CHAPTER XXIV
ARTS AND AMUSEMENTS
The arts of life among the Todas are extremely simple. The fact that their agriculture is done for them by the Badagas and that all the objects they use in their daily life are made for them by the Kotas leaves them free to devote their whole attention to the care of the buffalo and the dairy. This employment has acquired so ceremonial a character that, having dealt with the ceremonies of the Todas, we find little left to consider in connexion with the regulation of the affairs of daily life.
The artistic side of life among the Todas is but little developed. Their interest is so much absorbed in ceremony that little is left for the development of art, even of a primitive kind. The decorative arts are of the simplest and are directed only to the adornment of the clothing or the person, and even here we shall find that the methods of wearing the clothes or the hair are quite as much influenced by ceremonial as by æsthetic considerations. In their amusements again we shall find that the influence of ceremonial is so great, that many of the games are merely imitations of ceremonial occupations.
I have included in this chapter an account of the ideas which are held about the heavenly bodies, the primitive astronomy of the people. To the Todas, though in a less degree than to many people of low culture, it is the sun, moon, and stars which are the chief objects of those observations and speculations which are the beginnings of science. [[571]]
Clothing
The clothing of the men consists of a large cloak called the putkuli, a loincloth called tadrp, and a small perineal cloth called kuvn, kept in its place by a string round the waist called pennar.
The putkuli is made of a large piece of double cloth, which is usually worn by placing one side over the left shoulder and then throwing the whole garment round the back and over the right shoulder and across to the left shoulder, so that it completely envelops the body. This method of wearing the cloak, which is shown by the third man of [Fig. 61], is called kai ulk üt nidvai, “hand into laid who stands,” or “who stands with hand placed within the cloak.”