If the Todas left Malabar at the beginning of the Perumal rule, Jewish or Christian influences can be excluded, but if at a later period such influences may have been present, though it is very improbable that they were important; for, unless the Todas have changed very much, they would have been very unlikely to have borrowed from religious settlers of an alien race. Still, in considering the strange resemblance between the Hebrew and Toda versions of the Creation, this possible influence should be borne in mind.
I have so far said nothing of the archæological evidence which may possibly help in the settlement of the vexed [[712]]questions which I have raised in the preceding pages. Our knowledge of the history of the Todas would be very materially advanced if we knew whether the cairns, barrows and other ancient remains which are found on the Nilgiri Hills are Toda monuments. In the cairns and barrows there are found objects which suggest a Toda origin, such as figures of buffaloes with bells round their necks (see [Fig. 76], 9), but the vast majority of the finds are utterly unlike anything now possessed by the Todas. They include pottery of many designs, the lids of the vessels being often adorned with the figures of animals. Many other animal figures have also been found, and though that of the buffalo often occurs, figures of the horse (see [Fig. 76], 10), sheep, camel, elephant, leopard (?), pig (?), and low-country bullock with hump are all found. Such figures can only have been made by those well acquainted with the low country, and none of these animals are ever mentioned in Toda legends.
Metal work is also found in the cairns and barrows; bronze vases, basins and saucers ([Fig. 76], 1, 2, 3), iron razors, styles or pins (?), and daggers ([Fig. 76], 8), while iron spear-heads ([Fig. 76], 4, 7, 13) are frequently met with.
In addition to the more elaborate cairns, cromlechs and barrows found on the Nilgiri Hills, Breeks, to whom we owe most of our knowledge on this subject, found what he took to be ancient examples of the azaram or circle of stones within which the Toda buries the ashes of his dead at the end of the second funeral. In such azaram in the district between Kotagiri and Kwòdrdoni, Breeks found bronze bracelets and rings, iron spear-heads, a chisel, a knife and an iron implement in something of the style found in Malabar and differing from those usually found in the cairns.
FIG. 76—VARIOUS OBJECTS FOUND IN THE NILGIRI CAIRNS, TAKEN FROM BREEKS.
Breeks points out that the characteristic feature of the cairns and barrows of the Nilgiris is the circle of stones, and that some consist of an insignificant circle hardly to be distinguished from the Toda azaram. He often found it difficult to say whether a given monument was a cairn or an azaram, so that it would appear that there are intermediate gradations between the more elaborate cairns or barrows containing the pottery and metal work and the simple Toda azaram. [[714]]From the amount of rust on the iron implements, however, Breeks concluded that there was a long interval of time between the most recent of the cairns and the oldest azaram, but he points out that if the latter are really azaram, they show that the Todas used at one time to bury such objects as iron spears.[32]
As regards the cairns, Breeks points out that though the figures of many animals occur in addition to that of the buffalo, most of the animals are so badly imitated that it is difficult to identify them, while the figures of the buffaloes are singularly characteristic and often very spirited.
The only implements found by Breeks which might be agricultural were shears and sickles ([Fig. 76], 12, 5), and he recalls the kafkati burnt by the Todas with their dead, which is a curved knife, different, however, in shape from the sickles often found in the cairns.
On the other hand, very few of the human figures found in the cairns resemble the Todas in any way; the women have the low-country top-knot instead of the Toda curls, and they carry chatties on their heads, which would never be done by a Toda woman at the present time, whatever she may have done in the past.