The candidate then plucks seven leaves of the kind called muliers—i.e., leaves of a plant called muli (Rubus ellipticus). This plant is also often called pelkkodsthmul, after the ceremony in which it is used. He also plucks a handful of young shoots or nan of the same plant, and takes the leaves and shoots to the dairy stream. At the stream he pounds the shoots with water on a stone, takes up some water from the stream with the pounded shoots, drops this water into one of the leaves three times, raises the leaf to his forehead, drinks (see [Fig. 34]), throws the leaf over his head and puts the shoots down on one side. When he squeezes the water from the shoots into the leaf-cup he holds the former in his right hand and the latter in his left, but when about to raise the leaf-cup to his forehead and drink he transfers it to his right hand. The candidate then takes a fresh piece of the pounded shoots and repeats with a second leaf, and so on till the seven leaves are [[146]]finished, throwing the leaf over his head in each case after drinking.
He then takes all the pounded shoots which he has placed on one side, dips them in water, rubs them over his face and body three times, and puts them in his back hair, whence they are allowed to drop anywhere. In the only case in which I saw this ceremony I noticed that they remained in the hair till the end of the day.
FIG. 34.—PUNATVAN (53) DRINKING DURING HIS ORDINATION AS ‘PALIKARTMOKH’ OF KARIA.
The candidate then goes to the dairy, bows down at the threshold as in [Fig. 20], and enters. If there are two rooms, he bows down in the same way at the threshold of the inner room. If there is a mani, he salutes it (kaimukhti) with hand to forehead. He next bows down to the patatmar and to the ertatmar, and finally touches a vessel of the ertatmar, usually the majpariv, and a vessel of the patatmar, the patat, and by doing this becomes a full palikartmokh. He proceeds to light the fire and the lamp and goes to milk the buffaloes. [[147]]
There are a few small points in which the ordination of a Teivali dairyman differs from that of the Tartharol. The Teivaliol use three pieces of the grass called kakar, with which the candidate sweeps the threshold of the dairy before bowing down and entering, the grass being left on the threshold. Among the Teivaliol also the place of the petuni may be taken by the special kind of cloth called twadrinar, which is manufactured by the Todas, and in the case in which I saw the ceremony, the candidate wore this instead of petuni. The Tartharol must use petuni.
In the only case in which I saw this ceremony the ordination was to a Teivali dairy and the candidate was completely naked except for the kuvn. The Tarthar tarpalikartmokh wears part of an ordinary mantle as a loincloth during his ordination. The ceremony is the same for the kudrpalikartmokh as for the tarvalikartmokh, except that the former is quite unclothed except for the kuvn and that he alone has a mani to salute.
The Wursol
The ceremony begins either on Tuesday or Friday and lasts two days. On the first day the candidate goes early in the morning to the ordinary dairy of the village at which he is to be wursol; at Kars he goes to the kudrpali. He receives food from the palikartmokh and eats it sitting on the seat (kwottün) outside the dairy. He stays near the dairy till the afternoon. When the palikartmokh has finished his afternoon work and has distributed butter and buttermilk, one of the men of the village comes to the candidate and says, “Niròd!” The candidate throws off his cloak and is given either a full tuni or a piece of this garment called petuni. The palikartmokh then stands in front of the door of his dairy, and the candidate stands opposite to him and asks three times “Tunivatkina?”—“Shall I put on the tuni?” The palikartmokh replies each time “Vat!”—“Put on!” Then the candidate raises the garment to his forehead and if he has been given a complete tuni he puts it on; if only a petuni he puts it in the string of his kuvn. This string is [[148]]ordinarily called pennar, but is now called kerk, and this part of the ceremony is called kerkatiti. The fact that this name is given seems to indicate that properly the complete garment should not be given till a later stage of the proceedings.