The Todas
The Toda people are a small pastoral tribe of Southern India who reside in the Nilgiri Hills. They are one of the original tribes inhabiting the highest regions of the Nilgiris mountain range and have remained secluded for a very long time. The Todas number less than 1,400 and are an isolated people who speak Toda, a Dravidian language. They are surprisingly unself-conscious and as self resistant to change as they have been durable in the history of Ooty. They are not often seen in the town. Most of their villages are scattered far out in the hills. Often, a village is no more than three to five thatched huts shaped like dog kennels, with no windows or chimney but with a hole in the roof to take the smoke of fire, and a low entrance at one end, which only Toda babies can manage without going down on all fours, and a circular compound for their buffaloes. It is believed that Todas prefer to go on living under their tumbledown thatch.
They have been there forever, they say, and were created by the Gods to be the lords of Nilgiri soil-a race of pastoralists who must live far away from other men, on the colored cattle that are their wealth, their life occupation, and the central feature of their complicated and mysterious religion.
The Toda's principle Gods - a brother and sister called On and Tiekirzi-rule the worlds of the dead and the living, respectively, but there are six hundred deities who are Todas themselves and live on the tops of the highest hills, from which they keep a benevolent watch, like immortal herdsmen, over men and buffaloes.
The tribe's polyandrous habits and the accommodating sexual amorality of its women are often cited as the reason for the Todas' sad decline in numbers. Today, the Todas look just like everybody else. However, they do wear garments with a heavily embroidered red or blue border, standing on the grassy slopes surveying his buffaloes with his wife, her long corkscrew ringlets shining with a liberal anointing of butter, and one or two babies squatting meekly beside him. Toda men are noticeably taller than the other Ooty dwellers, and many of them are extremely handsome. They have strong features that would look well on a coin, finely shaped heads of long jet-black hair, and curling beards. A pretty foot with fine, prominent ankle bones is the most admired of feminine charms.
The most general theory of their origin is that the Todas were part of the main Dravidian stream of India that retreated south from the conquering Aryans, and were perhaps driven by some unrecorded events or persecution to take refuge in the spirit-guarded heights of the Nilgiris. The still baffling conundrum of their looks and physique has been explained, reasonably enough, as the long, cumulative effect of their calm life in the superb air of the hills. They are, in fact the first advertisements for the famous sanatorium of Ootacumund.
