[5] The old man on the right in this picture shows a very characteristic Toda attitude, in which a person crouches down completely enveloped in the cloak. [↑]
[6] This salutation has been previously known by its Badaga name, adabuddiken. [↑]
[7] In these names and throughout the text the signs to indicate long vowels are generally omitted. In order to ascertain the exact method of pronunciation, the map or the list of villages in [Appendix III]. should be consulted. [↑]
CHAPTER III
DAIRIES AND BUFFALOES
The milking and churning operations of the dairy form the basis of the greater part of the religious ritual of the Todas. The lives of the people are largely devoted to their buffaloes, and the care of certain of these animals, regarded as more sacred than the rest, is associated with much ceremonial. The sacred animals are attended by men especially set apart who form the Toda priesthood, and the milk of the sacred animals is churned in dairies which may be regarded as the Toda temples and are so regarded by the people themselves. The ordinary operations of the dairy have become a religious ritual and ceremonies of a religious character accompany nearly every important incident in the lives of the buffaloes.
Among the buffaloes held by the Toda to be sacred there are varying degrees of sanctity, and each kind of buffalo is tended at its own kind or grade of dairy by its own special grade of the priesthood; buffaloes and dairies forming an organisation the complexities of which were far from easy to unravel.
Each kind of dairy connected with its special kind of buffalo has its own peculiarities of ritual. The dairies form an ascending series in which we find increasing definiteness and complexity of ritual; increasing sanctity of the person of the dairyman-priest, increasing stringency of the rules for the conduct of his daily life, and increasing elaboration of the ceremonies which attend his entrance upon office. There are also certain dairies in which the ritual has developed in [[39]]special directions, and there are special features of the organisation of buffaloes and dairies not only in each of the two chief divisions of the Toda people, but also in many of the clans of which each division is composed.
I propose in this chapter to sketch some of the chief features of the buffalo and dairy organisation, and in succeeding chapters there will follow detailed accounts of the different dairies and of the ceremonial which accompanies the daily work of the dairy and the important events of buffalo life.