The members of a clan have many common rights and privileges which bind them together, so that the clan-tie has a very real meaning. Property, however, as we shall see shortly, is largely centred in the family or the individual, and the Todas are in a state of social evolution in which the common bond constituted by membership of the clan has been largely replaced by the bond constituted by the family. They are in an intermediate condition between the state of society in which the clan is the social unit and that in which the family has taken this position.
Nearly all who have previously written about the Todas have described them as divided into five clans—viz., the Peiki, Pekkan, Kenna, Todi, or Tothi, and Kuttan. These are the five divisions recognised by the Badagas, and a Badaga knows each Toda as belonging to one of them. The Todas are also perfectly acquainted with these divisions, and they could always say, if asked, to which of them a given village or a given man belonged. If a Toda is asked by a European to which clan or division he belongs, he will probably give one of these names, but I do not believe that they are in use among themselves, being reserved for their intercourse with Badagas and other Indian castes and with Europeans.
The Peiki of the Badaga classification are the Teivaliol; the Pekkan correspond to the Melgarsol, the people of Kidmad and Karsh being also usually included in this group. Kenna is the Badaga name of the Karsol; the Todi or Tothi include two clans, the Nòdrsol and the Panol, while the Kuttan comprise [[542]]the remainder of the Tarthar clans—viz., those of Taradr, Keradr, Kanòdrs, Kwòdrdoni, Päm and Nidrsi. I could obtain no direct information from the Todas which would explain why the Badaga classification should differ from their own. It is possible that it is an old classification of the Todas, but this is unlikely, since it is probable that the intercourse with the Badagas is not very ancient. It seems to me possible that it may have arisen out of the constitution of the naim or council. This has four Toda representatives belonging to Kuudr (representing the Teivaliol), Kars, Nòdrs and Taradr. This would correspond to four of the Badaga divisions, and the fifth, the Melgarsol or Pekkan, would certainly be well known to the Badagas through their privileges as mòrol. It is possible that the Nòdrs representative used also to represent Pan, and that the Taradr member represented the remaining clans, and, if so, it would point to there having been some old five-fold division of the kind believed in by the Badagas. It is quite clear that the five-fold division has no influence on the marriage regulations and Peiki, Todi and Kuttan all marry freely within their divisions. Except in connexion with the naim, I could learn of nothing which would show that the five-fold division has any social significance, and I know of no other way in which the Panol are associated with the Nòdrsol nor of any other way in which the six clans included in the Kuttan are associated together. It is possible that the five-fold division is connected with some customs regulating the payment of the Badaga tribute to the Todas, but I could learn nothing of such customs.
Each clan has divisions of two kinds called kudr and pòlm. The kudr is a division of ceremonial, the pòlm of practical, importance.
The Kudr
Normally each clan has two kudr and two only, and, as we have seen in [Chapter XIII], these divisions become of the greatest importance in connexion with the irnörtiti ceremony, the whole regulation of which is dominated by the division into kudr. So far as I could ascertain, the kudr has now no [[543]]other significance, and I do not know whether the division is one which formerly possessed a social significance which it has now lost, so that the kudr only persists in ceremony, or whether it is a mode of division of the clan which has arisen purely in connexion with the irnörtiti and other allied ceremonies.
In one or two cases there was some doubt as to whether a certain division of the people was a clan or a kudr. This was especially the case with the Kwaradrol, now extinct, who were said by some of my informants to have been a clan, but it seemed clear that they only formed a kudr of the Keadrol, and were not properly a distinct clan. This is one case in which a kudr has a distinctive name, and another example occurs in the Panol where the kudr have separate names, one the Panol or Pandar, the other the Kuirsiol or Peshteidimokh. In general, each kudr is named after its leading man, thus the two kudr of the Nòdrsol are spoken of as the kudr of Mudrigeidi (1) and Kerkadr (2). The man who gives his name to the kudr is probably responsible for the general management of the ceremonies in which the kudr is concerned.
In a few cases a clan was said to have more than two kudr, but on cross-examination it turned out in each case that the statement was due to the fact that the clan contained a section which had no part, or only a subordinate part, in the irnörtiti ceremony and that this section might sometimes be spoken of as a kudr. Thus, in the Kuudr clan there are three sections, two which have reciprocal relations in the irnörtiti ceremony, and a third consisting of the family of Tövoniners (61) which lost certain privileges owing to a dispute many generations ago (see p. [675]). This family could perform the irnörtiti ceremony, but in such a case the buffalo would go to the members of the two other divisions and Tövoniners would receive nothing if either of the other divisions performed the ceremony. Another example of a clan said to have three kudr is that of Piedr, where the family of Nongarsivan (62) stands in the same relation to the other divisions as is the case with the family of Tövoniners in the Kuudrol. In this case Nongarsivan’s exceptional position is [[544]]probably due to the fact that his family lives at Kavidi in the Wainad.
When a kudr becomes extinct a new division of the remaining kudr may take place, but, as a rule, this is not done till an occasion for the irnörtiti ceremony arises. There are several cases in which one kudr of a clan has now been extinct for several years, but though the re-division is often a subject for discussion, it is not probable that a new kudr will be instituted till the necessity arises. Occasionally, however, it would seem that a new kudr may be decided on apart from an occasion for the irnörtiti ceremony, for about the time of my visit the people of Keadr, who had lost one kudr by the dying out of the Kwaradrol, decided that the family of Karem (69), of which the sole living representatives are three boys, should form a new kudr. I could not learn what had been the motives for the decision. Some unimportant clans which have arisen by fusion from other clans, such as those of Kidmad and Kulhem, have no kudr, and do not appear ever to have possessed these divisions.