The Todas

by W. H. R. Rivers

On the following day, it seems that the milk has always [[169]]become solid and is churned. Immediately after churning and without taking food, the dairyman puts together the dairy things according to the usual method followed when going from one village to another, and goes with his buffaloes to the village of Kiudr. The dairy vessels are carried in the usual manner, the new buttermilk called puthpep being in the patat and the butter in the mu.

The people living at Kiudr leave the village, and the man who has been filling the office of palikartmokh there throws away all the old dairy things and takes the mani to the stones by the side of that dairy called neurzülnkars (see p. [129]). After leaving the bells there for a little time, the dairyman takes them to the pali nipa, and then his office ceases and he becomes perol.

The new palikartmokh, who has come from Kwirg, purifies the dairy and his new dairy vessels and the mani in exactly the same way as when reaching a new dairy, and then places the bells, vessels, and other objects in the dairy. During the next month, till the following new moon, the dairyman and his companions stay alone at Kiudr doing the ordinary business of the dairy. During this time they may be visited by men of the Kuudr clan, but neither by women nor by men of other clans. At the end of the month, on the Sunday after the new moon, the palikartmokh drives the buffaloes (now called ponir, festival buffaloes) to Kuudr, taking with him the puthpep and the dairy vessels. When the people at Kuudr see the dairyman coming with the ponir, they leave the village and all go to Kiudr, which the buffaloes have just left. There they hold a feast to which many people of other clans, both men and women, are invited.

When the palikartmokh reaches Kuudr, he purifies the dairy as he had done at Kiudr and puts the vessels in their places.

Certain men of the clan then come, each with a new mu, and these vessels are laid by the side of the stones called keinkars and tashtikars in the wall of the pen. At Kuudr fifteen new mu should be brought by the fifteen heads of families of the Kuudr clan. The palikartmokh then purifies each mu with tudr bark in the usual way and places the [[170]]vessels on the patatmar of the dairy, after which he gives food to those who have provided the vessels.

The palikartmokh with his companion or companions then stay at Kuudr for a month, when, again on a Sunday after the new moon, all the Kuudrol assemble at Kuudr and hold a feast. On that day a new palikartmokh is appointed for each dairy of the Kuudr clan. Each man goes through the usual ordination ceremony and then receives one of the new mu containing some of the new pep, which he takes to his dairy. Each new dairyman also provides new dairy vessels, and, when he reaches his dairy, purifies the mu and the new dairy things in the way already described. He puts the vessels into the dairy and then goes to milk, taking some of the new pep in his milking-vessel, and thereafter matters go on as usual. Each new dairyman fasts while going to his dairy with the new pep, although the rest of the people are feasting.

Those who remain at Kuudr bury the mu in which the pep was brought from Kwirg. It is buried by the side of the pen, under a tree called teikhkwadiki.

The ceremony of making new pep is carried out on the same lines in all dairies, but usually it is less complicated and fewer villages have to be visited than in the case of the Kuudrol. It seems that there is a tendency in some clans to perform the ceremony less rigidly than of old. Thus, the Kars people used to go to Keshker for new pep, but now they perform the ceremony at Kars itself, so that the migration to a new place with its attendant ceremonial is avoided.

There are certain differences in the procedure in the case of Teivali and Tarthar clans. One, the necessity for new pep after the funeral of a male, has been already mentioned.

Another difference is that there is a buried mu for each kind of dairy, so that a clan which has two or three kinds of dairy will have two or three mu buried in the pen. If it is the mu belonging to the wursuli which is broken or tampered with, the ceremony is performed by the wursol, who takes earth from the footprints of one of the wursulir. If the mu of the kudrpali is injured, the kudrpalikartmokh performs the ceremony, taking earth from the footprints of one of the other [[171]]kinds of sacred buffaloes. Thus at Kars he takes it from the prints of the martir.