The Todas

In the succeeding chapters I shall show the value of the genealogies in working out the nature of the system of kinship and in providing statistical material for the study of the marriage regulations. The greater part of my work on the social aspect of the life of the Todas is based on material derived from the genealogies; or perhaps I should rather say that most of the information I give has been checked, if not entirely obtained, by means of the genealogies.

I wish, however, to draw attention here to a far wider use of the genealogies in anthropological investigation. They bring a concrete element into anthropological work which greatly facilitates inquiry. The lower one goes in the social or intellectual scale in mankind, the greater difficulty is there in dealing with abstractions. The savage mind is almost wholly occupied with the concrete. Discuss his laws of inheritance with him, and you probably soon become hopelessly entangled in misunderstanding. Take a number of concrete cases, and his memory will enable him to heap instance upon instance showing how property was inherited in given cases. Similarly, in ceremonies, ask the savage to give an account of a given ceremony, and he probably omits many essential points, not because he forgets them, but because they are so familiar to him that he thinks you, like himself, take them for granted. Ask him to tell you exactly what A and B did when they performed a given ceremony, and he forms a mental picture of A and B going through the ceremony, and tells you exactly what they did and how they did it. When another individual comes into the ceremony, he too comes in as a concrete personage, and his sayings and doings are faithfully recorded.

The Todas are so intelligent that the genealogies were not so essential an instrument of investigation as was the case in Torres Straits, but they were nevertheless of enormous value in giving concreteness to the accounts of the Toda ceremonies. The Todas certainly gave fuller and more faithful accounts of their ceremonies when they described actual events, but such descriptions would have been of little value to me if I had [466]not had my pedigrees as a guide. An account of a Toda funeral, for instance, with its many dramatis personæ would probably have baffled my powers of comprehension if I had not had my book of genealogies for reference.

I always worked with this book by my side whenever I was investigating any ceremonial in which the social side of life was concerned. I asked for a description of some ceremony recently performed of which the memories were fresh. The chief actors in the ceremony were always mentioned by name; and whenever a name occurred, I looked up the clan and family of the person in question and noticed his relationship to other persons who had taken part in the ceremony. The actors in the ceremony were thus real people to me as well as to my informants, and the account of the ceremony proceeded with the maximum of interest and the minimum of fatigue both to myself and to my informants.

The method had the further advantage that it afforded me the means of checking the accounts which I was given. An informant inclined to be careless soon found that I had the means of checking his narrative on many points; and some of the people, not knowing the source of my information, credited me with more knowledge than I really possessed, and were in consequence extremely careful not to wander from the truth, or perhaps I should rather say, not to tell me anything of which they were not absolutely certain. I have already stated my belief that the Todas are very truthful and that they err far more often from carelessness than intention, but the fact that I had a fund of knowledge of which the source was somewhat mysterious probably saved me from having much of my time wasted by careless or inaccurate information.

I think that my familiarity with the names and circumstances of the people helped me to acquire their confidence. Among the more simple people of Torres Straits, I used sometimes to let a man know, much to his astonishment, that I was acquainted with some of the affairs of his family. Among the more reticent Todas, it seemed to me unwise to do this, but, on meeting for the first time a man with whom I was already acquainted through the genealogies, I often referred to something I knew he had done, perhaps to the skilful [467]way he had caught the buffalo at such and such a funeral, and the fact that I knew something of him and his doings often helped to put us at once on friendly terms, and at the same time put him on his mettle to give me the best of the knowledge at his command.

Before using the genealogical record as a means of studying the details of the social organisation, it may be well to consider what guarantee we have that the genealogies form a truthful record of the past. In Torres Straits, where I gained my first experience in these matters, I was so incredulous of the accuracy of the record that I obtained almost every particle of information from two or three different and independent sources, and it was only when I had finished that I found the whole mass of material to furnish a record so consistent in itself that it could hardly have been other than veracious.

Further, on investigating kinship and the regulation of marriage, both on the basis of the genealogical record, it was found that the results of one investigation closely corroborated the results of the other, and that the combined investigations gave so consistent and coherent a result that it was incredible that the genealogies on which the investigations were based should have been other than faithful and accurate records.

The Toda community is considerably larger than either of those with which I worked in the islands of Torres Straits, and when I found that the memories of the people extended back as far or nearly as far as in those islands, it became obvious that I was confronted with a task of considerable magnitude, and the question arose whether it was necessary to obtain separate accounts of every family from independent witnesses, as I had done previously, or whether I might not rely on the account of a family given by one witness and only seek corroboration occasionally. I began by following the same procedure as in Torres Straits, but soon found that the accounts obtained independently showed a close [468]agreement, and I therefore contented myself in my later work with one account, though every now and again I went over a piece of a pedigree with a second witness. When I had finished, the consistency of all the parts of the record with one another seemed to afford conclusive evidence that I had obtained what is, on the whole, a veracious record.

Of course, in so large a mass of material there are mistakes.2 In one family no doubt a child has been omitted, especially when it died young and had no posterity to make its name important; in another case perhaps a child has been added to a family who was really the offspring of another mother. That there are such mistakes is certain, but they are probably few in number, and I have no doubt that, with one exception to be presently considered, such mistakes as have crept in do not appreciably impair the value of the genealogies as a record of the working of social regulations.

There is one deficiency of the record, however, of the existence of which I have little doubt—a deficiency entirely due to my own carelessness. To me the chief interest of the genealogies is that they are a record of the past—a record of the working of social regulations which at the present time may be already affected by the new influences coming into the lives of primitive people all over the world. In my absorption in the records of the past, I have often neglected the present and have omitted to ascertain carefully the children of families at present in process of growth. In several cases I have failed to obtain the names of children of people now living, and I have very little doubt that I have in several or many cases omitted the names of other children of growing families. I had one excuse for this in the fact already mentioned, that I had to obtain my information about a given family from people of some other family. A man would often know all about the members of the given family in the past, but, living perhaps at some distance from the family in question, he was often hazy as to the exact number and names of the children recently born, and it is the record of [469]children under five years of age which I know to be deficient.

If the number of the Todas now living and recorded in the genealogies be counted, it will be found that there are 736 individuals, 419 males and 317 females. In the census of 1901 the total population is given as 805,451 males and 354 females. My record falls short of that of the census by 69 individuals, 32 males and 37 females.

Further, when I arrange the people now living according to age, it is found that there is a distinct deficiency in children under five years of age. Thus, my records of age come out as follows:—

The ages upon which this table is based could only be obtained very roughly, and the figures must be taken merely as rough approximations to the truth. The irregularities of the table may be due partly to this defect, but it is very improbable that there are about the same number of children of five and under as of children between six and ten, and we may be fairly confident that but for omissions the numbers of the youngest group, especially of boys, would have been larger.

I have reason to believe, further, that I have not omitted any appreciable number of adults or children over five years of age. I tested 320 males and 183 females for colour-blindness, [470]and as I was anxious to test every member of the community who was old enough, I obtained towards the end of my visit the names of all those who had not been tested. I only attempted to test children when over five years of age, and I have therefore an independent record of the living Todas above this age, so that it is fairly certain that the greater part of the deficiency in the genealogical record is of children about or below the age of five, though it is possible that I may also have missed a certain number of women.

This deficiency does not in the slightest degree affect the value of the pedigrees as a record of marriages or of the working of social regulations, but it does impair the value of the statistics concerning the average size of a family and other matters of biological interest, though only for the last generation.

On looking through my genealogical tables, it will be seen that different clans and families differ very greatly in the fulness of their record. In some cases I have pedigrees going back to the great-grandfathers of men now in middle life; in other cases I have only the names of the fathers of such men. The briefness of the record is especially marked in the case of the outlying clans, such as Kwòdrdoni, Pedrkars, and Päm, which I only visited for short periods. During these visits there was so much to be done that something had to suffer and the genealogies were usually the victims. If I had had more time, I have little doubt that I could have obtained much fuller records in many cases.

Marshall has stated that the Todas preserve the pedigrees of their buffaloes in the female line, and when I had found how carefully the Todas preserved their own pedigrees my next step was to endeavour to ascertain if the pedigrees of their buffaloes were preserved with the same amount of care and completeness. I returned to this subject again and again, but with very imperfect success. The Todas always treated my inquiries on this subject as if they were trifling and ridiculous. It is possible that this was one of the points on [471]which they were reticent, but I am inclined to think that I was told all there was to tell.

To a certain extent it is correct to say that the pedigrees of the buffaloes are preserved, and in the female line only. If any given buffalo were taken as the starting-point, the owner could usually tell me the names of the mother of the buffalo and of the mother’s mother, and occasionally I obtained the names of the immediate ancestors in the female line for four generations. Thus, Nertiners of Taradr (24) had a buffalo named Kârstum who was the daughter of Idrsh. Idrsh was the daughter of Persud, who was the daughter of Nerûv, who was the daughter of Kiûd. Another of his buffaloes, Keien, was descended from Koisi, Nerûv, and Kâsimi in the order named.

I could not ascertain that the Todas kept any record of the collateral lines of descent, nor was there, so far as I could find, any idea of kinship between buffaloes descended from the same recent ancestor. Two buffaloes born of the same mother would be known, of course, to be sisters, but no importance seemed to be attached to the relationship.

An obvious reason for the limitation of the pedigrees of the buffaloes to the female line is the fact that only female buffaloes are named, so that there are no means of recording male parentage. We shall see later that among themselves the Todas attach little importance to paternity, and the same indifference is found in their attitude towards their buffaloes. The essential reason for the nature of the record of buffalo-descent is the complete absence of desire to maintain the purity of the breed, even of the most sacred herds, and the complete lack of attention to ties of consanguinity between buffaloes mated together.

The chapters on kinship and marriage will furnish object-lessons on the method of application of the knowledge derived from the genealogies to the study of social regulations. In the remainder of this chapter I propose to consider various problems connected with population, of biological as well as [472]of sociological interest. The data derived from the genealogies are here of distinct service, though, for reasons already considered, their value is not so great as in the investigation of social regulations.

Records of the numbers of the Todas have been taken at various times, beginning with what must have been a very rough estimate made by Keys3 in 1812, in which the number of the Todas or Thothavurs was placed at 179. In 1821, Ward4 estimated the numbers of men and women at 140 and 82 respectively, of whom the great majority lived in the Todanad district of the hills.

Hough5 in 1825 found the population to consist of 145 men, 100 women, 45 boys, and 36 girls, altogether 326.

In 1838, Birch6 gives the population as consisting of 294 men and 184 women, amounting to 478, but elsewhere in his paper he says that the number of the Todas was computed at about 800.

In 1847, Ouchterlony7 found the number of the Todas to be 337, made up of 86 adult males, 87 male children, 70 adult females, and 94 female children. The proportion of males to females is only 173 to 164, showing a very much smaller preponderance of males than in any other estimate before or since.

In 1856, Grigg8 gives 185 males and 131 females, altogether 316.

In 1866, Grigg gives the population as 704. If the estimates of this year and that of 1856 were correct, it would show that the population had more than doubled in ten years. It is evident that the census of 1866 is the first which gives anything approaching an accurate record of the Toda population. Even in this year there is one obvious source of error, for it would seem that those living at the foot of the hills, near Gudalur were not included, and probably twenty or thirty, if not more, would have to be added on this account. [473]

For the census of 1871 the records are conflicting. On p. 29 of the Manual, Grigg gives the numbers as 693, 405 males and 288 females. On p. 187 he gives instead of these numbers 376 males and 263 females, making a total of 639. Breeks gives the latter numbers and also a revised result which brings out the total population as 683. This figure, or the earlier of Grigg’s figures, evidently approximates to the correct population, which shows a slight falling off as compared with five years earlier.

In the census of 1881, the numbers would appear to have continued to diminish, the population being put at only 675; 382 males and 293 females.

In 1891, the number had risen to 736; 424 males and 312 females.

In the census of 1901, which was taken with especial care to record all the Todas, there were found to be 451 males and 354 females, making together 805.

The population as recorded in my genealogical tables compiled in 1902 was only 736; 419 males and 317 females. My numbers fall far short of those of the census taken a year previously. As I have already pointed out, my genealogies are untrustworthy as a record of the young children of the community now living, and it is possible also that I have omitted a certain number of women. The excess of men over women is distinctly greater in my figures than in the census of 1901, and this may be due to the fact that I failed to hear of a certain number of widows or unmarried women or girls. If so, it is probable that these defects are in the genealogies of the Teivaliol, and it is in them that the excess of men is greatest.

The earlier records of the population are certainly far below the mark. Captain Harkness, writing in 1832, estimates the attendance at a funeral at 300 men, nearly half that number of women, and about as many boys and girls. Those seen by Harkness may not have been all Todas, since Badagas and Kotas undoubtedly attend Toda funerals, but we may safely call this a total attendance of 500, which would show that the records of Hough in 1825 and of Birch in 1838 are far below the mark, and that Birch’s rough estimate of 800 is [474]probably far more nearly correct, and may even have been too small.

The records have probably been fairly complete since 1866, and if so, they show a falling off in population from this date till the 1881 census. It is, however, possible that the gradual increase in numbers during recent censuses has been due to the greater care taken at each succeeding census. Unsatisfactory as the records are, they seem to point to a diminution of population about the middle of the last century, which ceased between 1880 and 1890, since which time the population has probably increased.

Mr. R. C. Punnett9 has analysed the data furnished by my genealogical records to ascertain the average size of the Toda family. He divided the families recorded in the genealogies into four groups: (A) those where the eldest child would in 1903 be over 90 years of age; (B) those where he would be between 60 and 90; (C) and (D) those where he would be between 30 and 60 and between 0 and 30 respectively. He has recorded the results for Tartharol and Teivaliol separately in the following table.

The figures in square brackets give the average size of the family for each generation, making allowance for cases of female infanticide, which we shall see presently to be a Toda custom which is almost certainly diminishing in frequency.

The conclusion Mr. Punnett draws from this table is that there has been a marked decrease in fertility during the period covered by the genealogies.

The defects in my record as regards young children make [475]any conclusions about the last generation very inconclusive, but since the record for very young children is certainly defective, and since many families now existing will certainly increase in size, it is probable that any progressive decrease in the size of a family has now been arrested, and the details of the genealogical record would therefore agree with the Census Reports in showing the presence of a distinct tendency of the Toda population to increase.

None of the previous records have given any indication of the numbers of the two chief divisions of the Toda people. According to my genealogical records, there were living, in 1902, 528 Tartharol and 208 Teivaliol. The defects in my record are probably somewhat greater for the Teivaliol than for the Tartharol, but any difference there may be is certainly not great, and I think we may conclude that, though these figures are not accurate, they represent approximately the true proportion of the numbers of the two divisions. It is quite certain that the Tartharol are more than twice as numerous as the Teivaliol. Mr. Punnett’s table does not show any great difference between the two divisions in the average size of the family, so that the proportion between the numbers of the two divisions has probably not altered during the period covered by the genealogical record. It is probable that the Teivaliol have always or for a very long time been the smaller division.

The Census Reports and the genealogical record then agree in pointing to a diminution of the Toda population about the middle of last century which has now ceased, the probability being that the Todas are increasing slightly in numbers.

There can be little doubt that any decrease in the Toda population about the middle of last century was the direct result of the changes brought about by the advent of Europeans to the Nilgiri Hills. The adverse influences which came into the lives of the Todas probably owe their origin to the large immigration of native servants and to the development of the bazaar. Though Europeans first began to come to the Nilgiri Hills about 1820, it was not till twenty or thirty years later that they arrived in any considerable numbers, so that it was probably the middle of the century [476]before the injurious influences made their effects felt to any great effect.

The especial influences injurious to fertility have probably been syphilis and sexual immorality, for the Todas do not appear to have fallen to any very great extent under the influence of alcohol or opium. They certainly take both, and especially after the market day at the Ootacamund bazaar, I have seen Todas obviously under the influence of drink; but I believe this to have been only an influence of minor importance on the health of the people. Syphilis, on the other hand, has undoubtedly affected them to a considerable extent. At the present time its ravages are not very obvious, though, without looking for it especially, I saw several examples of its effects. There can be little doubt, however, that it has been a potent factor in the past. In a note in a book by A. C. Burnell,10 it is mentioned that in 1871 thirty-one Todas were treated at Ootacamund for venereal disease, and of these thirty were syphilitic. This means that in one year over 4 per cent. of the total Toda population were treated for syphilis at one place, and we may be fairly confident that all those suffering from the disease did not apply for treatment.

Another factor working towards the diminution of the population has probably been sexual immorality. 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.

If the diminution in the size of the Toda family is due to these adverse influences, it should be found to be greatest in those sections of the Toda community which have been most subject to these influences. The best way of throwing light on this question is to compare the fertility of the different clans of the Tartharol. Some of these, such as Nòdrs, Pan, Taradr, and Kanòdrs, either live in outlying parts of the hills or are sufficiently remote from the chief centres of the European population not to have been influenced very greatly. [477]

The chief village of the Kars clan is situated close to Ootacamund and has suffered greatly from its neighbours, but many of the villages of the clan are more remote, so that the clan may be put down as one partly influenced. The people of Päm and Nidrsi, on the other hand, are more influenced than any other of the Toda clans, as is shown by the alterations in their villages and the neglect of the ritual of their religion. The villages of the Pämol are, or were, near to Wellington Barracks, and it is certainly the most degenerated of all the Toda clans. The following table, taken from Mr. Punnett’s paper, shows the average size of the family in each case, and though the figures are somewhat irregular, they bear out the view that sterility is greater the more the people have come into contact with Europeans and their followers.

The records of the Toda population in the past all show an excess of men over women, and with the exception of the record of Ouchterlony, which is certainly untrustworthy, the excess is considerable. In view of their untrustworthiness no importance can be attached to the records taken earlier than that of 1866, and in the report for that year I have been unable to ascertain the proportions of the sexes. In 1871 there were 140·6 men for every 100 women; in 1881, 130·4 for every 100; in 1891, 135·9, and in the census of 1901, 127·4 men for every 100 women. My figures, derived from the [478]genealogical record, give for 1902, 132·2 men for every 100 women, a proportion distinctly greater than that of the census, which suggests that it is in the female portion of the community that my records are most defective.

In the table on p. 474 taken from Mr. Punnett’s paper, it is seen that the data derived from the genealogical record agree with those of the Census Reports in showing on the whole a progressive decrease in the excess of men over women. The number of families in the first group is too small to give them much importance, but for the three succeeding generations of the Tartharol, the numbers of males for every 100 females are 159·7, 131·4, and 129·2, while for the Teivaliol the figures are 259, 202, and 171 respectively.

The Census Reports and the genealogical record thus agree in showing a progressive diminution in the excess of men over women.

There can be little doubt as to the cause of this. All accounts of the Todas agree in attributing to them the practice of female infanticide, though, at the present time, the Todas are very chary of acknowledging the existence of the practice. They deny it absolutely for the present, and they are reluctant to speak about it for the past.

I do not think that there is the slightest doubt that it was at one time very prevalent, and that it has greatly diminished in frequency, but that it is still practised to some extent. The chance remarks of children to my interpreter, Samuel, had shown him that the practice is still followed occasionally, and I think it far from unlikely that it is even now not a very rare occurrence.

In Mr. Punnett’s table, it will be seen that the genealogical data show that the excess of men is far greater in the Teivaliol than in the Tartharol, and the excess in the former is so great as to leave little doubt that the practice is still followed in this division not infrequently. If this is so, it is probably due to the fact that the Teivaliol chiefly inhabit the more outlying parts of the hills, so that, on the whole, they have been less affected than the Tartharol by the various influences which have come into the lives of the Todas. An [479]accessory factor may have been the priestly functions of the Teivalioi, which have probably tended to make them more conservative.

Previous writers on the Todas have differed considerably in their accounts of the method of infanticide, and I regret very much that I cannot contribute any facts towards the settlement of the question. The subject was one about which the Todas talked so unwillingly that I made no great endeavours to arrive at the truth. A method which has been commonly attributed to the Todas is that of placing the infant at the gate of the buffalo-pen before this is opened in the morning, the herd rushing out and trampling on the child. Another less likely method has been said to be that the infant is drowned in buffalo milk.

The most probable account is that given to Marshall11 by an aged Toda, who stated that the child is suffocated by an old woman, who receives a fee of four annas, and that the child is then buried, which, as we have seen, is the method of disposing of the bodies of still-born children.

There is little reason to connect the practice of female infanticide among the Todas with any deficiency in the necessaries for existence. It seems clear that at one time the Todas supplemented their food of milk with berries, roots, &c., but it is improbable that they were ever in such straits for food that they would have resorted to infanticide on this account. Marshall’s informant ascribed infanticide to the poverty of his people, but this was probably said in order to excuse the practice.

In an earlier part of this chapter we saw that there is evidence of a former diminution of the Toda population. At the same time we see that there is evidence of a diminution of the practice of female infanticide, which would, of course, tend to increase the population. It would thus seem that there have existed among the Todas, during the last fifty years, certain factors tending to diminish the population and one factor tending to increase it. We may conclude that, but for the diminution of infanticide, the falling off in numbers would have been greater, and that the tendency to increase which [480]seems at present to exist may be due, wholly or in part, to the diminution of infanticide.

There is one indication that female infanticide has almost entirely ceased during the last five years, and even that there may now be an excess of female births. In the table of ages given on page 469, it will be seen that the pedigrees record more girls than boys of five years and under. There is no reason why my record of such young children should have been more defective for one sex than for the other, and the proportion here may be approximately correct.

Twins are called ömumokh and it is the custom to kill one of them, even when both are boys. If they should be girls, it is probable that both would be killed, or, at any rate, would have been killed in the past.

There is one case of twins in the genealogies. Iraveli, the wife of Kwötuli and Nudriki (8), gave birth to twins about twelve years ago. Both were boys, and I was first told that one had died shortly after birth, but later inquiries made it almost certain that the boy had been killed. Some time after the birth of the twins, one of the buffaloes of Kwötuli and Nudriki is said to have had a calf with one body, two heads, and four legs. The buffalo died before the calf was born, and the monstrosity was found by the Kotas, to whom the body was given. It was generally expected that something would happen to Kwötuli or Nudriki, but they have since been very prosperous.