The ages upon which this table is based could only be obtained very roughly, and the figures must be taken merely as rough approximations to the truth. The irregularities of the table may be due partly to this defect, but it is very improbable that there are about the same number of children of five and under as of children between six and ten, and we may be fairly confident that but for omissions the numbers of the youngest group, especially of boys, would have been larger.
I have reason to believe, further, that I have not omitted any appreciable number of adults or children over five years of age. I tested 320 males and 183 females for colour-blindness, [[470]]and as I was anxious to test every member of the community who was old enough, I obtained towards the end of my visit the names of all those who had not been tested. I only attempted to test children when over five years of age, and I have therefore an independent record of the living Todas above this age, so that it is fairly certain that the greater part of the deficiency in the genealogical record is of children about or below the age of five, though it is possible that I may also have missed a certain number of women.
This deficiency does not in the slightest degree affect the value of the pedigrees as a record of marriages or of the working of social regulations, but it does impair the value of the statistics concerning the average size of a family and other matters of biological interest, though only for the last generation.
On looking through my genealogical tables, it will be seen that different clans and families differ very greatly in the fulness of their record. In some cases I have pedigrees going back to the great-grandfathers of men now in middle life; in other cases I have only the names of the fathers of such men. The briefness of the record is especially marked in the case of the outlying clans, such as Kwòdrdoni, Pedrkars, and Päm, which I only visited for short periods. During these visits there was so much to be done that something had to suffer and the genealogies were usually the victims. If I had had more time, I have little doubt that I could have obtained much fuller records in many cases.
Buffalo Pedigrees
Marshall has stated that the Todas preserve the pedigrees of their buffaloes in the female line, and when I had found how carefully the Todas preserved their own pedigrees my next step was to endeavour to ascertain if the pedigrees of their buffaloes were preserved with the same amount of care and completeness. I returned to this subject again and again, but with very imperfect success. The Todas always treated my inquiries on this subject as if they were trifling and ridiculous. It is possible that this was one of the points on [[471]]which they were reticent, but I am inclined to think that I was told all there was to tell.
To a certain extent it is correct to say that the pedigrees of the buffaloes are preserved, and in the female line only. If any given buffalo were taken as the starting-point, the owner could usually tell me the names of the mother of the buffalo and of the mother’s mother, and occasionally I obtained the names of the immediate ancestors in the female line for four generations. Thus, Nertiners of Taradr (24) had a buffalo named Kârstum who was the daughter of Idrsh. Idrsh was the daughter of Persud, who was the daughter of Nerûv, who was the daughter of Kiûd. Another of his buffaloes, Keien, was descended from Koisi, Nerûv, and Kâsimi in the order named.
I could not ascertain that the Todas kept any record of the collateral lines of descent, nor was there, so far as I could find, any idea of kinship between buffaloes descended from the same recent ancestor. Two buffaloes born of the same mother would be known, of course, to be sisters, but no importance seemed to be attached to the relationship.
An obvious reason for the limitation of the pedigrees of the buffaloes to the female line is the fact that only female buffaloes are named, so that there are no means of recording male parentage. We shall see later that among themselves the Todas attach little importance to paternity, and the same indifference is found in their attitude towards their buffaloes. The essential reason for the nature of the record of buffalo-descent is the complete absence of desire to maintain the purity of the breed, even of the most sacred herds, and the complete lack of attention to ties of consanguinity between buffaloes mated together.