Dr. N. Amutha Kumari*
ABSTRACT
The Toda people are a small pastoral community who live on the isolated Nilgiri Plateau of Southern India. Prior to the late 18th Century, the Toda co-existed locally with other communities. The Toda traditionally live in settlement consisting of three to seven small thatched houses, constructed in the shape of half barrels and spread across the slopes of the pasture. They traditionally trade dairy products with the neighbouring people of Nilgiri. The religious and funerary rites provide the social context in which complex poetic songs about the cult of the buffalo are composed and chanted. Fraternal polyandry in traditional Toda society was fairly common however this has now largely been abandoned. During the last quarter of the twentieth Century some Toda pasture land was lost due to agriculture by outsiders or forestation by the State Government of Tamil Nadu. This has threatened to undermine Toda culture by greatly diminishing the buffalo herds; however during the last decade both Toda society and culture have also become the focus of international efforts at culturally sensitive environmental restoration. The Toda lands are now a part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO – designated International Biosphere Reserve and is under consideration by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee for selection as a World Heritage site.
CULTURE AND SOCIETY
The origin of the Todas is not very clear. They are one of the original tribes inhabiting the highest regions of the Nilgiris mountain range and have remained secluded for a very long time. The Toda dress consists of a single piece of cloth, which is worn like the plaid of a Scottish highlander over a dhoti for men and skirt for women. Their sole occupation is cattle-herding and dairy work. They once practiced fraternal polyandry, a practice in which a woman marries all the brothers of a family, but no longer do so. The ratio of females to males is about 3 to 5. The Todas are vegetarians and do not eat meat, eggs which can hatch (fertilized eggs) and fish but some villagers eat fish. Buffalo milk is made into butter, butter milk, yogurt, cheese and drunk plain. Rice is mainly eaten and is eaten with dairy and curries. According to the Todas, the goddess Teikirshy and her brother first created the sacred buffalo and then the first Toda man. The first Toda woman was created from the right rib of the first Toda man. The Toda religion also forbids them from walking across bridges, rivers must be crossed in foot or swimming.
Toda temples are constructed in a circular pit lined with stones and are quite similar in appearance and construction to Toda huts. Among the Todas of southern India the holy milkman, who acts as priest of the sacred dairy, is subject to a variety of irksome and burden-some restrictions during the whole time of his incumbency, which may last many years. Thus he must live at the sacred dairy and may never visit his home or any ordinary village. He must be celibate; if he is married he must leave his wife. On no account may any ordinary person touch the holy milkman or the holy dairy such a touch would so defile his holiness that he would forfeit his office. It is only on two days a week, namely Mondays and Thursdays that a mere layman may even approach the milkman. On other days if he has any business with him, he must stand at a distance and shout his message across the intervening space. Further, the holy milkman never cuts his hair or pares his nails so long as he holds office he never crosses a river by a bridge, but wades through a ford and only certain fords; if a death occurs in his clan, he may not attend any of the funeral ceremonies, unless he first resigns his office and descends from the exalted rank of milkman to that of a mere common mortal. Indeed it appears that in old days he had to resign the seals, or rather the pails of office whenever any member of his clan departed his life. However, these heavy restraints are laid in their entirety only on milkmen of the very highest class.The Toda language is a member of the Dravidian family. The language is typologically aberrant and phonologically difficult. It is now recognised that Toda is a member of the southern sub-group of the historical family proto-south-Dravidian; it split off from south Dravidian, after Kannada and Telegu, but before Malayalam. In modern linguistic terms, the aberration of Toda results from a disproportionately high number of morphological rules of both early and recent derivation which are not found in the other south Dravidian languages.
TODA DWELLINGS AND LIFE STYLE
The Todas live in small hamlets called munds. The Toda huts of an oval, pent-shaped construction are usually 10 feet (3m) high, 18 feet (5.5m) long and 9 feet (2.7m) wide. They are built of bamboo fastened with rattan and thatched. Each hut is enclosed within a wall of loose stones. The front and back of the hut are usually made of dressed stones (mostly granite). Hut has only a tiny entrance at the front about 3 feet (9.cm) wide, 3 feet tall. This unusually small entrance is a means of protection from wild animals. The front portion of the hut is decorated with the Toda art forms, a kind of rock mural painting. Thicker bamboo canes are arched to give the basic pent shape. Thinner bamboo canes are tied close and parallel to each other over this frame. Dried grass is stacked over this as thatch. The forced interaction with civilization has caused a lot changes in the life style of the Todas. The Todas used to be a pastoral people, but are now increasingly venturing into agriculture and other occupations. They used to be strict vegetarians but some can now be seen eating non-vegetarian food. Although many Todas have abandoned their traditional distinctive huts for concrete house, and during the last decade forty new huts have been built and many Todas sacred dairies renovated.
References
1. Edgar Thurston, E., Caste and Tribes in Southern India, Delhi, 1952.
2. Krishnan Iyer, L.A., The Travancore Tribes and Castes: the Aborigines, Trivandrum, 1941.
3. Lipmkhopabhyay, Tribal Women in Development, New Delhi, 2002.
4. Toda people – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
5. Pillay, K.K., The Caste System in Tamil Nadu, Chennai, 1979.
6. Prakash Chandra Mehta, Cultural Heritage of Indian Tribes, Delhi,
7. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2007, Toda.
8. Elwin Verrier, The Religion of an Indian Tribe, Bombay, 1953.
9. Christoph Von Furer, Tribes of India the Struggle for Survival, Delhi.