SACRED PLACES AND OBJECTS
The Todas show undoubted signs of reverence to various material objects. Many of the objects so reverenced have been mentioned incidentally in the account of the dairy ritual and in other places, and in this chapter I propose to consider how far these objects are regarded as sacred, and to give an account of some sacred objects not hitherto noticed.
Of the various objects of reverence the following are the most important: hills and rivers; villages, dairies, their thresholds and contents; bells; the buffalo and its milk; trees and plants; the sun, fire and light; and stones.
Hills and Other Places.
Any place connected with the gods is reverenced by the Todas, and this is especially the case with the hills where they dwell. Only some hills, however, are shown reverence by means of the kaimukhti salutation. One of these is the hill of Nòtirzi (Snowdon), and every Toda visiting this hill salutes with hand to forehead in all directions. Another place where a similar salutation is performed is a spot at Avalanche Top. When I visited this place with Kutadri he saluted in all directions with both hands to his face, and told me that a man who once omitted to do this was killed soon after by a tiger. In this case I could not learn that Kutadri was saluting any particular hill or other spot. He seemed to be saluting the region of the Kundahs on which he was about to enter. [[418]]
There are doubtlessly other places where the same sign of reverence is used.
The sanctity of the hills will be further considered in the next chapter, when discussing in what sense at the present time the gods are believed to dwell on their summits.