Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 8.djvu/115

TODA MEN.—TODA WOMEN. cotton thread. The garment is put round the shoulders, one end is often thrown over the left shoulder, the rest, gathered in by the hand, covers the whole person to the feet (vide Plate). The management of this simple covering by the women is very graceful. They wear no bodice or inner clothing of any kind.

The Todas reside in small villages called munds, each being the property of a family, or part of a division of the tribe, and consist of several houses for habitation, and one appropriated as a general dairy, which no one but the pujari, or priest, is allowed to enter. Here the usual dairy operations go on: the milk churned into butter, which is boiled into ghee, by the sale of which the families are supported. Necessarily a considerable portion of both milk and ghee is consumed by the families, as it forms the greater portion of their ordinary food. These munds are placed in quiet, somewhat secluded situations, of great natural beauty, and are surrounded by short, soft sward, which, with the foliage around them, adds to the charm of the situation, and wherever met with among the lovely scenery of the hills, are remarkable objects. The Todas possess very large herds of fine buffluloes, which, after being milked, are driven out to pasture in the morning, and return to the mund in the evening, when, in the monsoon, when grass is plentiful, they are milked again. The appearance of these animals at graze is very wild, but they are in perfect subjection to their owners. At night they are gathered together in kraals, which are surrounded by stone walls. Besides their milk and ghee, the Todas possess a very ancient claim upon the Badagas, or cultivators, for "guder," or shares of produce at harvest time upon their holdings. This affords them what grain they need, for Todas never cultivate the land in any form, and before the settlement of the Badagas must have lived on milk and ghee alone, possibly with some flesh derived from game. But the Todas deny that animal food ever formed part of their ordinary diet, and the custom is still continued, though they are believed to kill and eat their male buffalo calves to some extent.

The dairy house in each mund is the temple, where the priest, purified for his office, resides after his purification, which consists mainly of living apart in the open country without covering for eight days. Some temples contain bells which are sacred; others have none. Each temple is supposed to have a presiding god, but there is no object of worship except the bell, to which an occasional libation of milk is poured. Mr. Breeks enumerates the several munds and deities, and continues:—

"Besides the above-mentioned deities, the Todas also recognize a hunting god, called Bati Khan, who lives at Nambilikoti, in Wainaad. They say he is a son of Dukish (who was a son of En, the first Toda), and is now attended by Brahmins. In spite of this formidable pantheon, the Toda religion is of the vaguest and smallest kind. Some old men, of a devout turn of mind, make salam