In an earlier part of this chapter we saw that there is evidence of a former diminution of the Toda population. At the same time we see that there is evidence of a diminution of the practice of female infanticide, which would, of course, tend to increase the population. It would thus seem that there have existed among the Todas, during the last fifty years, certain factors tending to diminish the population and one factor tending to increase it. We may conclude that, but for the diminution of infanticide, the falling off in numbers would have been greater, and that the tendency to increase which [[480]]seems at present to exist may be due, wholly or in part, to the diminution of infanticide.
There is one indication that female infanticide has almost entirely ceased during the last five years, and even that there may now be an excess of female births. In the table of ages given on page 469, it will be seen that the pedigrees record more girls than boys of five years and under. There is no reason why my record of such young children should have been more defective for one sex than for the other, and the proportion here may be approximately correct.
Twins
Twins are called ömumokh and it is the custom to kill one of them, even when both are boys. If they should be girls, it is probable that both would be killed, or, at any rate, would have been killed in the past.
There is one case of twins in the genealogies. Iraveli, the wife of Kwötuli and Nudriki (8), gave birth to twins about twelve years ago. Both were boys, and I was first told that one had died shortly after birth, but later inquiries made it almost certain that the boy had been killed. Some time after the birth of the twins, one of the buffaloes of Kwötuli and Nudriki is said to have had a calf with one body, two heads, and four legs. The buffalo died before the calf was born, and the monstrosity was found by the Kotas, to whom the body was given. It was generally expected that something would happen to Kwötuli or Nudriki, but they have since been very prosperous.
The Determination of Age
This is a suitable place to say a word about the method I adopted to ascertain the ages of the Todas. Like all people at a low stage of culture, the Todas are very uncertain about their ages, though their knowledge is more accurate than that of many peoples. Every Toda knows, however, whether he is older or younger than another, this fact determining the [[481]]names and salutations they give to one another, as we shall see in the next chapter. A few of the younger men seemed to have accurate knowledge of their ages, and building up on this basis, and with a knowledge of the relative ages of the different members of the community, it became possible to arrive at estimates which probably do not deviate very widely from the correct ages; even in the case of the older people, I do not believe that my estimated ages are likely to be more than five years out in any case. As already mentioned (see p. [416]), the Todas make use, in the estimation of age, of their belief in the eighteen-year period of a flower, and the ages so estimated in a few cases agreed fairly with those arrived at in other ways.
Among those now alive, it seemed that the usual time which separates the birth of two children of the same mother is about three years, and I have taken this time as the rule in estimating the ages of all those whose names are included in the genealogies. Similarly, so far as I could tell, women begin to bear children when about eighteen to twenty years of age.