The Dairy Organisation
The first distinction to be made concerns the buffaloes. These animals are divided into those of a sacred character and those which may be called ‘ordinary buffaloes.’ The latter are known as putiir; they may be kept at any village, are tended by the men and boys of the village—in Toda language, they are tended by perol, or ordinary persons—and their milk is churned in the front part of the dwelling-hut. There is no special ritual of any kind connected with these buffaloes or with their milk, and there are no restrictions on the use of the milk or its products.
The classification of the sacred buffaloes is very different in the two divisions of the Toda people. The Teivaliol possess only one class of sacred buffalo and these buffaloes are called collectively pasthir. The Tartharol, on the other hand, have several classes of sacred buffalo, and, so far as I could ascertain, they have properly no collective term for all of them, though they are often spoken of by the Teivali term, pasthir.
Possessing only one kind of sacred buffalo, the dairy organisation of the Teivaliol is comparatively simple. The milk of the pasthir is churned in dairies at the more important villages of each clan. The dairy is, in general, called pali,[1] and the dairyman is called palikartmokh, ‘dairy watch-boy,’ or palikartpol, ‘dairy watch-man,’[2] according to his age; but, [[40]]probably owing to the general custom of employing youths or young men to fill the office of dairyman, the term palikartmokh is in far more general use, and is often employed even when the dairyman is an elderly man.
At many of the chief Teivali villages, there are two dairies; a large dairy, called etudpali, and a smaller, called kidpali. Each of these dairies should have its own palikartmokh, and this is still the case when both dairies are used, but at most villages at the present time one of the two dairies has been disused and there is in consequence only one dairyman.
Both ordinary and sacred buffaloes are the property, not of the whole clan, but of families or individuals, and the buffaloes tended at the dairy of a village are, in general, the property of the family living at that village. A large clan with many villages, such as that of Kuudr, has many dairies in working order and a corresponding number of dairymen.
Among the Tartharol the organisation is far more complicated. Most Tarthar clans have more than one kind of sacred buffalo in addition to the ordinary buffaloes or putiir. In every clan there is one kind of sacred herd which may be said to correspond to the pasthir of the Teivaliol. The milk of these buffaloes is churned in a dairy called pali by a dairyman called palikartmokh or palikartpol. There are, however, two grades of dairy corresponding to these buffaloes. The lower grade is called the tarpali, or more commonly tarvali, and is served by a tarvalikartmokh. The higher grade is called kudrpali, tended by a kudrpalikartmokh. There is no distinction of buffaloes corresponding to this distinction of dairies, the same buffaloes being tended sometimes at a kudrpali and sometimes at a tarvali. The distinguishing feature of a kudrpali is the possession of a mani, or sacred bell, and the greater elaboration and stringency of its ritual is due to the presence of this sacred object.
In addition to the buffaloes tended at the tarvali or kudrpali, most Tarthar clans possess other sacred buffaloes called wursulir. These buffaloes are tended by a dairyman called wursol and their milk is churned in a dairy called wursuli or wursulipali. One point which marks off this branch of the dairy organisation from the preceding is that [[41]]the dairyman, or wursol, must belong either to the Teivaliol or to the Melgars clan of the Tartharol. Both tarpalikartmokh and kudrpalikartmokh are chosen from the Tartharol, either of the same or of a different clan from that of the dairy, but the wursol must be taken either from the members of the other chief division of the Todas or from one special clan of the Tartharol, a clan which has many other peculiar privileges and occupies a position in some ways intermediate between Tartharol and Teivaliol.
The ritual of the wursuli is distinctly more elaborate than that of either tarvali or kudrpali, and the wursol is a more sacred personage, so far as one can judge from his rules of conduct and the elaboration of his ordination ceremonies.