Crime
I have no knowledge about the power of the naim in criminal as opposed to civil matters. I never heard of inquiry by the naim into any criminal offence committed by one man against another or against the community. It is, however, [[554]]doubtful whether crime can be said to exist among the Todas.
Acts such as infanticide are committed which would be regarded as crimes by others, but since these are the outcome of custom they are not crimes from the Toda point of view. Again, we have seen that the Todas have a code of offences against the dairy, but these must be regarded as sins rather than as crimes, for they are neither investigated nor punished by the civil authority, the naim, but are punished directly by the gods, and the various ceremonies described in [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 [[555]]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.