The Trustworthiness of the Genealogies
Before using the genealogical record as a means of studying the details of the social organisation, it may be well to consider what guarantee we have that the genealogies form a truthful record of the past. In Torres Straits, where I gained my first experience in these matters, I was so incredulous of the accuracy of the record that I obtained almost every particle of information from two or three different and independent sources, and it was only when I had finished that I found the whole mass of material to furnish a record so consistent in itself that it could hardly have been other than veracious.
Further, on investigating kinship and the regulation of marriage, both on the basis of the genealogical record, it was found that the results of one investigation closely corroborated the results of the other, and that the combined investigations gave so consistent and coherent a result that it was incredible that the genealogies on which the investigations were based should have been other than faithful and accurate records.
The Toda community is considerably larger than either of those with which I worked in the islands of Torres Straits, and when I found that the memories of the people extended back as far or nearly as far as in those islands, it became obvious that I was confronted with a task of considerable magnitude, and the question arose whether it was necessary to obtain separate accounts of every family from independent witnesses, as I had done previously, or whether I might not rely on the account of a family given by one witness and only seek corroboration occasionally. I began by following the same procedure as in Torres Straits, but soon found that the accounts obtained independently showed a close [[468]]agreement, and I therefore contented myself in my later work with one account, though every now and again I went over a piece of a pedigree with a second witness. When I had finished, the consistency of all the parts of the record with one another seemed to afford conclusive evidence that I had obtained what is, on the whole, a veracious record.
Of course, in so large a mass of material there are mistakes.[2] In one family no doubt a child has been omitted, especially when it died young and had no posterity to make its name important; in another case perhaps a child has been added to a family who was really the offspring of another mother. That there are such mistakes is certain, but they are probably few in number, and I have no doubt that, with one exception to be presently considered, such mistakes as have crept in do not appreciably impair the value of the genealogies as a record of the working of social regulations.
There is one deficiency of the record, however, of the existence of which I have little doubt—a deficiency entirely due to my own carelessness. To me the chief interest of the genealogies is that they are a record of the past—a record of the working of social regulations which at the present time may be already affected by the new influences coming into the lives of primitive people all over the world. In my absorption in the records of the past, I have often neglected the present and have omitted to ascertain carefully the children of families at present in process of growth. In several cases I have failed to obtain the names of children of people now living, and I have very little doubt that I have in several or many cases omitted the names of other children of growing families. I had one excuse for this in the fact already mentioned, that I had to obtain my information about a given family from people of some other family. A man would often know all about the members of the given family in the past, but, living perhaps at some distance from the family in question, he was often hazy as to the exact number and names of the children recently born, and it is the record of [[469]]children under five years of age which I know to be deficient.
If the number of the Todas now living and recorded in the genealogies be counted, it will be found that there are 736 individuals, 419 males and 317 females. In the census of 1901 the total population is given as 805,451 males and 354 females. My record falls short of that of the census by 69 individuals, 32 males and 37 females.
Further, when I arrange the people now living according to age, it is found that there is a distinct deficiency in children under five years of age. Thus, my records of age come out as follows:—
| Males. | Females. | ||
| Above 65 | years. | 9 | 3 |
| 61–65 | years.,, | 4 | 7 |
| 56–60 | years.,, | 19 | 9 |
| 51–55 | years.,, | 20 | 17 |
| 46–50 | years.,, | 26 | 21 |
| 41–45 | years.,, | 26 | 18 |
| 36–40 | years.,, | 26 | 27 |
| 31–35 | years.,, | 40 | 25 |
| 26–30 | years.,, | 40 | 33 |
| 21–25 | years.,, | 38 | 28 |
| 16–20 | years.,, | 32 | 31 |
| 11–15 | years.,, | 41 | 20 |
| 6–10 | years.,, | 54 | 33 |
| 5 and under | 44 | 45 | |
| Total | 419 | 317 | |