Note 14 — Chapter IX · THE TODA GODS

There was once a man belonging to Melgars who married a woman of Kanòdrs and took her to Melgars. When she became pregnant, the woman was taken by her husband to Kanòdrs. On the way back to Melgars they passed Ushadr, the place where the funeral ceremonies of Melgars men took place. They were standing in front of the funeral hut at that place when the man found a good twadri tree,14 and, cutting three or four sticks from it, brought them to his wife, who stripped the bark from the sticks. While she was doing this, the pains of labour came on, and soon after she gave birth to a gourd (kem). Both husband and wife were very much ashamed, and they decided to say that a child had been born and had died, and the man went round to all the villages to say that this had happened and that the funeral would be held at Ushadr. Accordingly they had the etvainolkedr (first funeral ceremony) at Ushadr, the gourd being covered with putkuli (cloak), so that it was taken to be the body of a child.