The TODAS :The Tribe of India

 

Who are the toda people?

In the south of India, on the west side of Tamil Nadu, the Nilgiri mountains form the western ghats. The native of the South Indian people lives here. Although they are categorized as indigenous and native people of southern India, there is a lot of diversity among them. Some researchers classify the indigenous people as proto-Dravidian people. Kurumbas, Kota, Badaga, and Toda are the names of the tribes of the indigenous people. They live at 2000 to 2500 meters of altitude in the Nilgiri hills.

How they are distinct from the other tribes of Nilgiri Mountain? And what do they do? 

Toda wears long flowing white cloaks embroidered with coloured bars, thrown over the shoulder with a white waist clop. Some anthropologists believe they came from ancient Sumer based on the clothes they wore. They stand out physically by being tall, slim, and covered in body hair. Traditionally, Toda men sported long beards. And toda women stand out due to their distinctive hairstyles. When women hit puberty, it was mandatory for them to get tattoos on their chests, backs, and hands with a pattern of rings.

 A typical village will have one temple hut and four to five houses. They are made from the local material of the Nilgiri mountains. The use of bamboo is prevalent in the making of houses. The doors of the house are too small; one has to bend to get into the house.The Toda were pastoralists and herders whose lives revolved around buffaloes. They trade buffalo milk in exchange for grains, utensils, and forest products with the other tribes of Nilgiris. The Toda people distinguish between two kinds of buffalo, one sacred and one ordinary. The ordinary ones are attended by the men of the village, while the sacred ones are attended by the dairyman priest. Takashi, the toda god, is said to have created toda and buffaloes, as well as a sub-caste of toda.

Social structure, customs and tradition of Todas :

The Toda tribes practiced the polyandry system, meaning that a man's wife was automatically the wife of all his brothers.In this tribe, a man must marry outside the mob to which he belongs. This is different from the marriages of the south, where a man is allowed to marry his cousins.The Toda people are largely divided into two divisions. 1) Tevaliol and 2) Tartharol They are two endogamous divisions of the Toda people. Each division is endogamous, as is the cast, and each is further divided into exogamous septs. 

There are some special privileges or specializations for Teivaliol people. Teivaliol provides the majority of the sacred dairyman preist. Marriages are forbidden between these two groups. Despite the people holding most of the sacred positions, the Tartharol people do not show any respect to the Teivaliol people. The Tartharol people do not give any superiority to the highest priestly functions. Because Tartharol people always boasted that they were the superior people and the Teivaliol were the servants of them,The fact that a Teivaliol dairyman lives in Tartharol village may not have an impact on the Tarharol people. Because they consider that they have appointed the Teivaliol as a dairyman and he is a servant. And that suggests the inferiority of Teivaliol people.

They are dependent on each other, like Teivaliol people have to do certain duties for Tartharol people and vice versa. At the funeral of the Tartharol people, the Teivaliol will dig the earth, and at the funeral of Teivaliol, the Tartharol will have to dig the earth.

We can see the roots of the caste system in the Toda tribes. Where the castes were dependent on each other but were restricted to only performing certain tasks and not including the members of other castes in their own castes.

Further readings:

Emeneau, M. B. (1937). Toda Marriage Regulations and Taboos. American Anthropologist, 39(1), 103–112. http://www.jstor.org/stable/662076

Wolf, R. K. (2000). Three Perspectives on Music and the Idea of Tribe in India. Asian Music, 32(1), 5–34. https://doi.org/10.2307/834329

Rivers, W. H. R. (1906). The Todas. United Kingdom: Macmillan.

Pope, G. U., Marshall, W. E. (1873). Travels Amongst the Todas: Or The Study of a Primitive Tribe in South India, Their History, Character, Customs, Religion, Infanticide, Polyandry, Language; with Outlines of the Tuda Grammar. United Kingdom: Longmans, Green.