Words so debased and hard, no stone
Is hard enough to touch them on.
Thus, for a single instance, the mellifluous Arkas-a-pakshi—the winged animal of the firmament,—becomes Hakh’sh-pakh’sh, a bird. In grammar it is essentially Indian, as the cases of the noun and pronoun, and the tenses of the verb demonstrate; the days of the week, and the numerals, are all of native, not foreign growth. The pronunciation is essentially un-Indian,[195] true; but with grammar and vocabulary on our side, we can afford to set aside, even if we could not explain away, the objection. A great change of articulation would naturally result from a long residence upon elevated tracts of land; the habit of conversing in the open air, and of calling aloud to those standing at a distance, would induce the speaker to make his sounds as rough and rugged as possible. This we believe to be the cause of the Bedouin-like gutturalism, which distinguishes the Toda dialect. We may observe that the Kothurs, who work in tents, have exchanged their original guttural for a nasal articulation; and the Bergers, who originally spoke pure Canarese, have materially altered their pronunciation during the last century.
The main objection to our theory is the utter dissimilarity of the Toda, in all respects, physical as well as moral, to the races that now inhabit the plains. This argument would be a strong one, could the objector prove that such difference existed in the remote times, when our supposed separation took place. It is, we may remind him, the direct tendency of Hinduism to degenerate, not to improve, in consequence of early nuptials, the number of outcastes, perpetual intermarriage, and other customs peculiar to it. The superiority of the Toda, in form and features, to the inhabitants of the lowlands may also partially be owing to the improvement in bodily strength, stature, and general appearance that would be effected by a lengthened sojourn in the pure climate of the Blue Mountains.
The Todas, as we have said before, assert a right to the soil of the Neilgherries, and exact a kind of tax[196] from the Bergers. Their lordly position was most probably the originator of their polyandry and infanticide:[197] disdaining agriculture, it is their object to limit the number of the tribe. According to their own accounts, they were, before the date of the Berger immigration, living in a very wild state, wearing the leaves of trees, and devouring the flesh of the elk, when they could get it, and the wild fruits of the hills; this they exchanged for a milk diet; they are now acquiring a taste for rice, sweetmeats, and buffalo meat.
The appearance of this extraordinary race is peculiarly striking to the eye accustomed to the smooth delicate limbs of India. The colour is a light chocolate, like that of a Beeloch mountaineer. The features are often extraordinarily regular and handsome; the figure is muscular, straight, manly, and well-knit, without any of that fineness of hand and wrist, foot and ankle, which now distinguishes the Hindoo family, and the stature is remarkably tall. They wear the beard long, and allow their bushy, curly locks to lie clustering over the forehead—a custom which communicates to the countenance a wild and fierce expression, which by no means belongs to it. The women may be described as very fine large animals; we never saw a pretty one amongst them. Both sexes anoint the hair and skin with butter, probably as a protection against the external air; a blanket wound loosely round their body being their only garment. Ablution is religiously avoided.
There is nothing that is not peculiar in the manners and customs[198] of the Todas. Ladies are not allowed to become mothers in the huts: they are taken to the nearest wood, and a few bushes are heaped up around them, as a protection against rain and wind. Female children are either drowned in milk, or placed at the entrance of the cattle-pen to be trampled to death by the buffaloes. The few preserved to perpetuate the breed, are married to all the brothers of a family; besides their three or four husbands, they are allowed the privilege of a cicisbeo. The religion of the Toda is still sub judice, the general opinion being that they are imperfect Monotheists, who respect, but do not adore, the sun and fire that warm them, the rocks and hills over which they roam, and the trees and spots which they connect with their various superstitions. When a Toda dies, a number of buffaloes are collected, and barbarously beaten to death with huge pointed clubs, by the young men of the tribe. The custom, it is said, arose from the importunate demands of a Toda ghost; most probably, from the usual savage idea that the animal which is useful in this world will be equally so in the next.
The Toda spends life in grazing his cattle, snoring in his cottage, and churning butter. The villages belonging to this people consist of, generally speaking, three huts, made with rough planking and thatch; a fourth, surrounded by a low wall, stands a little apart from, and forms a right angle with the others. This is the celebrated Lactarium, or dairy, a most uninteresting structure, but ennobled and dignified by the variety of assertions that have been made about it, and the mystery with which the savages have been taught to invest it. Some suppose it to be a species of temple, where the Deity is worshipped in the shape of a black stone, and a black stone, we all know, tells a very long tale, when interpreted by even a second-rate antiquary. Others declare that it is a masonic lodge,[199] the strong ground for such opinion being, that females are never allowed to enter it, and that sundry mystic symbols, such as circles, squares, and others of the same kind, are roughly cut into the side wall where the monolith stands. We entered several of these huts when in a half-ruinous state, but were not fortunate or imaginative enough to find either stone or symbols. The former might have been removed, the latter could not; so we must believe that many of our wonder-loving compatriots have been deceived by the artistic attempts made by some tasteful savage, to decorate his dairy in an unusual style of splendour. Near each village is a kraal, or cattle-pen, a low line of rough stones, as often oval as circular, and as often polygonal as oval. The different settlements are inhabited, deserted, and reinhabited, according as the neighbouring lands afford scant or plentiful pasturage.