Dr. Rivers writes as follows. "The Todas have long been noted as
a polyandrous people, and the institution of polyandry is still in
full working order among them. When the girl becomes the wife of a
boy, it is usually understood that she becomes also the wife of his
brothers. In nearly every case at the present time, and in recent
generations, the husbands of a woman are own brothers. In a few cases,
though not brothers, they are of the same clan. Very rarely do they
belong to different clans. One of the most interesting features of
Toda polyandry is the method by which it is arranged who shall be
regarded as the father of a child. For all social and legal purposes,
the father of a child is the man who performs a certain ceremony
about the seventh month of pregnancy, in which an imitation bow and
arrow are given to the woman. When the husbands are own brothers,
the eldest brother usually gives the bow and arrow, and is the
father of the child, though, so long as the brothers live together,
the other brothers are also regarded as fathers. It is in the cases
in which the husbands are not own brothers that the ceremony becomes
of real social importance. In these cases, it is arranged that one
of the husbands shall give the bow and arrow, and this man is the
father, not only of the child born shortly afterwards, but also of
all succeeding children, till another husband performs the essential
ceremony. Fatherhood is determined so essentially by this ceremony
that a man who has been dead for several years is regarded as the
father of any children born by his widow, if no other man has given
the bow and arrow. There is no doubt that, in former times, the
polyandry of the Todas was associated with female infanticide, and
it is probable that the latter custom still exists to some extent,
though strenuously denied. There is reason to believe that women are
now more plentiful than formerly, though they are still in a distinct
minority. Any increase, however, in the number of women does not
appear to have led to any great diminution of polyandrous marriages,
but polyandry is often combined with polygyny. Two or more brothers
may have two or more wives in common. In such marriages, however,
it seems to be a growing custom that one brother should give the bow
and arrow to one wife, and another brother to another wife."
The pregnancy ceremony referred to above is called pursutpimi, or bow
(and arrow) we touch. According to the account given to me by several
independent witnesses, the woman proceeds, accompanied by members
of the tribe, on a new moon-day in the fifth or seventh month of her
pregnancy, to a shola, where she sits with the man who is to become
the father of her child near a kiaz tree (Eugenia Arnottiana). The
man asks the father of the woman if he may bring the bow, and, on
obtaining his consent, goes in search of a shrub (Sophora glauca),
from a twig of which he makes a mimic bow. The arrow is represented
by a blade of grass called nark (Andropogon Schoenanthus). Meanwhile
a triangular niche has been cut in the kiaz tree, in which a lighted
lamp is placed. The woman seats herself in front of the lamp, and,
on the return of the man, asks thrice "Whose bow is it?" or "What
is it?" meaning to whom, or to which mand does the child belong? The
bow and arrow are handed to the woman, who raises them to her head,
touches her forehead with them, and places them near the tree. From
this moment the lawful father of the child is the man from whom she
has received the bow and arrow. He places on the ground at the foot of
the tree some rice, various kinds of grain, chillies, jaggery (crude
sugar), and salt tied in a cloth. All those present then leave, except
the man and woman, who remain near the tree till about six o'clock in
the evening, when they return to the mand. The time is determined, in
the vicinity of Ootacamund, by the opening of the flowers of Onothera
tetraptera (evening primrose), a garden escape called by the Todas
aru mani puv (six o'clock flower), which opens towards evening. [46]
It may be noted that, at the second funeral of a male, a miniature
bow and three arrows are burnt with various other articles within
the stone circle (azaram).
A few years ago (1902), the Todas, in a petition to Government,
prayed for special legislation to legalise their marriages on the
lines of the Malabar Marriage Act. The Government was of opinion that
legislation was unnecessary, and that it was open to such of the Todas
as were willing to sign the declaration prescribed by section 10 of
the Marriage Act III of 1872 to contract legal marriages under the
provision of that Act. The Treasury Deputy Collector of the Nilgiris
was appointed Registrar of Toda marriages. No marriage has been
registered up to the present time.
The practice of infanticide among the Todas is best summed up in the
words of an aged Toda during an interview with Colonel Marshall. [47]
"I was a little boy when Mr. Sullivan (the first English pioneer of the
Nilgiris) visited these mountains. In those days it was the custom to
kill children, but the practice has long died out, and now one never
hears of it. I don't know whether it was wrong or not to kill them,
but we were very poor, and could not support our children. Now every
one has a mantle (putkuli), but formerly there was only one for the
whole family. We did not kill them to please any god, but because it
was our custom. The mother never nursed the child, and the parents
did not kill it. Do you think we could kill it ourselves? Those tell
lies who say we laid it down before the opening of the buffalo-pen,
so that it might be run over and killed by the animals. We never did
such things, and it is all nonsense that we drowned it in buffalo's
milk. Boys were never killed--only girls; not those who were sickly
and deformed--that would be a sin; but, when we had one girl, or in
some families two girls, those that followed were killed. An old woman
(kelachi) used to take the child immediately it was born, and close
its nostrils, ears, and mouth with a cloth thus--here pantomimic
action. It would shortly droop its head, and go to sleep. We then
buried it in the ground. The kelachi got a present of four annas
for the deed." The old man's remark about the cattle-pen refers to
the Malagasy custom of placing a new-born child at the entrance to a
cattle-pen, and then driving the cattle over it, to see whether they
would trample on it or not. [48] The Missionary Metz [49] bears out
the statement that the Toda babies were killed by suffocation.
At the census, 1901, 453 male and 354 female Todas were returned. In a
note on the proportion of the sexes among the Todas, Mr. R. C. Punnett
states [50] that "all who have studied the Todas are agreed upon the
frequency of the practice (of infanticide) in earlier times. Marshall,
writing in 1872, refers to the large amount of female infanticide in
former years, but expresses his conviction that the practice had by
that time died out. Marshall's evidence is that of native assurance
only. Dr. Rivers, who received the same assurance, is disinclined to
place much confidence in native veracity with reference to this point,
and, in view of the lack of encouragement which the practice receives
from the Indian Government, this is not altogether surprising. The
supposition of female infanticide, by accounting for the great
disproportion in the numbers of the sexes, brings the Todas into
harmony with what is known of the rest of mankind." In summarising
his conclusions, Mr. Punnett notes that:--
(1) Among the Todas, males predominate greatly over females.
(2) This preponderance is doubtless due to the practice of female
infanticide, which is probably still to some extent prevalent.
(3) The numerical preponderance of the males has been steadily
sinking during recent years, owing probably to the check which foreign
intercourse has imposed upon female infanticide.
In connection with the death ceremonies of the Todas, Dr. Rivers
notes that "soon after death the body is burnt, and the general
name for the ceremony on this occasion is etvainolkedr, the first
day funeral. After an interval, which may vary greatly in length,
a second ceremony is performed, connected with certain relics of the
deceased which have been preserved from the first occasion. The Toda
name for this second funeral ceremony is marvainolkedr, the second day
funeral, or 'again which day funeral.' The funeral ceremonies are open
to all, and visitors are often invited by the Todas. In consequence,
the funeral rites are better known, and have been more frequently
described than any other features of Toda ceremonial. Like nearly
every institution of the Todas, however, they have become known
to Europeans under their Badaga names. The first funeral is called
by the Badagas hase kedu, the fresh or green funeral, and the term
'green funeral' has not only become the generally recognised name
among the European inhabitants of the Nilgiri hills, but has been
widely adopted in anthropological literature. The second funeral is
called by the Badagas bara kedu, the 'dry funeral,' and this term
also has been generally adopted." The various forms of the funeral
ceremonies are discussed in detail by Dr. Rivers, and it must suffice
to describe those at which we have been present as eye-witnesses.
I had the opportunity of witnessing the second funeral of a woman
who had died from smallpox two months previously. On arrival at a
mand on the open downs about five miles from Ootacamund, we were
conducted by a Toda guide to the margin of a dense shola, where
we found two groups seated apart, consisting of (a) women, girls,
and brown-haired female babies, round a camp fire; (b) men, boys,
and male babies, carried, with marked signs of paternal affection,
by their fathers. In a few minutes a murmuring sound commenced
in the centre of the female group. Working themselves up to the
necessary pitch, some of the women (near relatives of the deceased)
commenced to cry freely, and the wailing and lachrymation gradually
spread round the circle, until all, except little girls and babies
who were too young to be affected, were weeping and mourning, some
for fashion, others from genuine grief. In carrying out the orthodox
form of mourning, the women first had a good cry to themselves, and
then, as their emotions became more intense, went round the circle,
selecting partners with whom to share companionship in grief. Gradually
the group resolved itself into couplets of mourners, each pair with
their heads in contact, and giving expression to their emotions
in unison. Before separating to select a new partner, each couple
saluted by bowing the head, and raising thereto the feet of the other,
covered by the putkuli. [I have seen women rapidly recover from the
outward manifestations of grief, and clamour for money.] From time
to time the company of mourners was reinforced by late arrivals from
distant mands, and, as each detachment, now of men and now of women,
came in view across the open downs, one could not fail to be reminded
of the gathering of the clans on some Highland moor. The resemblance
was heightened by the distant sound as of pipers, produced by the
Kota band (with two police constables in attendance), composed of
four Kotas, who made a weird noise with drums and flutes as they drew
near the scene of action. The band, on arrival, took up a position
close to the mourning women. As each detachment arrived, the women,
recognising their relatives, came forward and saluted them in the
manner customary among Todas by falling at their feet, and placing
first the right and then the left foot on their head. Shortly after the
arrival of the band, signals were exchanged, by waving of putkulis,
between the assembled throng and a small detachment of men some
distance off. A general move was made, and an impromptu procession
formed, with men in front, band in the middle, and women bringing
up the rear. A halt was made opposite a narrow gap leading into the
shola; men and women sat apart as before; and the band walked round,
discoursing unsweet music. A party of girls went off to bring fire from
the spot just vacated for use in the coming ceremonial, but recourse
was finally had to a box of matches lent by one of our party. At this
stage we noticed a woman go up to the eldest son of the deceased,
who was seated apart from the other men, and would not be comforted
in spite of her efforts to console him. On receipt of a summons from
within the shola, the assembled Toda men and ourselves swarmed into
it by a narrow track leading to a small clear space round a big tree,
from a hole cut at the base of which an elderly Toda produced a piece
of the skull of the dead woman, wrapped round with long tresses of her
hair. It now became the men's turn to exhibit active signs of grief,
and all of one accord commenced to weep and mourn. Amid the scene
of lamentation, the hair was slowly unwrapt from off the skull, and
burned in an iron ladle, from which a smell as of incense arose. A
bamboo pot of ghi was produced, with which the skull was reverently
anointed, and placed in a cloth spread on the ground. To this relic
of the deceased the throng of men, amid a scene of wild excitement,
made obeisance by kneeling down before it, and touching it with their
foreheads. The females were not permitted to witness this stage of the
proceedings, with the exception of one or two near relatives of the
departed one, who supported themselves sobbing against the tree. The
ceremonial concluded, the fragment of skull, wrapt in the cloth, was
carried into the open, where, as men and boys had previously done,
women and girls made obeisance to it. A procession was then again
formed, and marched on until a place was reached, where were two
stone-walled kraals, large and small. Around the former the men,
and within the latter the women, took up their position, the men
engaging in chit-chat, and the women in mourning, which after a
time ceased, and they too engaged in conversation. A party of men,
carrying the skull, still in the cloth, set out for a neighbouring
shola, where a kedu of several other dead Todas was being celebrated;
and a long pause ensued, broken eventually by the arrival of the
other funeral party, the men advancing in several lines, with arms
linked, and crying out U, hah! U, hah, hah! in regular time. This
party brought with it pieces of the skulls of a woman and two men,
which were placed, wrapt in cloths, on the ground, saluted, and mourned
over by the assembled multitude. At this stage a small party of Kotas
arrived, and took up their position on a neighbouring hill, waiting,
vulture-like, for the carcase of the buffalo which was shortly to be
slain. Several young men now went off across the hill in search of
buffaloes, and speedily re-appeared, driving five buffaloes before
them with sticks. As soon as the beasts approached a swampy marsh
at the foot of the hill on which the expectant crowd of men was
gathered together, two young men of athletic build, throwing off
their putkulis, made a rush down the hill, and tried to seize one
of the buffaloes by the horns, with the result that one of them
was promptly thrown. The buffalo escaping, one of the remaining
four was quickly caught by the horns, and, with arms interlocked,
the men brought it down on its knees, amid a general scuffle. In
spite of marked objection and strenuous resistance on the part of
the animal--a barren cow--it was, by means of sticks freely applied,
slowly dragged up the hill, preceded by the Kota band, and with a
Toda youth pulling at its tail. Arrived at the open space between
the kraals, the buffalo, by this time thoroughly exasperated, and
with blood pouring from its nostrils, had a cloth put on its back,
and was despatched by a blow on the poll with an axe deftly wielded
by a young and muscular man. On this occasion no one was badly hurt
by the sacrificial cow, though one man was seen washing his legs in
the swamp after the preliminary struggle with the beast. But Colonel
Ross-King narrates how he saw a man receive a dangerous wound in the
neck from a thrust of the horn, which ripped open a wide gash from
the collar-bone to the ear. With the death of the buffalo, the last
scene, which terminated the strange rites, commenced; men, women, and
children pressing forward and jostling one another in their eagerness
to salute the dead beast by placing their hands between its horns,
and weeping and mourning in pairs; the facial expression of grief
being mimicked when tears refused to flow spontaneously.
The ceremonial connected with the final burning of the relics and
burial of the ashes at the stone circle (azaram) are described in
detail by Dr. Rivers.
A few days after the ceremony just described, I was invited to be
present at the funeral of a young girl who had died of smallpox five
days previously. I proceeded accordingly to the scene of the recent
ceremony, and there, in company with a small gathering of Todas from
the neighbouring mands, awaited the arrival of the funeral cortége,
the approach of which was announced by the advancing strains of
Kota music. Slowly the procession came over the brow of the hill;
the corpse, covered by a cloth, on a rude ladder-like bier, borne
on the shoulders of four men, followed by two Kota musicians; the
mother carried hidden within a sack; relatives and men carrying bags
of rice and jaggery, and bundles of wood of the kiaz tree (Eugenia
Arnottiana) for the funeral pyre. Arrived opposite a small hut,
which had been specially built for the ceremonial, the corpse was
removed from the bier, laid on the ground, face upwards, outside
the hut, and saluted by men, women, and children, with the same
manifestations of grief as on the previous occasion. Soon the men
moved away to a short distance, and engaged in quiet conversation,
leaving the females to continue mourning round the corpse, interrupted
from time to time by the arrival of detachments from distant mands,
whose first duty was to salute the dead body. Meanwhile a near
female relative of the dead child was busily engaged inside the hut,
collecting together in a basket small measures of rice, jaggery, sago,
honey-comb, and the girl's simple toys, which were subsequently to be
burned with the corpse. The mourning ceasing after a time, the corpse
was placed inside the hut, and followed by the near relatives, who
there continued to weep over it. A detachment of men and boys, who
had set out in search of the buffaloes which were to be sacrificed,
now returned driving before them three cows, which escaped from their
pursuers to rejoin the main herd. A long pause ensued, and, after a
very prolonged drive, three more cows were guided into a marshy swamp,
where one of them was caught by the horns, and dragged reluctantly,
but with little show of fight, to the strains of Kota drum and flute,
in front of the hut, where it was promptly despatched by a blow on
the poll. The corpse was now brought from within the hut, and placed,
face upwards, with its feet resting on the forehead of the buffalo,
whose neck was decorated with a silver chain, such as is worn by Todas
round the loins, as no bell was available, and the horns were smeared
with butter. Then followed frantic manifestations of grief, amid
which the unhappy mother fainted. Mourning over, the corpse was made
to go through a form of ceremony, resembling that which is performed
during pregnancy with the first child. A small boy, three years old,
was selected from among the relatives of the dead girl, and taken
by his father in search of a certain grass (Andropogon Schoenanthus)
and a twig of a shrub (Sophora glauca), which were brought to the spot
where the corpse was lying. The mother of the dead child then withdrew
one of its hands from the putkuli, and the boy placed the grass and
twig in the hand, and limes, plantains, rice, jaggery, honey-comb,
and butter in the pocket of the putkuli, which was then stitched with
needle and thread in a circular pattern. The boy's father then took
off his son's putkuli, and replaced it so as to cover him from head
to foot. Thus covered, the boy remained outside the hut till the
morning of the morrow, watched through the night by near relatives
of himself and his dead bride. [On the occasion of the funeral of an
unmarried lad, a girl is in like manner selected, covered with her
putkuli from head to foot, and a metal vessel filled with jaggery,
rice, etc., to be subsequently burnt on the funeral pyre, placed for
a short time within the folds of the putkuli. Thus covered, the girl
remains till next morning, watched through the dreary hours of the
night by relatives. The same ceremony is performed over the corpse
of a married woman who has not borne children, the husband acting as
such for the last time, in the vain hope that the woman may produce
issue in heaven.] The corpse was borne away to the burning-ground
within the shola, and, after removal of some of the hair by the
mother of the newly wedded boy, burned, with face upwards, amid the
music of the Kota band, the groans of the assembled crowd squatting
on the ground, and the genuine grief of the nearest relatives. The
burning concluded, a portion of the skull was removed from the ashes,
and handed over to the recently made mother-in-law of the dead girl,
and wrapped up with the hair in the bark of the tud tree (Meliosma
pungens). A second buffalo, which, properly speaking, should have
been slain before the corpse was burnt, was then sacrificed, and
rice and jaggery were distributed among the crowd, which dispersed,
leaving behind the youthful widower and his custodians, who, after
daybreak, partook of a meal of rice, and returned to their mands;
the boy's mother taking with her the skull and hair to her mand,
where it would remain until the celebration of the second funeral. No
attention is paid to the ashes after cremation, and they are left to
be scattered by the winds.
A further opportunity offered itself to be present at the funeral of
an elderly woman on the open downs not far from Paikara, in connection
with which certain details possess some interest. The corpse was, at
the time of our arrival, laid out on a rude bier within an improvised
arbour covered with leaves and open at each end, and tended by some
of the female relatives. At some little distance, a conclave of Toda
men, who rose of one accord to greet us, was squatting in a circle,
among whom were many venerable white-turbaned elders of the tribe,
protected from the scorching sun by palm-leaf umbrellas. Amid much
joking, and speech-making by the veterans, it was decided that,
as the eldest son of the deceased woman was dead, leaving a widow,
this daughter-in-law should be united to the second son, and that
they should live together as man and wife. On the announcement of the
decision, the bridegroom-elect saluted the principal Todas present
by placing his head on their feet, which were sometimes concealed
within the ample folds of the putkuli. At the funeral of a married
woman, three ceremonies must, I was told, be performed, if possible,
by a daughter or daughter-in-law, viz.:--
(1) Tying a leafy branch of the tiviri shrub (Atylosia Candolleana)
in the putkuli of the corpse;
(2) Tying balls of thread and cowry shells on the arm of the corpse,
just above the elbow;
(3) Setting fire to the funeral pyre, which was, on the present
occasion, done by lighting a rag fed with ghi with a match.