrians of the Western Ghats,[22] who bury their dead. A man of the same clan as the deceased takes a new cloth and tears from it a narrow strip which he fastens upon himself. He then goes backwards to the place fixed for the grave and digs with a hoe, removing three hoes full of earth. In this ceremony he is said to be calling on the earth to give up six feet for the dead. There is a suggestive resemblance between the ceremonies performed by these two hill tribes of South-west India, which lends some support to the view that the earth-throwing ceremony of the Todas is a relic of inhumation.
It perhaps may be regarded as a fact inconsistent with this view that the earth-throwing ceremony is performed at both funerals, and again the throwing of earth into a buffalo pen is so essential a feature that it is possible the whole ceremony may have some other meaning.
It is tempting to extend the conjecture by supposing that the dead were at one time buried in the tu or buffalo pen, but there is, as far as I know, no evidence that this was ever done by the Todas or by any other Indian tribe. Unless, indeed, the azaram is the representative of a tu, in which case the burial of the ashes at the entrance of the azaram may be [[403]]a survival of a time when the body was buried at the entrance of a pen.