At the census, 1901, 453 male and 354 female Todas were returned. In a note on the proportion of the sexes among the Todas, Mr. R. C. Punnett states[50] that “all who have studied the Todas are agreed upon the frequency of the practice (of infanticide) in earlier times. Marshall, writing in 1872, refers to the large amount of female infanticide in former years, but expresses his conviction that the practice had by that time died out. Marshall’s evidence is that of native assurance only. Dr. Rivers, who received the same assurance, is disinclined to place much confidence in native veracity with reference to this point, and, in view of the lack of encouragement which the practice receives from the Indian Government, this is not altogether surprising. The supposition of female infanticide, by accounting for the great disproportion in the numbers of the sexes, brings the Todas into harmony with what is known of the rest of mankind.” In summarising his conclusions, Mr. Punnett notes that:—
(1) Among the Todas, males predominate greatly over females.
(2) This preponderance is doubtless due to the practice of female infanticide, which is probably still to some extent prevalent.
(3) The numerical preponderance of the males has been steadily sinking during recent years, owing probably to the check which foreign intercourse has imposed upon female infanticide.
In connection with the death ceremonies of the Todas, Dr. Rivers notes that “soon after death the body is burnt, and the general name for the ceremony on this occasion is etvainolkedr, the first day funeral. After an interval, which may vary greatly in length, a second ceremony is performed, connected with certain relics of the deceased which have been preserved from the first occasion. The Toda name for this second funeral ceremony is marvainolkedr, the second day funeral, or ‘again which day funeral.’ The funeral ceremonies are open to all, and visitors are often invited by the Todas. In consequence, the funeral rites are better known, and have been more frequently described than any other features of Toda ceremonial. Like nearly every institution of the Todas, however, they have become known to Europeans under their Badaga names. The first funeral is called by the Badagas hase kedu, the fresh or green funeral, and the term ‘green funeral’ has not only become the generally recognised name among the European inhabitants of the Nilgiri hills, but has been widely adopted in anthropological literature. The second funeral is called by the Badagas bara kedu, the ‘dry funeral,’ and this term also has been generally adopted.” The various forms of the funeral ceremonies are discussed in detail by Dr. Rivers, and it must suffice to describe those at which we have been present as eye-witnesses.
I had the opportunity of witnessing the second funeral of a woman who had died from smallpox two months previously. On arrival at a mand on the open downs about five miles from Ootacamund, we were conducted by a Toda guide to the margin of a dense shola, where we found two groups seated apart, consisting of (a) women, girls, and brown-haired female babies, round a camp fire; (b) men, boys, and male babies, carried, with marked signs of paternal affection, by their fathers. In a few minutes a murmuring sound commenced in the centre of the female group. Working themselves up to the necessary pitch, some of the women (near relatives of the deceased) commenced to cry freely, and the wailing and lachrymation gradually spread round the circle, until all, except little girls and babies who were too young to be affected, were weeping and mourning, some for fashion, others from genuine grief. In carrying out the orthodox form of mourning, the women first had a good cry to themselves, and then, as their emotions became more intense, went round the circle, selecting partners with whom to share companionship in grief. Gradually the group resolved itself into couplets of mourners, each pair with their heads in contact, and giving expression to their emotions in unison. Before separating to select a new partner, each couple saluted by bowing the head, and raising thereto the feet of the other, covered by the putkūli. [I have seen women rapidly recover from the outward manifestations of grief, and clamour for money.] From time to time the company of mourners was reinforced by late arrivals from distant mands, and, as each detachment, now of men and now of women, came in view across the open downs, one could not fail to be reminded of the gathering of the clans on some Highland moor. The resemblance was heightened by the distant sound as of pipers, produced by the Kota band (with two police constables in attendance), composed of four Kotas, who made a weird noise with drums and flutes as they drew near the scene of action. The band, on arrival, took up a position close to the mourning women. As each detachment arrived, the women, recognising their relatives, came forward and saluted them in the manner customary among Todas by falling at their feet, and placing first the right and then the left foot on their head. Shortly after the arrival of the band, signals were exchanged, by waving of putkūlis, between the assembled throng and a small detachment of men some distance off. A general move was made, and an impromptu procession formed, with men in front, band in the middle, and women bringing up the rear. A halt was made opposite a narrow gap leading into the shola; men and women sat apart as before; and the band walked round, discoursing unsweet music. A party of girls went off to bring fire from the spot just vacated for use in the coming ceremonial, but recourse was finally had to a box of matches lent by one of our party. At this stage we noticed a woman go up to the eldest son of the deceased, who was seated apart from the other men, and would not be comforted in spite of her efforts to console him. On receipt of a summons from within the shola, the assembled Toda men and ourselves swarmed into it by a narrow track leading to a small clear space round a big tree, from a hole cut at the base of which an elderly Toda produced a piece of the skull of the dead woman, wrapped round with long tresses of her hair. It now became the men’s turn to exhibit active signs of grief, and all of one accord commenced to weep and mourn. Amid the scene of lamentation, the hair was slowly unwrapt from off the skull, and burned in an iron ladle, from which a smell as of incense arose. A bamboo pot of ghī was produced, with which the skull was reverently anointed, and placed in a cloth spread on the ground. To this relic of the deceased the throng of men, amid a scene of wild excitement, made obeisance by kneeling down before it, and touching it with their foreheads. The females were not permitted to witness this stage of the proceedings, with the exception of one or two near relatives of the departed one, who supported themselves sobbing against the tree. The ceremonial concluded, the fragment of skull, wrapt in the cloth, was carried into the open, where, as men and boys had previously done, women and girls made obeisance to it. A procession was then again formed, and marched on until a place was reached, where were two stone-walled kraals, large and small. Around the former the men, and within the latter the women, took up their position, the men engaging in chit-chat, and the women in mourning, which after a time ceased, and they too engaged in conversation. A party of men, carrying the skull, still in the cloth, set out for a neighbouring shola, where a kēdu of several other dead Todas was being celebrated; and a long pause ensued, broken eventually by the arrival of the other funeral party, the men advancing in several lines, with arms linked, and crying out U, hah! U, hah, hah! in regular time. This party brought with it pieces of the skulls of a woman and two men, which were placed, wrapt in cloths, on the ground, saluted, and mourned over by the assembled multitude. At this stage a small party of Kotas arrived, and took up their position on a neighbouring hill, waiting, vulture-like, for the carcase of the buffalo which was shortly to be slain. Several young men now went off across the hill in search of buffaloes, and speedily re-appeared, driving five buffaloes before them with sticks. As soon as the beasts approached a swampy marsh at the foot of the hill on which the expectant crowd of men was gathered together, two young men of athletic build, throwing off their putkūlis, made a rush down the hill, and tried to seize one of the buffaloes by the horns, with the result that one of them was promptly thrown. The buffalo escaping, one of the remaining four was quickly caught by the horns, and, with arms interlocked, the men brought it down on its knees, amid a general scuffle. In spite of marked objection and strenuous resistance on the part of the animal—a barren cow—it was, by means of sticks freely applied, slowly dragged up the hill, preceded by the Kota band, and with a Toda youth pulling at its tail. Arrived at the open space between the kraals, the buffalo, by this time thoroughly exasperated, and with blood pouring from its nostrils, had a cloth put on its back, and was despatched by a blow on the poll with an axe deftly wielded by a young and muscular man. On this occasion no one was badly hurt by the sacrificial cow, though one man was seen washing his legs in the swamp after the preliminary struggle with the beast. But Colonel Ross-King narrates how he saw a man receive a dangerous wound in the neck from a thrust of the horn, which ripped open a wide gash from the collar-bone to the ear. With the death of the buffalo, the last scene, which terminated the strange rites, commenced; men, women, and children pressing forward and jostling one another in their eagerness to salute the dead beast by placing their hands between its horns, and weeping and mourning in pairs; the facial expression of grief being mimicked when tears refused to flow spontaneously.
The ceremonial connected with the final burning of the relics and burial of the ashes at the stone circle (azaram) are described in detail by Dr. Rivers.
A few days after the ceremony just described, I was invited to be present at the funeral of a young girl who had died of smallpox five days previously. I proceeded accordingly to the scene of the recent ceremony, and there, in company with a small gathering of Todas from the neighbouring mands, awaited the arrival of the funeral cortége, the approach of which was announced by the advancing strains of Kota music. Slowly the procession came over the brow of the hill; the corpse, covered by a cloth, on a rude ladder-like bier, borne on the shoulders of four men, followed by two Kota musicians; the mother carried hidden within a sack; relatives and men carrying bags of rice and jaggery, and bundles of wood of the kiaz tree (Eugenia Arnottiana) for the funeral pyre. Arrived opposite a small hut, which had been specially built for the ceremonial, the corpse was removed from the bier, laid on the ground, face upwards, outside the hut, and saluted by men, women, and children, with the same manifestations of grief as on the previous occasion. Soon the men moved away to a short distance, and engaged in quiet conversation, leaving the females to continue mourning round the corpse, interrupted from time to time by the arrival of detachments from distant mands, whose first duty was to salute the dead body. Meanwhile a near female relative of the dead child was busily engaged inside the hut, collecting together in a basket small measures of rice, jaggery, sago, honey-comb, and the girl’s simple toys, which were subsequently to be burned with the corpse. The mourning ceasing after a time, the corpse was placed inside the hut, and followed by the near relatives, who there continued to weep over it. A detachment of men and boys, who had set out in search of the buffaloes which were to be sacrificed, now returned driving before them three cows, which escaped from their pursuers to rejoin the main herd. A long pause ensued, and, after a very prolonged drive, three more cows were guided into a marshy swamp, where one of them was caught by the horns, and dragged reluctantly, but with little show of fight, to the strains of Kota drum and flute, in front of the hut, where it was promptly despatched by a blow on the poll. The corpse was now brought from within the hut, and placed, face upwards, with its feet resting on the forehead of the buffalo, whose neck was decorated with a silver chain, such as is worn by Todas round the loins, as no bell was available, and the horns were smeared with butter. Then followed frantic manifestations of grief, amid which the unhappy mother fainted. Mourning over, the corpse was made to go through a form of ceremony, resembling that which is performed during pregnancy with the first child. A small boy, three years old, was selected from among the relatives of the dead girl, and taken by his father in search of a certain grass (Andropogon Schœnanthus) and a twig of a shrub (Sophora glauca), which were brought to the spot where the corpse was lying. The mother of the dead child then withdrew one of its hands from the putkūli, and the boy placed the grass and twig in the hand, and limes, plantains, rice, jaggery, honey-comb, and butter in the pocket of the putkūli, which was then stitched with needle and thread in a circular pattern. The boy’s father then took off his son’s putkūli, and replaced it so as to cover him from head to foot. Thus covered, the boy remained outside the hut till the morning of the morrow, watched through the night by near relatives of himself and his dead bride. [On the occasion of the funeral of an unmarried lad, a girl is in like manner selected, covered with her putkūli from head to foot, and a metal vessel filled with jaggery, rice, etc., to be subsequently burnt on the funeral pyre, placed for a short time within the folds of the putkūli. Thus covered, the girl remains till next morning, watched through the dreary hours of the night by relatives. The same ceremony is performed over the corpse of a married woman who has not borne children, the husband acting as such for the last time, in the vain hope that the woman may produce issue in heaven.] The corpse was borne away to the burning-ground within the shola, and, after removal of some of the hair by the mother of the newly wedded boy, burned, with face upwards, amid the music of the Kota band, the groans of the assembled crowd squatting on the ground, and the genuine grief of the nearest relatives. The burning concluded, a portion of the skull was removed from the ashes, and handed over to the recently made mother-in-law of the dead girl, and wrapped up with the hair in the bark of the tūd tree (Meliosma pungens). A second buffalo, which, properly speaking, should have been slain before the corpse was burnt, was then sacrificed, and rice and jaggery were distributed among the crowd, which dispersed, leaving behind the youthful widower and his custodians, who, after daybreak, partook of a meal of rice, and returned to their mands; the boy’s mother taking with her the skull and hair to her mand, where it would remain until the celebration of the second funeral. No attention is paid to the ashes after cremation, and they are left to be scattered by the winds.
A further opportunity offered itself to be present at the funeral of an elderly woman on the open downs not far from Paikāra, in connection with which certain details possess some interest. The corpse was, at the time of our arrival, laid out on a rude bier within an improvised arbour covered with leaves and open at each end, and tended by some of the female relatives. At some little distance, a conclave of Toda men, who rose of one accord to greet us, was squatting in a circle, among whom were many venerable white-turbaned elders of the tribe, protected from the scorching sun by palm-leaf umbrellas. Amid much joking, and speech-making by the veterans, it was decided that, as the eldest son of the deceased woman was dead, leaving a widow, this daughter-in-law should be united to the second son, and that they should live together as man and wife. On the announcement of the decision, the bridegroom-elect saluted the principal Todas present by placing his head on their feet, which were sometimes concealed within the ample folds of the putkūli. At the funeral of a married woman, three ceremonies must, I was told, be performed, if possible, by a daughter or daughter-in-law, viz.:—
(1) Tying a leafy branch of the tiviri shrub (Atylosia Candolleana) in the putkūli of the corpse;