Note 3 — Chapter VI · BUFFALO MIGRATIONS

On reaching the new village, the palikartmokh purifies the dairy by throwing into it water mixed with tudr bark.3 The dairy things are taken off the sticks at an appointed spot. The palikartmokh salutes the sun with irkarthpun and madth as in the morning, and then all pray. After the prayer, the palikartmokh takes some ferns (taf) and puts them on the place within the dairy where the things of the patatmar are to stand, and these are put in their places on the ferns. The things of the ertatmar are then arranged in the same way. The palikartmokh makes fire by friction, lights the lamp, and then goes to milk the buffaloes. If he has brought milk with him, he will churn it. Meanwhile a ceremony called nòtiteiti will have been performed by a little girl about six or seven years of age in those cases in which all the inhabitants of the village are migrating. Before leaving the village from which the people are coming this girl will have been given food in the dairy. On reaching the new place, the girl plucks three blades of the slender grass called kakar and goes to the front of the dairy and sweeps the threshold with the grass. She does this with her right arm outside her cloak, and when she has swept she bows down with her forehead to the threshold three times. If there is more than one dairy, she sweeps the threshold of each. The palikartmokh then gives her a small handful of butter and the girl goes to the huts. Up to this time the women will have been waiting near the village, but when they see that the girl has performed her ceremony, they go to the huts and prepare the food called ashkkartpimi.4