Toda tribes of The Nilgiris re-thatch their sacred temple with a rare grass

Members of the Toda tribe gather a rare grass, found only in The Nilgiris and nowhere else on the planet to re-thatch their sacred temple, preserving an ancient tradition

Recently, members of the Toda tribe, the oldest and indigenous tribes of The Nilgiris, gathered at Melgaa(r)sh, an ancient Toda hamlet above the Ooty Botanical Garden for a sacred ritual. The Manajakkal Mund, also called the Garden Mund in recent times, is the principal hamlet of the patriclan. The men, dressed in the ceremonial embroidered shawls, bundled swamp grass called avful, endemic to the wetlands of The Nilgiris and found nowhere else on the planet. “A re-thatching ceremony of a Toda temple which happens every 15 years is in progress,” says Tarun Chhabra, a retired dentist and an expert on the indigenous Toda culture and local ecology. He is also the author of The Toda Landscape: Explorations in Cultural Ecology. 

Todas live on the highest reaches in hamlets called munds made of bamboo-vaulted homes shaped like a rainbow and patched with mud and straw, believed to tackle the wind velocity at high altitudes. While the Todas  have largely shifted from these traditional homes to modern concrete buildings, the  temples are still built with cane, bamboo and avful. Once common in swamps in the main Toda heartland of the Wenlock Downs, this grass has nearly disappeared from the wet grasslands of the mountains.

Thin bamboo reeds called theff are bent together in bunches, while still green, to give the temple the typical barrel-vaulted shape. These are fastened with peeled rattan cane. This bamboo reed, seen in many shola pockets of the Nilgiris, is now restricted to some dense jungles on the south-west slopes. Similarly, rattan cane, plentiful on the Nilgiri slopes and some sholas, has virtually disappeared. Todas go into the dense rain forests on the slopes beyond the western catchment and Mukurthi to gather rattan cane.

“When they decide to rebuild a dairy-temple, there will be a minimum of three ceremonies at different stages. When they bend theff and tie it in bunches, it is known as ‘kwehll (zh) g-vheell- pattyt’ ceremony where only Toda communities take part, especially a particular clan, in this case the Melgaa(r)sh. They understood that the thin theff bamboo has high tensile strength and hence  bent it to give the structure its characteristic barrel-vaulted shape. There is also ‘waadr-ofst’ ceremony where they put horizontal bamboos. And during ‘poll(zh)y-veihhst’ thatching ceremony, they use the avful to thatch the dairy temples. These structures can last for decades provided the occupant has lit the fire within the building regularly, thus exposing it to smoke,” explains Tarun who is also the founder of Toda Nalavaazhvu Sangam that works with preserving the culture and welfare of the Todas.

The front facade of the temple is thatched in an intricate way, a job that is reserved for elderly men of the clan. Before starting this, they make ‘toott’, a ring-like structure around which they thatch the grass and braid it with stripped cane. This is called ‘podhaarr-thittyt’ and is done a few days earlier. “It’s an an important occasion, a prelude to the main ceremony,” explains Tarun.

Once Toda men start thatching from either sides, they will carry on singing songs till they meet at the the top of the half moon structure. “In certain places where the focus of divinity is going to be placed, there will be special kind of cross patterns which I have hypothesised as what evolved into the embroidery and many other things,” says Tarun who, along with Ramneek Singh, has also established the Edhkwehlynawd Botanical Refuge (EBR) to further emphasise on conservation and ecological restoration, inspired by traditional Toda knowledge.

After thatching, they also put a pointed ‘kwakhzh-vheell (zh)’ on the ‘toott’ and clamp it. Once the priest brings a milk churning stick and a bamboo vessel, prayers begin. The shola forests and the grasslands are intertwined with the lives of Todas as they believe that several peaks, slopes, shola thickets, trees, rivers, swamps, paths, streams and caves are sacred. They sing ‘konn-ezht’, sacred couplets in an impromptu oral poetry form, assemble in a circle and have ‘pochazhky’ balls made with mashed little millet with a dollop of ghee in the middle that is served on ‘kawkwehdd’ leaf.