Chapter VIII

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The Melgars man who accompanies the procession of the Nòdrs ti stays at Anto till the following Wednesday; at other places he only stays till the day after the procession. The Toda way of putting this is that at Anto he stays erdpunrs—i.e., “two punrs.” One punrs is a day and its next day, so that erdpunrs is equal to four days. At other places the Melgars man stays only one punrs—i.e., he leaves the ti mad on the day following the migration.

The foregoing account applies to the Nòdrs ti. The general procedure is the same at the migration of other herds, but the ceremonial is, in general, less elaborate. At no other ti is there anything corresponding to the ceremonies in which the kaltmokh plays so important a part, and at no other ti is it absolutely necessary that a mòrol should take part in the procession, though, as a matter of fact, he usually also leads the way at the migrations of the Pan ti.

At the Kars ti the buffaloes pass the greater part of the year at Makars. They usually go to Neradr, where they stay about a month, and then go to Kòn for the dry season, returning to Makars in April. Sometimes they again stop at Neradr on their way from Kòn to Makars. It is probable that when the sacred dairy of Enòdr was still in use the ceremonial was more elaborate than it is at present. In the legend of Kwoto (see Chap. IX) an account is given of a ceremonial which occurred in former times during the migration from Kòn to Enòdr, and it is possible that this persisted until Enòdr was given up as a ti mad.

The herds of the Pan ti usually migrate with those of the Kars ti. They stand during the greater part of the year at Kudòdr, near Makars, and go to Neradr and Kòn as the dry season approaches.

In the case of the Pan ti, it seems that the bells travel on the necks of buffaloes; the mani called Kòsi on the neck of a buffalo called Kòsi, Pongg on a buffalo called Enmars, and Keituzan on one called Kòjiu. In this procession a mòrol goes first, followed by the tars palol, the wars palol, and the two kaltmokh in order.

At the present time there are no migrations of the buffaloes of the Kwòdrdoni ti or of the Nidrsi ti, and I have no information about the past. At Pursas, the present dairy of the Kwòdrdoni ti, there is a stone called neurzülnkars. I was told that nothing was done to it in connexion with the migrations of the buffaloes, but that it was rubbed with clarified butter and milk whenever the irnörtiti ceremony (see Chap. XIII) was performed at the ti.

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