Both Tartharol and Teivaliol have the same names for their buffaloes, and it seemed that a buffalo of any village herd might have the same name as one belonging to the ti. It is possible, however, that certain names may be restricted to the ti herds. I collected some names which occurred only in these herds, but I cannot say positively that they might not also be used for less sacred buffaloes.
Male buffaloes are unnamed and appear to have little or no sanctity even when born of cows of the most sacred herds. The greater number of male calves are either killed at erkumpthtiti ceremonies ([Chap. XIII]) or given away to the Kotas. A few are kept for breeding purposes, usually in the proportion of two to every hundred females.
There is a singular absence of care about the breeding of the buffaloes. The Todas have many herds of which every female has some degree of sacredness, and it might have been expected that the bulls of a sacred herd would have been carefully chosen from the male calves of that herd. So far as I could ascertain after repeated inquiries, there was no restriction of any kind in the mating of the sacred animals; a bull of the ordinary buffaloes (putiir) of a village might even mate with the highly sacred animals of a ti dairy. No importance seemed to be attached to the question of paternity among the buffaloes, and so far as I could ascertain the people were quite indifferent whether the male was related or unrelated to the female, whether of the same or of another herd.
I did not hear of the existence of any ceremonies connected with the chosen male buffaloes. Marshall states[6] that a bull new from one of the sacred ti herds undergoes a process of sanctification before he is permanently installed, [[49]]by being isolated for a day and night in a small pen in the sacred woods of the ti, during which time he is deprived of food, though allowed access to water. Marshall also states that it is permissible to introduce a bull from an ordinary drove “after due sanctification.” Though I failed to obtain definite confirmation of Marshall’s statement, it is possible that something of the kind may at one time have taken place or may even still take place.
At the present time the buffaloes are tended entirely by males, and males only are allowed to take any part either in the work of the dairy or in those dairy operations which are performed in the house. There is a tradition that at one time women attended to the buffaloes at the time of calving, and one incident is recorded in which women performed Cæsarian section on a dying buffalo (p. 78), but this custom has now long ceased to be followed.
The first buffaloes were created by one of the chief Toda gods, Ön, and his wife. The buffaloes created by the male deity were the progenitors of the sacred buffaloes, while the ordinary buffaloes or putiir are descended from those created by the wife. Certain other buffaloes are descended from ancestors created by other gods, but the account of their various creations may be deferred till the chapter containing the legends of the gods. I was told by some that the sacred buffaloes were descended from a sambhar deer, but it was later found that this was only believed to be true of one special group of buffaloes belonging to one clan.
Dairy Procedure
The general plan of the dairy procedure is the same in all dairies, the difference between different dairies lying chiefly in certain formalities accompanying certain stages of the procedure.
The day’s operations begin with the churning of the milk drawn on the previous evening. The milk is poured from the milking-vessels into earthenware pots, and during the night it will have coagulated. The coagulated mass is first broken up by the churn; water and butter already made are added, [[50]]and then the churning is continued till the milk separates into a solid part, which I shall speak of as ‘butter,’ and a liquid, which I shall call ‘buttermilk.’ It must be remembered, however, that these do not correspond to the butter and buttermilk of a European dairy. The milk coagulates before the cream has risen in any quantity, and there is no skimming. The ‘butter’ consists of both the fat and casein of the milk, while the ‘buttermilk’ ought perhaps rather to be called ‘whey.’