Context: Members of the Toda tribe in the Nilgiris district gather around a ‘Moonpo’ (head) temple in the Muthanad mund (village) in Udhagamandalam (Ooty) .
Relevance of the Topic: Prelims: Key facts about Modhweth Festival; Toda Tribe.
About Modhweth Festival
- Modhweth Festival is the most important festival of the Toda tribe.
- The yearly festival is celebrated at the Moonpo temple in Muthanadu Mund (village) in the Nilgiri district, during the last Sunday of December or on the first Sunday of January.
- Moonpo temple is an ancient temple known for its vertical spire made of thatched roof with a flat stone on top.
- The temple is unique in that it is one of the last of the Toda temples with a similar design left in the Nilgiris.
- Toda men from 14 different clans living in different villages in the upper slopes of the Nilgiris come to the village to celebrate the festival. The temple draws not just Todas but also other tourists.
- As part of the celebrations, the Todas offer prayers to the deity, Thenkish Amman, and perform a dance outside the temple. They pray to the deity to give good health, rains and harvests during the coming year.
- The celebrations culminate with Toda youth lifting a greased boulder, weighing around 80 kg, to showcase their strength, balance and masculinity.
- As is the custom with most Toda rituals, women were excluded from taking part in the celebrations.
About Toda Tribe
- Toda is a pastoral Dravidian tribe living in Nilgiri region of Tamil Nadu state.
- Todas traditionally live in settlements called mund, consisting of three to seven small thatched houses, constructed in the shape of half-barrels and located across the slopes of the pasture, on which they keep domestic buffalo.
- Toda lands are now a part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO designated International Biosphere Reserve and their territory is declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Their sole occupation is cattle-herding and dairy-work. The Todas are vegetarians and do not eat meat, eggs that can hatch, or fish.
- Toda religious life and practices stem from a pantheon of gods. The heads of this pantheon are the goddess Tökisy and the god of the underworld Ön.
- Toda language belongs to the Dravidian language family.
- Todas are classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) in Tamil Nadu.