Note 2 — Chapter V · THE TI DAIRY

The inhabitants of the ti rise before it is light, probably about five a.m., and on getting up from the bed some say “ekirzam meidjam.”2 The kaltmokh goes at once to open the tu in which the buffaloes have been penned for the night. The palol salutes with hand to forehead when he leaves the sleeping-hut and goes to the front of the dairy, where there is water standing in a bamboo vessel called papun, corresponding to the kepun of the village dairy. He washes his hands and face, and then washes out his mouth by taking up water with his right hand, pouring into his left, and taking the water into his mouth from the latter. It is noticeable that the palol uses his left hand for this purpose of personal cleanliness, and not the right hand, which is chiefly used in his sacred work. He then ties up his straggling hair at the back of his head, bows down at the threshold of his dairy and enters, in some cases saying “ekirzam meidjam” as he does so.