Kinship Taboos
A man never mentions the name of his mun. If he wishes to make clear of whom he is speaking he will give the name of the place at which his mun lives, as “Tedshteiri ithvai en mun podchi,” “My uncle who lives at Tedshteiri.” This restriction only applies to the own brothers of his mother. Other more distant mun may be spoken of by name, and as we have already seen, if a man wishes to make it clear of whom he is speaking, he mentions the name in addition to the kinship term.
A man is also prohibited from uttering the name of the man from whom he has received his wife—i.e., to whom he has done kalmelpudithti (see p. [502]). This man, who is called the mokhudrtvaiol, is usually the father of the wife and would normally be also a mun, but sometimes the place of the [[495]]mokhudrtvaiol is usurped by somebody else and in such a case there might be no restriction on the name of the wife’s real father. In the only case of this kind of which I have a record, the marriage of Siriar (20) and Pupidz, the place of mokhudrtvaiol was taken by Kuriolv, who was living with Pilimurg (7), the girl’s mother, and though he was no real relative of the wife, Siriar might not mention his name. In spite of the fact, however, that Kuriolv had become his mokhudrtvaiol Siriar went privately to Patirsh (35), the real father of his wife, and did kalmelpudithi and would also refrain from saying the name of this man.
| Toda. | Tamil. | Telegu. | Canarese. | |
| Son | mokh | maghan | ||
| Elder brother | an (anna) | aṇṇan (aṇṇa) | anna | anna |
| Elder sister | akkan (akka) | akkal (akka) | akka | akka |
| Mother’s brother | mun (mâmâ) | amman or maman (mama) | mena mama | mava |
| Father-in-law | mun (mama) | mamaner (mama) | mama | mava |
| Father’s sister | mumi (mimia) | attai | ||
| Wife of mother’s brother | mumi (mimia) | ammami | ||
| Wife’s mother | mumi (mimia) | mamiyar (ammami) | ||
| Sister’s son | manmokh | maruman or marumakan | ||
| Mother’s brother’s son | matchuni | maittunan (?) | ||
| Father’s sister’s son | matchuni | attan or maittunan | ||
| Wife’s brother | matchuni or paiol | machchinan or maittunan |
A man is prohibited from saying the name of his wife’s mother (mumi), but my notes do not make clear whether he is also prohibited from saying the names of other mumi—i.e., [[496]]father’s sisters, but probably this is so. In any case this restriction only applies to near relatives.
A man may not utter the name of his pian or piav.
There seemed to be some reluctance to say the name of a wife, but there did not appear to be any definite prohibition against it. It was probably part of a reluctance to utter personal names in general of which the Todas show some traces, though it is less marked among them than in the case of many uncultured people.
The taboo on names was far wider in the case of dead relatives. No one was allowed to utter the name of a dead relative, and this rule appeared to be especially stringent in the case of relatives who had been older than the speaker. As I have already mentioned, this taboo was for some time a great obstacle in my way when trying to obtain the pedigrees of the people. If a man had to refer to a dead relative, he did so by mentioning the name of the village at which he had died; thus, if the father of a Taradr man had died at Taradr, the man would say, “en in Taradr pon,” while, if he had died away from home, say at Kuudr, he would refer to his father as “en in Kuudr odthavai,” “my father who died at Kuudr.”
In the funeral lamentations, each mourner mentions the deceased by the name indicating the bond of kinship between himself and the dead, and does not utter the personal name.