I have also failed to find a single case in which marriage has taken place between the children of two own sisters, or of marriage between the children of two women who would call each other “sister” whose names occur in the same genealogical table. Thus I have found no case in which a marriage has taken place between the children of two women so closely related to one another as Punzueleimi and Nasturs, of Table 3, these women being first cousins according to our system of kinship.
It would be a prolonged task to ascertain whether marriage ever takes place among the Tartharol between the children of two clan-sisters in the widest sense, and I do not know whether such marriage may not sometimes occur.
Among the Teivaliol marriages between clan-sisters even in the widest sense must be very rare owing to the fact that nearly all marriages take place between people of Kuudr on the one hand and members of the five other Teivali clans on the other. Since in most cases two women of any one [[511]]of these five clans marry men of Kuudr, marriage between their children would be restricted under the first prohibition, and similarly the children of two Kuudr women could only intermarry in those cases in which members of the other five clans have married one another. Among the Teivaliol, I do not believe that marriages take place between the children of sisters in the widest sense, and I have little doubt that they are very exceptional among the Tartharol.
There is no case in the genealogies in which the third restriction has been broken, in which a man has married his father’s sister or his sister’s daughter, his mumi or his maukugh.
There is at least one case in the genealogies in which there has been an infringement of the fourth restriction given on page 509. The marriage of Nargudr (62) with Tolveli (58) is an example of the marriage of a man with the daughter of his grandfather’s sister. I believe that this restriction is part of a wider regulation. Using Toda terms of kinship the law would run: a person must not marry the child of his matchuni. The marriage of a man with the daughter of his grandfather’s sister, such as that of Nargudr with Tolveli, would be an infringement of this law. I have only found one other case in the genealogies in which this law would have been broken, i.e., in the marriage of Teitnir (52) and Tersveli (63). Tersveli’s father, Teikudr, is the son of Kavani, the sister of Pareivan, Teitnir’s father. Teikudr is therefore the matchuni of Teitnir, who has married his daughter.
I was told that though a man might not marry the daughter of his sister, he might marry the children of this woman. I do not know of any such marriage and it is improbable that it would often come about, since it would involve the marriage of a woman with the brother of her grandfather. There is, however, at the present time an example of the marriage of a woman with her father’s mother’s brother, whom she would therefore call pia, or grandfather. This is the marriage of Kaners and his brother Kudrievan (63) with Edjog (56), the daughter of Tüliners, the son of the sister of the two men. I was told, however, that this marriage met with a good deal of disapproval among the Todas, but I could not learn that there was any definite prohibition against it. [[512]]
The Marriage of Matchuni
While marriage with the daughter of a father’s brother and a mother’s sister is prohibited, the daughter of a father’s sister or a mother’s brother is the natural wife of a man. The orthodox marriage is marriage between matchuni, the children of brother and sister. Thus it is obviously not nearness of blood-kinship in itself which acts as a restriction on marriage, but nearness of blood-kinship of a certain kind.
I have analysed the genealogies to ascertain the frequency with which marriages between matchuni occur. The genealogical tables record about 550 marriages, of which 373 are Tarthar and 177 Teivali. Only a small proportion of these are marriages between children of own brother and sister. Among the Tartharol there are 40 and among the Teivaliol 25 such marriages, making together 65 or 11·8 per cent.