162 
ON THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS 
The Todas have five kinds of priests, of whom the Palais 
are held in the greatest sanctity. The Palais, who are five 
in number, belong to the highest class of the Todas and 
have charge of the sacred bells, which they carry to every 
Mand or hamlet. They subsist on the milk of the sacred herd, 
and have a Kavalal as their attendant. The other priests of 
lower degree are the Varlal, KokvaK, Kurpuli and Pali- 
karpal. The temples, which are of two kinds, are called 
Boa and Paid, the former being sugarloaf-shaped and the 
latter like an ordinary house. There are, at present, only 
four Boas in existence ; they may have originally belonged to 
some other race, as the Todas do not appear to hold them 
in very great respect, and their ministering priests belong 
only to the second rank. 
The Todas have a large pantheon, but they revere par- 
ticularly a hunting god called Betakan, the son of Dirkish, 
the son of En, the first Toda. His temple is at Nambala- 
kod, in the Wainad. Besides him they worship Hiriadeca, 
whose representative is the sacred buffalo-bell, which hangs 
from the neck of the finest buffalo of the sacred herd.'^ 
The buffalo is indigenous only in the south-east of Asia, 
when they say they inhahited the low country. One among these is that 
their forefathers were the suhjects of Ea^an, and that, heing afterwards 
unable to bear the severities imposed on them by the successful Kavan, 
they fled to these mountains as a place of refuge, di-iving their herds before 
them, carrying their females and children on their shoulders, and vowing 
to wear no covering on their heads till they hud wTcaked their vengeance 
on their oppressors." Congreve, loco citato, p. 110, says on the contnuy : 
" The Thautawars havc'' a tradition that their ancestors were subjects of 
Ravannah with whom they fled before Riimah." About the legend of the 
Todas having been the palanquin bearers of KAvana, see Mr. H. B. Grigg's 
Manml, pp. 20'2, 252 and 256. About their coming with Rama consult 
the Rev. F. Metz, ibidi-m, p. 46: " The Brahmins of the plains maintain 
that the Todas were followers in the train of Rama when he came from the 
North to avenge himself on Rav;ma and that desuing independence they 
deserted, and fled to the Hills ; but of this tradition the Todas themselves 
know nothing" ; read also p. 65 ; and Mr. Grigg's J/<?h«(7/, p. 25S. 
'3 Read Mr. ,T. W. Breeks' Account of the Prbnitirc Tribes and Monu- 
mcnts of the Xll<7ijiris, pp. 13-17 : and Mr. H. B. Grigg's Mamiat, pp. 
192-196. 
