Note 3 — Chapter IX · THE TODA GODS

Korateu was the son of Teikirzi. One day when Teikirzi was going from one village to another she went into a cave called Teivelkursh, by the side of a stream called Kathipa, near Kakhudri, and there gave birth to a son, who was called Azo-mazo. The afterbirth dropped into the stream and was carried down to Teipakh (the Paikara river). It travelled down the river as far as a place called Marsnavai, where there were growing two plants called tib and purs in which it became entangled. The afterbirth then slowly arose and became a boy, and the boy was Korateu. When Azo-mazo became a man he went to live at Pernòdr in the Kundahs, but Korateu lived in the river till he was eight years old. The river Teipakh was the brother of Teikirzi. As he sat in the lap of his uncle Korateu used often to play at making the buffalo horns called tebkuter (Fig. 35).3 When he was eight years old he founded a ti and created a male and a female buffalo, making both out of earth. He also built a dairy and a buffalo pen and made the garment called tuni. As soon as the buffaloes had a calf, he went to fetch a churning-stick from Kaiers, beyond Makurti Peak, and took it to Nerva, near Mòdr, where his buffaloes were standing. He then went to Kurkòdr, a bamboo grove near Meipadi in the Wainad, and made a kwoi or milking vessel. He next made the persin and the mani and all the other things of a ti and became palol of the buffaloes at Òdrtho. There was a buffalo here of the kind called kughir, with the horns growing downwards. Korateu cut off these horns and gave them to the kaltmokh at Òdrtho and they are now the horns of the Nòdrs ti. Korateu then made a law that the people of Piedr should fill the office of palol and that the kaltmokh should be taken from the Melgarsol. He appointed a palol and a kaltmokh from these clans, handed over the charge of the ti to them, and went away to the hill Korateu, where he lived in an iron cave which he called a poh. He used to bathe in a pool near the hill.