The Toda Landscape

The Todas are the oldest inhabitants of the upper Nilgiri plateau. They have fascinated the world ever since the Nilgiris were opened up to 'civilisation' 180 years ago, with their curious barrel vaulted temples and houses, their embroidered pootkuly cloaks and their ferocious looking buffaloes. Their culture revolves around these herds with all the six grades of temple dairies having a corresponding herd of sacred buffaloes. Only a man who undergoes the elaborate ordination ceremonies specific to each grade to become the priest, can then milk the corresponding grade of sacred buffaloes and ritually process it into butter, butter milk, curd and ghee. Indeed, the rituals that go into this sacred dairying process are so elaborate that a few volumes would be required to describe the same for all the grades of temple dairies. When outsiders arrived in the upper Nilgiris , the area was a panorama of Toda landscapes. Now, vast areas of their erstwhile habitat have been overrun by civilisation—tea gardens, townships, exotic tree plantations and hydel reservoirs have taken over. Of what is left, we should be grateful to the British that they did not resettle the Todas in new areas. Perhaps they realised that Toda life being so closely linked with nature, it was best to leave major hamlets and sacred areas intact. Nowadays, sadly, nobody seems to care— abandoned Ti dairy sites, the most sacred grade of temples, are planted with pine trees; the sacred hill of the creator goddess Teikirshy is quarried for stone; sacred migratory routes are blocked by reservoirs and tree or tea plantations, Toda sacred objects and bells kept for centuries in their temples are mysteriously disappearing.