Kinship Salutations
There are certain well-defined salutations which are regulated by kinship.
The characteristic Toda salutation is called kalmelpudithti, in which salutation one person kneels or bows down before another, while the latter raises each foot and touches the forehead of the other. In general this salutation is only paid by women to their elder male relatives; a woman places her head beneath the foot of her pian, in, an, or mun, using these terms in their widest sense. The salutation seems to be very largely one connected with kinship. In everyday life the salutation is only paid by women to men, but under special circumstances, men may bow down before men, and women [[497]]before women, and men even may bow down before women (see p. [502]).
Since, owing to the mokhthodvaiol connexion, a Tarthar woman may have a Teivali mun and vice versa, the kalmelpudithti salutation takes place between people of the two divisions, and I have often seen a woman of one division placing her head beneath the foot of a man of the other division.
When a person meets one of his kin, he uses a form of greeting which depends on the nature of the relationship. Most of these greetings consist of some form of the word iti or itvi, which was said to mean “blessing” or “bless,” together with the kinship term.
A man would greet an elder brother or anyone whom he would call anna by the word “tioñ,” cut very short so as to sound like a single syllable. This is a corruption of iti anna. A person greets a younger brother or one whom he would call enda by uttering his name followed by the word ers, as in “Sakari ers,” “Pakhwar ers.” A father is greeted as itiai, a mother as itiava. An elder sister as itiakka; a younger sister as itvena, and this latter form is used for any female relative younger than the speaker. It is the duty of younger female relatives to perform the kalmelpudithti salutation, and as soon as a man says itvena, the woman at once bows down and places her head beneath the raised foot of the man, helping him to raise it at the same time.
A mother’s brother or father-in law (mun) is greeted by itimoñ and a mumi is greeted by itimimia, but so slurred as to be hardly recognisable. The grandfather and grandmother are greeted in the words itin pia and itin piava.
Whenever a new Toda came to join people who were with me, there would be a chorus of greetings, and the newcomer would look round carefully to see who was present, giving to each his proper salutation and obviously taking the greatest care that no one was overlooked. Since the relationship of brother is the most frequent, the greetings heard most often on these occasions were “tioñ” and “… ers.”
The regulation of salutation by kinship applies also to [[498]]the salutation of the dead. When the body first reaches the funeral place it is saluted by all present, and in the case of kin, the mode of salutation varies with the bond of kinship. Those related to the deceased as in, av, pian, piav, mun, mumi, an, or akkan, bow down at the head of the corpse and touch the body with their foreheads, while all those whom the deceased would have called enda or ena bow down at the feet. The place saluted by those who are not kin is determined by age, but in the case of kin, the bond of kinship is more important than the age, so that the former condition determines the mode of salutation. Thus at the funeral of Kiuneimi (3), Kòdrner (7) saluted at the head of the dead woman. He was the younger, but was her mun owing to the fact that Kiuneimi’s step-mother Kureimi, was a Kars woman whom Kòdrner called sister.