The Pepkaricha Ceremony
In the account of the daily work of the dairy, it will be remembered that whenever the dairyman goes out to milk for the first time he puts some buttermilk into his milking vessel. This is done in every dairy, and the buttermilk so added is called pep. The milk of every day has mixed with it some of the buttermilk from the milking of the day before, and in this way continuity is kept up in the dairy operations. Under certain conditions this continuity is broken and new pep has to be made, and the process of doing so is the ceremony called pepkaricha, pepkarichti, or pepkarichanudr—i.e., “pep he purifies,” or, “if pep is purified.”
In some cases new pep has to be made for the whole clan [[167]](madol); in other cases it has only to be made for one of the dairies of the clan.
The ceremony is performed for the whole clan whenever anything goes wrong with a certain dairy vessel called mu, which is buried in the buffalo pen at the chief village of the clan. We have seen that this vessel is used in the ordination to certain dairy offices, and it is also inspected as a matter of routine about once a year. If it is broken or has been stolen or tampered with in any way, it becomes necessary to make new pep for the whole clan.
Among the Tartharol, new pep has also to be made after the funeral of a male on account of the defilement of the mani involved in its exposure to the ordinary people at the funeral ceremonies.
The conditions which necessitate the making of new pep for a single dairy are, (1) if a Tamil or other “foreigner” has entered the dairy, (2) if an ordinary Toda (perol) has gone into the dairy at night, (3) if the dairyman has used tobacco. In these cases the people of the village at which the offence has been committed procure a new mu, and, after purifying it, go to some other dairy of the clan, where they procure some buttermilk to act as pep and take it to their own dairy. It is only when new pep has to be made for the whole clan that the prolonged ceremony of pepkarichti has to be carried out. This ceremony differs in its details for each clan, and is more complicated in some cases than in others. As an example, I will give the proceedings for the Kuudr clan.
When it becomes necessary to make new pep for the whole group of dairies belonging to the clan it is necessary to take the buffaloes to one special dairy. The Kuudr people go to the dairy of Kwirg near Sholur. On the day of going to Kwirg, a feast is held at which the food called ashkkartpimi is eaten.
Whenever new pep is made it is necessary to have a new palikartmokh, and the man who is to undertake the duties goes to Kwirg with the milking buffaloes of the pasthir and is accompanied by a number of Kuudr men. The men take with them a new and complete set of dairy vessels, and reach Kwirg in the early morning of a Sunday after the new moon. [[168]]The buffaloes are at once penned in the tu. The first business is the ordination of the new palikartmokh, which is carried out as usual. When at the stream for the purification ceremony, the palikartmokh has with him a new mu, which he fills with water at the stream. He takes this vessel to the tu in which the buffaloes are penned, and knocks one of the buffaloes on the back with his wand (pet), so that it moves to one side. Then with the wand he digs some earth from the spot where the hoof of the buffalo had been resting, and mixes this earth with tudr bark. He places part of the mixed earth and bark in the mu and puts the rest on one side; this part of the ceremony is called mukatchkudrspini, or purification of the mu, literally “mu purification I have purified.”
The palikartmokh then brings all the other dairy vessels and implements, beginning with the patat, and purifies them by throwing on them mixed earth and tudr bark, sprinkling them with water from the mu three times, saying “Oñ” each time. The things of the patatmar are purified first and then the things of the ertatmar, and the purified objects are placed in the dairy. Fire is made by friction and the palikartmokh goes out to milk. Buttermilk is not put into the milking-vessel as usual, and the lamp is not lighted. The milk is poured into the patat, and the palikartmokh then prepares food, which he gives to the people who have come with him, but he himself fasts. All the men then go away except one or two, who are to remain as companions of the dairyman. In the evening the palikartmokh takes off some of the cream,[1] which has risen to the top of the milk, and puts it into the lamp which he lights, and then prays, using the kwarzam of Kwirg[2] and the kwarzam of the pep only.
If the milk has coagulated it is now churned, and then the buffaloes are milked as usual, but if the milk has not coagulated, it is left till next morning. In the evening the dairyman takes food as usual.