Three horns are kept in the sleeping-hut of the Nòdrs ti. Two belong to the tiir, and are called Kiûdrkûdr and Pudothkûdr. The third belongs to the warsir, and is called Teigun. (For the origin of these horns see the story of Korateu or Kuzkarv in [Chap. IX].)
One feature of the ti poh at Mòdr, which is certainly not [[116]]general, is the presence of a screen in front of the door. The effect of this screen is to protect the palol from the gaze of the ordinary Todas when they are standing in their appointed place. When I visited Mòdr I was allowed to go into the enclosure where the buffaloes are milked, but this privilege was not accorded to my Toda guides, and in consequence I was often able to observe the doings of the palol when they were hidden from my guides by the screen.
The wars poh, on the other hand, has no such screen, but the wall surrounding this dairy is much higher than at the ti poh and effectually screens the palol from the public gaze. The door of the wars poh faces between north and north-east, and that of the ti poh south-east, but owing to the presence of the screen the palol has on coming out to turn to the left, and therefore faces north-east when saluting.
The Kars Ti
The following story gives the traditional origin of the ti mad at Makârs, one of the chief places of the Kars ti, but I could not ascertain definitely whether it was supposed to give the origin of the ti as a whole or only of the ti mad at Makârs. The story runs that Anto created buffaloes, one of which came to Makârs, where a tudr tree was standing. The buffalo rubbed against the tree and part of the bark came off, and that is why the place became a ti. When the buffalo found that there was no palol at Makârs and no kaltmokh, it was very angry and raged about furiously. While it was doing this, it jumped some stones and fell into the river called Kitheri, and it also jumped a stream called Warwar. In spite of its falling into the river, however, it did not die, but got out and pushed stones together with its horns so as to make a tu. Later a dairy was built near the tudr tree. Whether this was the origin of the ti or only of the ti mad of Makârs, it seemed quite clear that the Kars ti is believed to be one of the very early institutions of the Todas. Its two ancient places were Enòdr and Makârs. At each there were two dairies, and one [[117]]at least of those at Enòdr was of the conical variety and had the special name of Medrpoh. Enòdr has now fallen into disuse. It was a few miles to the north-east of Ootacamund, and it was no longer visited because the buffaloes would have had to pass through Ootacamund in going from Makârs to Enòdr and would have been defiled. Makârs, which is near the Nanjanad valley, is now the chief place of the ti, and the buffaloes were there at the time of my visit.
Another important and ancient place of the Kars ti is Kòn (Lingmand) in the Kundahs. In the story of Kwoto (see p. [204]) the buffaloes were going to Enòdr from Kòn when the boy showed his miraculous knowledge of the buffalo kwarzam. Two other places are Nerâdr and Pars. Both Kòn and Nerâdr are still used, but Pars, which is not far from Ootacamund, is no longer used, having been given up because Badagas went to live near it.
As at the Nòdrs ti, there are two kinds of persinir in addition to the punir. The two kinds are called pürsir and parsir, the former being also sometimes called enòdrir. Although there are two kinds of sacred buffalo with their corresponding dairies, there has never been more than one palol. When a palol is appointed to this ti, he is ordained to the office of palol to the parsir, and, for the first month, he attends to these buffaloes only and enters their dairy, the parspoh, only. At the end of the month, he becomes palol to the pürsir, with certain ceremonies, to be described later, and from that time to the end of his period of office he works in the pürspoh only and never enters the parspoh, although he continues to attend to the parsir as well as to the pürsir. The milk of the parsir is mixed with that of the pürsir in the vessels of the dairy belonging to the latter kind of buffalo. This dairy, which is usually called pürspoh after the buffaloes, has also the special name of Kakanmudri.
There is one bell belonging to the pürsir which has three names, Perner, Uner, and Persagan, but it is also often called Ner. Koboners told me that this bell is usually quite black, but that he had once rubbed off the thick layer of soot and dust with which it is covered and had found that it was made of gold. It seems to have been of a light colour and [[118]]may have been made of bronze. There is also a bell belonging to the parsir called Talg.
Formerly the palol of the Kars ti was chosen from the Melgarsol, but this clan lost the privilege owing to the misbehaviour of one of their number when holding the sacred office. The buffaloes were standing at Enòdr, and the Melgars palol was milking a buffalo, when he saw a honey-bee. He got up, left the buffalo, and went after the bee, leaving his milking-vessel behind. He followed the bee, found the nest, took the comb, ate some of the honey, gave the remainder to the kaltmokh to put in the hut, and then went back and continued to milk the buffalo, whose name was Kän. When he had finished milking, he was taking the milk into the dairy when a plank fell on his head and he was killed. Then it was decided that Melgars people should no longer be palol, and that the office in future should be filled from the Teivaliol. Whenever the Todas wish to refer to the fact that the Melgars people have lost the right of being palol, they say, “Kän kârvûk kiûztheniz ûpi vûchi,” or, “Kän milking, bee he followed after.”