Toda people

“ At the time of my visit several of the clan were living at a place called Kultu. This is not properly a Toda village, the people living in a hut of the Badaga form near a tea plantation in order to sell the buffalo dung to the planters.
This clan now numbers only six males and three females, all belonging to one family (72) . They have neither kudr nor pòlm. [679]
1 By this I mean that there are now living thirty females who were born members of the Nòdrsol, but since a woman becomes a member of her husband’s clan, most of these are now members of other clans. ”

“ Toda owned a good-sized estate which at that time nobody would accept even as a gift, he converted it into a grass farm and sent to a far-away coast for some cattle. Then, with a few experienced men as assistants, he once more ventured into the business world ”

“ I shall have to return to this subject again later, and must be content here to point out that the Toda women have a very bad reputation, though perhaps their laxity is not as great as is usually supposed. Still, there can be little doubt that the women of some villages are extremely immoral, and it is probable that this has distinctly tended to produce sterility. ”

“ In other parts one may go considerable distances without finding a Toda village, but relics of the former history of the Todas may be found widely scattered over the hills, and I think there can be little doubt that at one time the Toda habitations were much more generally distributed than they are at present. ”

“ The practice of polyandry must almost inevitably weaken the sentiment of possession on the part of the man which does so much to maintain the more ordinary forms of marriage.
The low sexual morality of the Todas is not, however, limited in its scope to the relations within the Toda community. Conflicting views are held by those who know the Nilgiri Hills as to the relations of the Todas with the other inhabitants, and especially with the train of natives which the European immigration to the hills has brought in its wake. ”

“ Even though thou wound me" "Well, I am about to die." "Die! Where will they bury thee?" "I pray to rest upon thy breast." "Ah! blind and foolish is thy prayer! That were unseemly cemet'ry. My bosom is no graveyard lone, An apple orchard is my breast Where fruits do ripen, birds do rest!" J. W. W. CVII TODA AND HER FATE
Many youths paid court to Toda, She, the blithesome shepherd girl; So with mirthful laugh she cried: "The youth on whom my apple falls, 'Tis henceforth he my heart enthralls." Then Toda threw her apple red, Which fell upon a grey-haired head. ”

“ The superiority of the Toda, in form and features, to the inhabitants of the lowlands may also partially be owing to the improvement in bodily strength, stature, and general appearance that would be effected by a lengthened sojourn in the pure climate of the Blue Mountains.
The Todas, as we have said before, assert a right to the soil of the Neilgherries, and exact a kind of tax [196] from the Bergers. Their lordly position was [346] most probably the originator of their polyandry and infanticide: [197] disdaining agriculture, it is their object to limit the number of the tribe. ”

“ Mr Grigg writes,7 “a curious fact that neither Kota, Irula, or Badaga, will slay a Kurumba, until a Toda has struck the first blow, but, as soon as his sanctity has been violated by a blow, they hasten to complete the murderous work, which the sacred hand of the Toda has begun.”
Some years ago, a Toda was found dead in a sitting posture on the top of a hill near a Badaga village, in which a party of Todas had gone to collect the tribute due to them. The body was cremated, and a report made to the police that the man had been murdered. ”

“ To go through the required schooling and be examined by those whom he considered only conceited youths of shallow brain would have been too humiliating to a man of Mr. Toda's age, learning, and culture. He refused and turned his attention to one of his most elegant accomplishments—penmanship. He made beautiful ideographs for the trade-marks so frequently seen on the curtains that hang from the eaves of Japanese shops. He also copied Chinese poems for folding-screens and roll pictures and even wrote inscriptions for the banners of Shinto shrines. ”

“ This we believe to be the cause of the Bedouin-like gutturalism, which distinguishes the Toda dialect. We may observe that the Kothurs, who work in tents, have exchanged their original guttural for a nasal articulation; and the Bergers, who originally spoke [345] pure Canarese, have materially altered their pronunciation during the last century.
The main objection to our theory is the utter dissimilarity of the Toda, in all respects, physical as well as moral, to the races that now inhabit the plains. ”

“ At marriage, a Toda bride puts her head under the foot of the bridegroom. But, since exceptions of this kind, and less marked kinds, occur in settled cattle-keeping or agricultural tribes, whose ancestors passed through those stages between the wandering and the stationary, during which militant activities were general, we may reasonably suspect that these are surviving ceremonies that have lost their meanings: the more so as, in the case named, there exists neither that social subordination nor that domestic subordination which they express. ”

“ Julie set out after breakfast to examine the niche that had been made for her in the city.
Tondo, at the other side of Manila, was very ancient and wholly native. It was as flat and sun-bleached as a desert, and had for its horizon on one side the sea, prognosticative of typhoons; on the other a wall of high hills where the winds blew against heaven. On beyond was holy Arayat, lifting its solitary head into space, and holding, it was said, the Ark buried in its crypt forever beyond the reach of man. The people of Tondo lived in the very frankness, of being. ”

“ The Toda or Badaga requires the services of the Kurumba, when he fancies that any member of his family is possessed of the devil, or when he wants to remove the evil eye, to which he imagines that his children have been subjected. ”

“ As we have already seen, there is some doubt whether the reverence paid to a village is paid to the village as a whole or to the dairy. There is no doubt, however, that the dairy draws to itself most of the veneration which a village excites.
Whenever a devout Toda visits a strange village, he goes to the dairy, and prostrating himself at its threshold, utters a prayer. My ordinary guide, Kòdrner, was not devout and did not pay this reverence, but his brother, Kutadri, was very scrupulous in performing these duties, especially when he went with me to the Kundahs. ”

“ His position among the Todas is exactly that of a priest upon whom it is incumbent to maintain a very high degree of ceremonial purity. That his isolation is not a sign of divinity is, I think, shown by the results of infringement of his isolation. If the palol is touched by an ordinary man he loses his office and at once ceases to be a sacred personage, but the person who touches incurs no penalty. The sacrilege, according to Toda ideas, would attach not to him, but to the palol who, in spite of being touched, should persist in performing the duties of his office. ”

“ The Toda family—the grand depository of Neilgherry tradition—has supplied our curiosity-hunters [316] with many a marvel. But, let the young beginner beware how he trusts to their information. The fellows can enjoy a hoax. Moreover, with the instinctive cunning of the wild man, they are inveterate liars, concealing truth because they perceive that their betters attach some importance to extracting it, and yet cannot understand the reason why they should take the trouble to do so. ”

“ The proud old grandmother of the Toda house, feeling keenly what in her eyes was disgrace to the family name, chose the only way to right a wrong that a helpless Japanese knows—sacrifice. If one must die for a principle, it is not hard to find a way ”

“ But it must be remembered that the Todars now extort goodoo or tribute of grain from the other hill tribes, and that it is their only food. It must be inferred, therefore, that, before they discovered this easy mode of procuring food, and previous to the arrival of these weaker agricultural tribes on the hills, the Todars must have been their own cultivators. The hill people attribute all ancient ruins, of the origin of which they know nothing, to the Pandus, the famous heroes of Hindu tradition ”

“ The two chief features of a Toda marriage are the giving of a loincloth to the girl and the salutation of the girl’s relatives by the husband. Similarly [700] the essential feature of the irregular union between man and woman is that the mokhthodvaiol gives a cloak to the woman, and the Badaga name by which the relation has previously been known is derived from this fact—the man is called the “blanket man” of the woman. Throughout the greater part of the Malabar coast the essential feature of the marriage ceremony is that the man gives a cloth to the woman. ”

“ The Todas consider it beneath their dignity to cultivate land. A former Collector of the Nīlgiris granted them some acres of land for the cultivation of potatoes, but they leased the land to the Badagas, and the privilege was cancelled. In connection with the Todas' objection to work, it is recorded that when, on one occasion, a mistake about the ownership of some buffaloes committed an old Toda to jail, it was found impossible to induce him to work with the convicts, and the authorities, unwilling to resort to hard remedies, were compelled to save appearances by making him an overseer. ”

“ The fact that the Toda includes all those kin whom he may not marry under one general term, and that the kin in question include members both of his own and other clans, goes to show that the Todas recognise the blood-kinship as the restrictive agency rather than the bond produced by membership of the same clan. ”

“ Toda had become a teacher in a test school of the newly organized public-school system. His associate teachers were mostly young men proud to be called progressive, and affecting a lofty disdain for the old culture of Japan. The old samurai was sadly out of place, but being of philosophical bent and not without a sense of humour, he got along very well until the Department of Education made a rule that no one should be accepted as a teacher unless he held a normal-school diploma. ”

“ This is probably an Irula temple to which the Todas make offerings. [643]
1 Mav is also the Toda word for sambhar. ↑
2 According to Harkness, “each burgher, hamlet, or village” gives about two quarts (p. 108) , or (p. 135) half a bushel to the ti and half a bushel to the other Todas. According to Breeks (p. 9) , the gudu is about one-tenth, one-eighth, or one-fifth of the gross produce. ↑
3 It is possible that the elucidation of this point might also help towards the explanation of the Badaga account of the Toda clans. ”

“ As bearing on this point, I may mention that the Nāyar women living to the east of Calicut cannot cross the river backwater, and come into the town.” It may be noted in this connection that the Paikāra river on the Nīlgiri hills is sacred to the Todas, and, for fear of mishap from arousing the wrath of the river-god, a pregnant Toda woman will not venture to cross it. No Toda will use the river water for any purpose, and they do not touch it, unless they have to ford it. ”

“ Breeks has stated that the Toda custom is that the house shall pass to the youngest son. It seems quite clear that this is wrong, and that this custom is absolutely unknown among the Todas. It is, however, a Badaga custom, and among them I was told that it is due to the fact that as the sons of a family grow up and marry, they leave the house of the parents and build houses elsewhere. It is the duty of the youngest son to dwell with his parents and support them as long as they [560] live, and when they die he continues to live in the parental home, of which he becomes the owner.
Buffaloes. ”

“ They had heard of the Spaniards, but knowing nothing of Tolta’s expedition, were amazed to find these strange beings in their midst. Forming a circle around them, they gazed curiously and timidly at Olmedo and Beatriz, now and then venturing to touch their clothes and feel of their persons, but evidently with no unfriendly intent.
The party was composed chiefly of women and children, who had been enjoying themselves in wild dances. A few young men, hardly beyond boyhood, were with them, but no warriors. ”

“ In compliance with his resolution of the previous night, to regain if possible the confidence of his captive, Tolta approached Olmedo and said, “We have far to go to-day. Forget my words of yesterday; I was angered to see the white priest embrace Beatriz. Had you remained where you were, you would have both been slain. More I cannot now say; but with Tolta you are safe, he will restore you to your homes when the storm is over. ”

“ We are easily flattered by the suggestion that we are authoritative, with opinions got from uncommon experience, especially where women with strange eyes and dark skins are concerned. So, once upon a time, I caught myself—or rather, I caught that cold, critical, and impartial part of me, which is a solemn fake—when answering a question of this kind, explaining in a comprehensive way the character of the Brazilian people, as though I were telling of the objective phenomena of one simple soul. ”

“ It is meant that each man has only a certain set of nubile women open to him (Nupa, or Noa, or Unawa) , and that out of these, in addition to his allotted bride, an uncertain number of women are assigned to him and to others, mainly at tribal festivals, as paramours (Pirauru or Piraungaru) , by their elder brothers, or the heads of totem kins, or the seniors of the Urabunna tribe. "This relationship is usually established at times when considerable numbers of the tribe are gathered together to perform important ceremonies." ”