MANUAL OF THE NILAGllU DISTRICT. 



193 



which relate to ideas, which they have clearly borrowed from 

 the Badagas, are Kaiiarese. 



It has been supposed that the T6das believe in the transmigra- 

 tion of the soul, but this is not very clear. They have, as has 

 been said above, a distinct idea of a life after death, to be spent 

 in a country, sometimes called '' the other district."^ As their 

 buffaloes are their chief food in this world, they considerately kill 

 a sufficient number at each funeral to supply the dead with milk 

 in the next. The spirits of men and buffaloes are supposed to 

 take a leap together into Hades from Mukarte Peak. 



The Toda has no idea then of an all-pervading Power, still less 

 of a benevolent personal God ; neither can he be said to act with 

 any hopes of reward or fear of punishment of a supernatural 

 kind. He has a half childish awe of any thing unusual or beyond 

 his comprehension, and very soon exalts such things into objects 

 of reverence, Dev or Swami, though in the same category he 

 includes occasionally the bones of his ancestors, a buffalo, a bell 

 (Konku), an axe, an old knife, or the Palal himself. 



The absence of religious rites, except the annual^ sacrifices of a 

 buffalo-calf, and the extreme vagueness of what little can be 

 illicited from them on the subject of religion, seems to have led 

 to a report that they were not idolaters,^ and the Jesuits of the 

 west coast made several trips to the Hills in hopes of finding a 

 colony of orthodox Christians, or at least of Manicheans^ who 

 had, though long estranged, preserved some features of their 

 former faith. But in this they were disappointed. The exceed- 

 ingly primitive worship of the Todas is confined to one material 

 object, the sacred buffalo-bell, which is hung round the neck of 

 the best buffalo of the sacred herd, and is looked upon by them 

 as the representative of Hiriadeva^ or the chief god. 



Besides this deity they have quite a pantheon of presiding 

 gods, one in fact for each mand, and a hunting god called 

 Betakan,^ whose temple is at Nambalakod in Wainad- He is the 

 son of Dirkish, the son of En, the first Toda, and is now, they 

 say, attended by Brahmans. But to these gods they do not pray, 

 and in what their religious worship consists it would be hard to 

 say. It has few features of fetishism, no expiatory sacrifices, 



CHAP. IX, 

 PART I. 



^ See Metz. The word alluded to by this gentleman is probably Paradesam, 

 neighbouring country ; Paradise. 

 ^ See Rice, Mysore and Coorg, on similar customs in Mysore, page 365, Vol. I. 

 3 There is no T6da word for idol. See Dk. Pope's Tuda Grammar. 



* There can be no doubt that, like the Manicheans, the Tddas reverence or 

 even worship light, such as the sun, moon, or a lighted lamp. See Colonel 

 Marshall. 



5 Hiriya = lord. 



* i.e., the hunter. — Breeks. 



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