Chapter XIII

are expiatory and not punitive.

The list of offences given on p. 295 includes quarrelling between people of the same clan at a festival and quarrelling in the dairy. In both cases the quarrelling is an offence against the dairy, and I have no information to show whether quarrels ever lead to acts of violence which might in other places become the subject of criminal investigation. So far as I could learn, any investigation by the naim would only deal with the causes which had led to the quarrel; it would deal only with the civil and not with the criminal aspect of the case.

Again, the custom of terersthi, or transference of wives, which is the chief subject of the deliberations of the naim, sometimes leads to acts of violence. A woman who has been transferred by the naim from one man to another may be carried off by force from the home of the former, but, however such an act may be regarded from our standpoint, it is not a crime from the Toda point of view, but merely the carrying out of the decision of the judicial authority. So many Todas are, however, discovering that such an act is regarded as a crime by Europeans that there will probably soon come about a state of public opinion which will regard such abduction as a crime, and possibly the same idea may become attached to the whole custom of transference of a woman from one man to another unwillingly. It seemed not unlikely at the time of my visit that this conversion of a custom into a crime might be assisted by the action of the Government.

In the legend of Kwoten, this hero kills Parden, but so far as I know this is the only example of murder, either legendary or historical, among the Todas. The Todas may take part in the murder of a Kurumba who has been working magic, but this is of course no crime from the Toda point of view, but an obvious method of self-defence, for it is believed that the only way of stopping Kurumba sorcery is to kill the sorcerer.

With the exception of the occurrences accompanying the transference of wives, which I have already considered, I heard of no case of assault by one Toda on another.

Similarly, I heard of no offence against property except in connexion with the dairy. So far as I know, ornaments or clothing are never stolen. In the list of offences against the dairy, stealing ghi is included, but it was clear that this is regarded as sacrilege, as an offence against the dairy and not as an offence committed against the individual.

SUICIDE

In the legend of Kwoten there is a record of suicide by strangling, and since the suicide of Erten and his confederates this is said to have been a recognised custom among the Todas. Several instances have occurred in recent times; thus, about four generations ago, at a village called Podzkwar, near Taradrkirsi, a woman and her husband had a dispute and the woman strangled herself. About three generations ago a man strangled himself in the dairy at Melgars, and when a Toda is very angry he will threaten to commit suicide, saying “on mêdr kati kêdraividikin”—“my neck tying, I will die.”

Another way of committing suicide, said to have been borrowed from the Badagas, is that of taking opium. There has been a recent case of suicide, by this means, and when angry, a Toda sometimes says, “mud tid kêdraividikin”—“Opium eating, I will die.”

THE MONEGAR

The Todas have a monegar, or headman, who is responsible for the assessment which the Todas pay to Government for their grazing rights, &c. (see below).

The earliest monegar whom the Todas remember is Teitchi or Teiti (52). He was succeeded by his fourth son, Mutevan, who is still alive. The two eldest sons had died before their father, and Persevan, the third son, was said to be weak-minded, and Mutevan was therefore chosen to succeed.

Mutevan is now a very old man, probably about eighty years of age, and his office was taken over some years ago by his eldest son, Ivievan. Though Ivievan is the monegar he is not the chief representative of his family on the naim, this position belonging to Kuriolv, the son of Pareivan and Persevan. Ivievan is helped in collecting the assessment by an assistant monegar, and till lately this place belonged to Parkurs of Kars.

It does not appear that the monegarship is a real Toda office, but that the earliest monegar was appointed by Mr. Sullivan, the first British official of the Nilgiris. The family, however, to which the monegar belongs is called the manikudupel, which may mean the monegar family, but I could not discover definitely whether this title is older than the institution of the monegarship. It is possible that Teitchi was one of the chief men of the naim when the Europeans first came to the hills and that he was therefore appointed as monegar.

It is quite clear that at the present time the monegar, Ivievan, is not the most important man among the Todas, but that the predominant position belongs to his cousin, Kuriolv, the representative of the family on the naim.

HEADMEN

Though it is very doubtful whether the institution of monegar is not an innovation, and whether the Todas as a whole have properly any true chief, it is fairly clear that the clan and its divisions have definite leaders.

Each clan has a headman or etudol; usually, it seemed to me, one who had come to the top by virtue of his character and ability. I did not learn how far his position was generally recognised nor by what means he was chosen. It was quite clear, however, that the leading man of a clan might lose his position in old age or as the result of illness, and at the time of my visit there were several men who had been the heads of their clans but no longer occupied those positions.

Similarly, as we have seen, both kudr and pòlm have their leading men, who give their names to the divisions and are probably responsible for the conduct of their business.

PROPERTY

Among the Todas, property may be held by the clan, the family or the individual. I am not clear whether there is any case in which property is held to belong to the Todas as a whole, or to either of the two divisions. There were two villages, Padegar and Ki Perththo, said to be common property, so that any one might live at them. At the time of my visit both were occupied by Melgars people, and I could not satisfy myself as to what was meant by saying that they were common property.

In general, land, the dairies of the chief villages, and some buffaloes may be said to be the property of the clan. The house, and probably also some villages, are the property of a family, and most buffaloes, household goods and ornaments are the property of the individual.

Land.—The relation of the Todas to the land has been a much discussed theme, and for many years after the first settlement of the hills by Europeans it was a subject of controversy. The fact that the Badagas paid what seemed to be a tribute of grain to the Todas was held to show that the latter were regarded as the “lords of the soil,” and the view was strongly upheld that they should be so regarded by the Indian Government. The other view taken of the matter was that permanent rights in the soil throughout India belong to the State. The controversy [227] was not settled till 1843, when it was decided that the Todas should have the privilege of pasturing their herds on the State lands on payment of a small tax. At the present time the Todas receive an annual sum from the Government as compensation for land taken from them in Ootacamund and elsewhere.

Although the Todas have thus had much difficulty with the Government in relation to the ownership of land, it does not seem that they have trouble in this matter among themselves, and I heard of no disputes between members of different clans or different villages about grazing rights.

In the account of the marriage dispute between Punog and Nertiners (see p. 536) the former had evidently put many of his buffaloes in the charge of his brother-in-law for grazing purposes, but it was quite clear that no question of grazing rights came into this dispute. The buffaloes only came into the quarrel because Nertiners happened to have them in his charge when the marriage dispute arose.

I did not ascertain definitely how grazing rights between two clans or families are regulated, but I think it is quite clear that there is no individual ownership in land.

Certain dairies, and probably all the chief villages (etudmad), are regarded more or less as the property of the whole clan. There probably never arises any real question of ownership, but as regards the dairies, it was clear that any expenses incurred in the repair or rebuilding of a dairy fall on the whole clan, each pòlm of the clan contributing an equal share. [228]

The buffalo herds of the ti are also regarded as the property of the whole clan, but the rights of ownership are in these cases very shadowy. It does not appear that the owning clan derives any pecuniary benefit from its possession of the herd, while, on the other hand, the possession involves considerable expense, chiefly owing to certain feasts which have to be provided, and these expenses are given as the reason why certain of the sacred dairies are unoccupied. The people of the owning clan have, it is true, the right of choosing the palol, but as the choice is limited, and there is, in most cases, little competition for the office, this is a very empty honour.

Houses. Each house belongs to a certain family. The normal Toda family consists of a number of brothers with one wife, and each house belongs to a family of this kind, and is handed on to the children of the brothers.

If the brothers quarrel, the affair is settled by the naim, and it is usually decided that one brother or more than one of the brothers shall occupy the house for a certain period, usually a year, and that at the end of this period he (or they) shall move to another village, when another brother or brothers will occupy the house.

Such disputes do not seem to be frequent, but one was in existence during my visit. The two younger of three brothers had taken a wife without the knowledge of the eldest. The latter did not approve of the choice, and wished his brothers to send the wife away, which they refused to do. As the dispute had not yet been settled, the eldest brother at the time of my visit was living in the house, while the other brothers were living at the village of their newly chosen wife.

If a family dies out, it seems that the house is not, as a rule, taken on by another family. It falls into disuse, and in time disappears. As a village may sometimes consist of one house only, villages may disappear in this way, and the ruins of some villages were pointed out to me which had fallen into disuse owing to the dying out of the families which formerly occupied them. A really important village, i.e., one with an important dairy, would of course never disappear in this way, but it is possible that the reason why some villages, such as Nasmiòdr and Kanòdrs, now consist of a dairy only, is that the families which possessed the houses at these villages became extinct. I do not, however, know positively that a house at such an important village may not, in some cases, be taken over by another family.

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 live, and when they die he continues to live in the parental home, of which he becomes the owner.

Buffaloes. These are to a very large extent individual property. In practice, owing to the fact that brothers usually live together, a herd of buffaloes is treated as the property of a family of brothers, but whenever the occasion arises there are definite rules for the division of the buffaloes among them.

I have already referred to the fact that certain herds of buffaloes, such as the ti herds and the kugvalir of Taradr, are the common property of a clan, but the great majority of both sacred and ordinary buffaloes belong to families or individuals. [229] When a man who owns a certain number of buffaloes dies, the buffaloes are not necessarily divided among his sons. If the sons are all living together, the buffaloes may be treated as if they were common property. The milk of the ordinary buffaloes is churned in the dwelling-hut, and that of the sacred buffaloes in the dairy, and the produce in each case is regarded as the property of the whole family. It is only when dissensions arise, or when some reason makes it desirable that the brothers should separate and live in different villages, that the laws regulating the

## partition of buffaloes come into force.

When such an occasion arises the buffaloes are equally divided among the brothers, with the exception that the eldest son and the youngest son each receive one buffalo in excess of the rest. This custom is known as îrvâkhtnûdr meilkûdr, or “if divide buffaloes, superior portion.”

If there are only two sons, each will get meilkudr, and the buffaloes are equally divided; but if there should be an unequal number of buffaloes, the odd buffalo is taken by the elder son.

If there are more than two sons, the buffaloes are equally divided with meilkudr to the eldest and youngest, and any odd buffaloes are in this case sold and the proceeds equally divided, or, more commonly, one of the brothers takes the odd buffaloes and gives the right proportion of their value to the other brothers.

Thus, if sixteen buffaloes are to be divided among four brothers, the eldest and youngest would each take four, the second and third brothers would each take three, and the remaining two buffaloes would either be sold and the purchase money equally divided, or taken by one of the brothers, who would divide three-quarters of the value of the buffaloes between the other three men. If there should be only fourteen buffaloes, the eldest and youngest sons would each take four buffaloes and the others three.

The meilkudr is also operative if a man divides his buffaloes among his sons in his lifetime. In this case a man usually keeps some buffaloes for himself; thus I was told that a man who had sixteen buffaloes and three sons might give four buffaloes to the eldest, three to the next, and four to the youngest son, keeping five for himself.

The Todas told me of one apparent exception to the law of meilkudr. If, in a family of four brothers, the two elder brothers marry one wife and the two younger marry another and the two groups separate, the buffaloes would be equally divided, but this is because each would receive a meilkudr. If, on the other hand, the eldest and youngest son married one wife, and the other two sons married another woman, the first group would receive two buffaloes in excess of the second. The former example is, of course, an obvious consequence of the law of meilkudr. I only mention it because the Todas told me of it especially, and seemed to regard it as a case which might be thought to be a departure from custom.

I gave the Todas a number of hypothetical problems of buffalo division, and all were solved in accordance with the law of meilkudr. I have not been able to learn of any exact parallel in other parts of the world, and it seems possible that it is an independent invention of the Todas. The division is called kudr, or horn, and it seems to me quite possible that at some time it occurred to an ingenious Toda that the two extremities of the family should be regarded as the two horns of the family, and that this fact should be recognised in the division of property, or, it may be, that the custom of endowing the eldest of the family above his fellows existed among the Todas as among so many other races, till it was pointed out that this was like a buffalo with one horn, and the youngest son was therefore similarly endowed to restore the symmetry of the family. The buffalo influences the Toda mind so much that I do not think this is a far-fetched explanation of a custom which appears to be the unique possession of this people.

The word kudr is also the name of one of the divisions of the clan, and it seemed clear in this case that the proper number of kudr in each clan is two.

There is much transference of buffaloes from one man to another, or from one family to another. Many ceremonies involve gifts of buffaloes, and these are usually presented by a member of one clan to a member of another. Marriage is one of the chief occasions of such gifts. Refusal to fulfil the marriage contract and divorce involve the payment of buffaloes, and the terersthi custom is a great source of the passing of buffaloes from one clan to another. Similarly, buffaloes are given at the ceremonies of naming, ear-piercing, &c., and as I have already pointed out, these transferences have led to great confusion in the classification of the different kinds of sacred buffaloes, as a man may have in his possession animals belonging to several named groups.

In the case of ordinary buffaloes, or putiir, it seemed that a distinction is made between buffaloes which have been acquired by a man and those descended from animals which had been in the possession of his father and grandfather. My attention was drawn to this point by the occurrence at the funeral of Sinerani. The recalcitrant buffalo on this occasion was one of the latter kind, and I was told that it should not have been killed at the funeral of a girl because, being descended from a buffalo which belonged to Kuriolv’s grandfather, Kuriolv’s heirs had a right to it of which they were deprived by its slaughter for a girl. If the dead child had been a boy the slaughter of this buffalo would have been proper, for the dead child in this case would have been one of the heirs.

Transferences of buffaloes also take place between Todas and Badagas, as we have seen in connexion with the ear-piercing ceremony described in