The Cat.—This animal, which is called koti or kwoti, is domesticated by the Todas. The cat is mentioned in the legend of the tiger recorded in this section, and the earliest writers on the Todas speak of them as keeping these animals. I have seen them on the walls of the dairies, and believe that they are allowed to go wherever they please. The only occasion on which they come into ceremonial is at the erkumptthpimi sacrifice, where the spleen is specially put aside to be given to the cat, and is on this account called kwotinerûf.
The dog occurs in the story of Kwoten and several other animals are mentioned in the prayers and incantations, chiefly as sources of danger to the buffaloes. In the incantation for the relief of headache given on p. [265], the names of many animals are uttered, probably with the intention that their heads may acquire the pain which is being charmed away from the head of the sufferer.
Trees and Plants
The most sacred tree of the Todas is undoubtedly the tudr ([Fig. 58]). This name is given by the Todas to two species, Meliosma pungens and M. wightii, the two trees resembling one another closely.
The bark is largely used in the dairy ceremonial, and especially in the ordination ceremonies of the palol and other dairymen drawn from the Teivaliol and Melgarsol. Its use is especially connected with the people of these sections of the Toda community, but the rest of the Tartharol undergo a ceremony at the second funeral in which tudr is used, and this was said to have the purpose that every Toda should be purified with tudr before he enters on the future life.
A log and leaves of tudr are also used in the ceremony of [[434]]erkumptthpimi, and here it is used by both Teivaliol and Tartharol alike.
FIG. 58.—BOUGH OF THE ‘TUDR’ TREE. (From Marshall.)
The leaves of tudr used in any of these ceremonies must be perfect, and the bark must be knocked off the tree by means of a stone, this being one of the Toda practices which show the persistence of stone implements in ceremonial. The identity of this sacred tree is important, for it may furnish a clue to the home of the Todas. So sacred a tree would almost certainly have been already known to the Todas when [[435]]they reached the Nilgiris, though it is, of course, possible that it might have been chosen on account of its resemblance to some tree sacred in their past history. The tree has, however, a wide distribution in India.