[9] Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc., 1904, vol. xii, p. 481. [↑]
[10] Specimens of South Indian Dialects, Mangalore, 1873. [↑]
CHAPTER XXI
KINSHIP
The system of kinship was studied chiefly by means of the genealogies. The Todas are sufficiently intelligent to be able to give satisfactory definitions of their terms expressing different kinds of relationship, but the genealogies were very useful in checking these definitions and in working out several points in detail.
The Toda system of kinship is of the kind known as classificatory with several interesting special features. Perhaps the most important of these is the use of the same terms for mother’s brother and father-in-law on the one hand, and for father’s sister and mother-in-law on the other hand. This is a natural consequence of the regulation which ordains that the proper marriage for a man is one with the daughter either of his mother’s brother or father’s sister.
Another important feature of the Toda system is the existence of two well-marked groups of terms expressing bonds of kinship; one used when speaking of relatives, and the other when speaking to relatives and in exclamations. The latter, which may be regarded as vocative cases of the former, are fewer in number and used in a much more general sense; and if the two are not distinguished, it is easy to understand that one may find only “inextricable confusion in Toda ideas as to relationship.”[1] I will first give a list of kinship terms, together with the forms used in direct address, and the approximate definitions, and these will be followed by a [[484]]discussion of the exact meaning of each term. The vocative forms are enclosed in brackets.