[186] All that we can gather from their songs and tales is, that anciently they were the zemindars, or landed proprietors of the hills.
[187] Todawars, Tudas, or Toders. Captain Harkness derives the word from the Tamul, Torawar, a herdsman, and this is probably the true name of the race.
[188] The north-west parts of the Persian Gulf.
[189] E. g. The peaks of the Todas are venerated by the Todas, as they were by the Celto-Scythians. The single stone in the sacred lactarium of the former, was the most conspicuous instrument of superstition in the Druidical or Scythic religion. Captain Congreve asserts that the Toda faith is Scythicism, because they sacrifice female children, bulls, calves, and buffaloes, as the Scythians did horses; that they adore the sun (what old barbarians did not?), revere fire, respect certain trees and bunches of leaves, worship the Deity in groves of the profoundest gloom, and have some knowledge of a future state. He proves that the hills are covered with vestiges of Scythicism, as cairns, barrows, and monolithic altars, and believes them to have belonged to the early Todas, inasmuch as “the religion of the Todas is Scythicism, and these are monuments of Scythicism.” He concludes the exposition of his theory with the following recapitulation of his reasons for considering the Todas of Scythian descent:—1. Identity of religion (not proved). 2. Physiological position of the Todas in the great family race (we are not told how it resembles that of the Scythians). 3. The pastoral mode of life among the Todas. 4. The food of the Todas, which consisted originally of milk and butter (we “doubt the fact”). 5. Their architecture, religious, military, and domestic, the yards of the Toda houses, their temples, their sacred enclosures, their kraals for cattle, are circular, as were those of the Celts, and, indeed, of most ancient people whose divinity was Sun, Light, Fire, Apollo, Mithra, &c. 6. Their marriage customs and funeral rites are nearly identical (an assertion). 7. Their ornaments and dress closely approximate (ditto). 8. Their customs are generally similar (ditto). 9. The authority of Sir W. Jones that the ancient Scythians did people a mountainous district of India (quasi irrelevant). 10. History mentions that India has been invaded by Scythian hordes from the remotest times (ditto). 11. Their utter separation in every respect from the races around them.
[190] Such as want of weapons, difference of colour, dissimilarity of language. With respect to the latter point Captain Congreve remarks, that “a comparison with the Gothic, Celtic, and other ancient dialects of Europe is a great desideratum; but should no affinity be found to prevail, I should not consider the absence detrimental to my views, for this reason, that the people of Celto-Scythic origin having various languages, have been widely dispersed.” After this, Quid facias illi?
[191] In many parts of the Neilgherries there is a large species of solitary bee which the Todas declared incurred the displeasure of the Great Spirit by stinging him, and was therefore condemned to eternal separation from its kind. But as huge combs and excellent honey abound on these hills, their savage inhabitants of course superstitionize upon the subject of the bee. The Creator, they say, desirous of knowing how honey is made, caught the animal, and she proving obstinate and refractory, confined her by means of a string tied round the middle; hence her peculiar shape! Is not this clearly a psychological allusion to the powerful volition for which the fair sex is proverbially famous?
[192] Not, however, by the victory of Brahmanism over Buddhism, as some have supposed. The leading tenet of Buddha’s faith was the sin of shedding blood, whereas the Todas practise infanticide and eat meat. Moreover, there is a bond of union between them and those Anti-Buddhists the Lingaits, who adhere to the religion of Shiva pure and undefiled.
This Buddhistic theory rests upon the slender foundation that the Todas call Wednesday, Buddhi-aum (Buddh’s day). But the celebrated Eastern reformer’s name has extended as far as the good old island in the West. It became Fo-e and Xa-ca (Shakya) in China; But in Cochin-China, Pout in Siam; Pott or Poti, in Thibet; perhaps the Wadd of Pagan Arabia; Toth in Egypt; Woden in Scandinavia; and thus reaching our remote shores, left its traces in “Wednesday.” So say the etymologists.
[193] By the Rev. Mr. Schmidt’s vocabulary of the Toda tongue.
[194] Captain Harkness is egregiously mistaken when he asserts that the dialect of his aborigines “has not the least affinity in roots, construction, or sound, with the Sanscrit.”