The ages of the four groups given in the table on p. [474] were calculated on the assumptions that a woman had her first child when twenty years old, and that the interval between the births of two children was three years.
The oldest Toda now living is Kiugi (57). He looks an extremely old man, and is said by the Todas to be nearly a hundred years of age. There is evidence which makes it probable that he is at least eighty or ninety. Kòrs, the father of Kiugi, performed the pursütpimi ceremony before the birth of Teitchi (52) (see p. [564]). Teitchi’s grandson, Kuriolv, is now about fifty-four years of age. When Kòrs gave the bow and arrow he may have been only a young boy, and if we assume that he was fifteen years old, that Teitchi and Pareivan had their first children when twenty years old, and that the interval between the birth of Pilzink and that of Pareivan was six years, it would make the age of Kòrs, if he were still alive, 115. If Kiugi was born when his father was twenty years old, it would make his age ninety-five. If, on the other hand, we assume that Kòrs gave the bow and arrow when [[482]]only ten years of age, and that he did not have his first child till he was thirty, it would make Kiugi’s age eighty. Kiugi’s eldest child, if alive, would now probably be about sixty, and this supports the view that the lowest possible estimate of Kiugi’s age is eighty, and he is not improbably a good deal older. [[483]]
[1] See Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, p. 122. [↑]
[2] For a few cases in which an individual is entered as the child of a man who is known not to be his real father, see p. [534]. In such a case I have assigned the child to the parent who is regarded as the legal father by the Todas. [↑]
[3] Grigg’s Manual of the Nilagiri District, 1880, Appendix No. 17, p. xlviii. [↑]
[4] Ibid. App. No. 20, p. lx. [↑]
[5] Letters on the Neilgherries, London, 1829, p. 75. [↑]
[6] Madras Journ. of Lit. and Science, 1836, vol. viii, p. 86. [↑]