Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7Thurston, Edgar
General
Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7
Thurston, Edgar
Caste -- India, South; Ethnology -- India, South; India, South -- Social life and customs; Tribes -- India, South
In addition to the dairies which in form resemble the dwelling-huts,
the Todas keep up as dairy-temples certain curious conical edifices,
of which there are said to be four on the Nilgiri plateau, viz., at the
Muttanad mand, near Kotagiri, near Sholur, and at Mudimand. The last
was out of repair a few years ago, but was, I was informed, going to be
rebuilt shortly. It is suggested by Dr. Rivers as probable that in many
cases a dairy, originally of the conical form, has been rebuilt in the
same form as the dwelling-hut, owing to the difficulty and extra labour
of reconstruction in the older shape. The edifice at the Muttanad mand
(or Nodrs), at the top of the Sigur ghat, is known to members of the
Ootacamund Hunt as the Toda cathedral. It has a circular stone base
and a tall conical thatched roof crowned with a large flat stone, and
is surrounded by a circular stone wall. To penetrate within the sacred
edifice was forbidden, but we were informed that it contained milking
vessels, dairy apparatus, and a swami in the guise of a copper bell
(mani). The dairyman is known as the varzhal or wursol. In front of
the cattle-pen of the neighbouring mand, I noticed a grass-covered
mound, which, I was told, is sacred. The mound contains nothing
buried within it, but the bodies of the dead are placed near it, and
earth from the mound is placed on the corpse before it is removed to
the burning-ground. At "dry funerals" the buffalo is said to be slain
near the mound. It has been suggested by Colonel Marshall [43] that the
"boa or boath [poh.] is not a true Toda building, but may be the bethel
of some tribe contemporaneous with, and cognate to the Todas, which,
taking refuge, like them, on these hills, died out in their presence."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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