Allowing that the cephalic index is a good criterion of racial or tribal purity, the following analysis of the Toda indices is very striking:—
| 69 | ◆◆ | ||
| 70 | ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆ | ||
| 71 | ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆ | ||
| 72 | ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆ | ||
| 73 | ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆ |  | [37] |
| 74 | ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆ | ||
| 75 | ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆ | ||
| 76 | ◆◆◆◆◆◆ | ||
| 77 | ◆ | ||
| 78 | ◆ | ||
| 79 | ◆ | ||
| 80 | |||
| 81 | ◆ | ||
A thing of exceeding joy to the Todas was my Salter’s hand-dynamometer, the fame of which spread from mand to mand, and which was circulated among the crowd at funerals. Great was the disgust of the assembled males, on a certain day, when the record of hand-grip for the morning (73 lbs.) was carried off by a big-boned female, who became the unlovely heroine of the moment. The largest English feminine hand-grip, recorded in my laboratory note-book, is only 66 lbs. One Toda man, of fine physique, not satisfied with his grip of 98 lbs., went into training, and fed himself up for a few days. Thus prepared, he returned to accomplish 103 lbs., the result of more skilful manipulation of the machine rather than of a liberal dietary of butter-milk.
The routine Toda dietary is said to be made up of the following articles, to which must be added strong drinks purchased at the toddy shops:—
(a) Rice boiled in whey.
(b) Rice and jaggery (crude sugar) boiled in water.
(c) Broth or curry made of vegetables purchased in the bazar, wild vegetables and pot-herbs, which, together with ground orchids, the Todas may often be seen rooting up with a sharp-pointed digging-stick on the hill-sides. The Todas scornfully deny the use of aphrodisiacs, but both men and women admit that they take sālep misri boiled in milk, to make them strong. Sālep misri is made from the tubers (testicles de chiens) of various species of Eulophia and Habenaria belonging to the natural order Orchideæ.
The indigenous edible plants and pot-herbs include the following:—
(1) Cnicus Wallichii (thistle).—The roots and flower-stalks are stripped of their bark, and made into soup or curry.
(2) Girardinia heterophylla (Nīlgiri nettle).—The tender leafy shoots of vigorously growing plants are gathered, crushed by beating with a stick to destroy the stinging hairs, and made into soup or curry. The fibre of this plant, which is cultivated near the mands, is used for stitching the putkuli, with steel needles purchased in the bazar in lieu of the more primitive form. In the preparation of the fibre, the bark is thrown into a pot of boiling water, to which ashes have been added. After a few hours’ boiling, the bark is taken out and the fibre extracted.