Todas | Nilgiri Tribes
THE TODAS
Todas
are the indegious population of the Nilgiris, and they are one of the alluring
ethinic group in India. Todas, traditionally narratted as patriotic, literally
have certain patrilineal and matrilineal divisions, which are doubtlessly diverse.
Amongest
the most indigenous species residing in India. The Todas made the Nilgiris
their home in Tamil Nadu. Todas are the specific major races in the scheduled
tribe. They speak Toda, one of the Dravidian languages. They speak the past and
present language of the Nilgiris. They use Tamil characters.
Toda
people have lived in their homeland between the 3rd to 11th
centuries. The Toda people's lifestyle differs from other peoples, and these
people arrived at the west Nilgiris after vanishing the circle builders. In the
Toda culture, people are associated with Irula, Kurumba, Kota, and Badaga, who
live in the Nilgiris. Toda people linked with these group people in terms of
economic, social relationship and complexity of ritual. In the 19th
century British government opening the Nilgiris by concentrating the economic
and social development. These developments create changes in Toda society.
LOCATION AND HOME LAND?
In
the north-western portion of Tamilnadu, Nilgiris Hills is placed over 2600m
above sea level. Toda people are located approximately 11° of latitude north
equator of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka. Here, temperatures are presented
between 18°c and 21°c throughout the year, and the higher elevations are hard
frosts during the winter months.
During
the southwest monsoon, Nilgiris receives 200in (approximately 500 cm) rain over
the year. The heavy tropical forest protects hills, lower slopes, and open
savanna grasslands. In this place, Toda people live in higher elevations,
and they herd the water buffalo. However, most researchers argue Toda people
create their grassland themselves using the burning of vegetation.
According to the European accounts, in the 17th century, less than 1000 Toda people were only living the region. Due to the different medical conditions and venereal disease, the count of Toda people reduced to 475 in 1952. But in 2000, the Toda people population increased up to 1412. However, the Toda people population consistently inaccurate. Among the counts, only 600 people speak their Toda Language, between 700 to 900 people.
LANGUAGE?
The Toda language comes from the Dravidian
linguistic family that was established around the 3rd century
BC. This language was created by combination of Tamil and Malayalam but treated
as pre-Tamil before introducing these two independent languages. In general,
Toda people do not have any written language, but nowadays, they use the tamil
script for their writing persistence.
THE ORIGINATION OF THE TODA PEOPLE?
The
Todas are refered a tribe of the Proto-Aryans, who spilt a sequence of somatic
personalities with the Japan’s Ainu (tribe institution). A small number of
people believe that they belong to the Indo-Afghan tribe, when few others
believe that they’re Nordic. The Toda are gigantic sized, lenghthy headed
humans with a small nostril shape, also their bodily attributes fulfil to the
Mediterranean kind. The Toda race is divided into five clans: they are Paiki,
Pekkan, Kuttan, Kenna, and Todi. The
term Paiki is again used in the Hale- Paikis of Naga and the Kumara Paiki of
the North Kanara. The Hale Paikis with reference to Manjarabad is entitled Devara
Makkalu or infant of almighty, And paikis that take the lead to several todas, and
the paikis who take the lead the various Todas, Palal or the high priest is
chosen for them, They also call themselves Der Mokh or Children of Almighty.
MODE OF LIFE?
In the hamlets or villages of the Toda tribes, their place of residence is named Mandu or Mot. Each mandu in the hamlet usually has five buildings or huts, three of which are used as dwellings, one for dairy farming and the other for sheltering calves at night. These huts or apartments form a peculiar oval-pent structure, usually 120 inch height, 216 inch long and 108 inch broad-ranging, with the gateway or doorway of this building being 2.6 feet height and 1.5 feet broad-ranging, but it is not offered with any door or gate, but the board of width 4 to 6 inches thick entrance Covered by a solid slab, and of enough dimensions to block the entire entrance.
The sliding door is inside the hut, so
it is arranged in two heavy piles buried in the ground and it is fixed and
stands 2 ½ to 3 feet height, so that it can be easily moved back and forth.
There are no other openings or exits, and there is no smoke exit or freeway in
this atmosphere. The threshold is as small in size as the path,
i.e., if one wants to hit an entrance, one has to go down four ways, after
which more rotation is required for an entrance to be affected. The houses look
beautiful (roof), they have a wall at the front and back of each building, are
made of solid bricks, and the sides are covered, but the pent roof is painted
to stick to the floor. There is an entrance or doorway on the front wall or
board. The interior of a hut ranges from 8 to 155 square feet, and is tall
enough to fit a tall man. On one side, there is a platform or pail made of clay
about two feet height, and covered with buffalo skins or sometimes mat. This
site is used as a sleeping area. Here pesticide attached rice pounder is used
to protect the rice. The hole drilled to a depth of 7 to 9 inches is coated
with lime mortar and supplied for standard use. Household goods are used in
four brass utensils or trays. Many bamboo utensils and hats are used.
TODAS PASTORALS?
The
Todas are pastoral people living a completely folk life. They have large
buffalo herds. They depend on the dairy products they produce, With Gudu they
are classified from Badagas and Kotas. Todas never looked for any work and
never tried to work; In fact, their intention was to understand the purpose of
their actual work. In any case he would not be induced to do all the work like
the other convicts when that Toda went to jail in case of danger or crime by
the buffaloes unfortunately. Officers who do not want to take drastic action
will use him as a supervisor. Buffaloes feed only on green grass and water.
Todas gradually stopped their nomadic pastoral life of grazing buffaloes in the
Nilgiris.
- The arrival of immigrants
- Expansion of agricultural plantation activities on grazing lands by non-tribals
- Promoting tourism and developing the Nilgiris Upper Plateau as a hill station.
For these
reasons the Todas switched to stall-feeding and in their clan, the permanent
settlers in the Mundus were considered wise. A few settlements of the Todas
were vacant, and they are pastoral heritage sites now. With these changes,
Todas began to earn an income by selling raw milk, ghee, dung and buffalo or
calf. Now a day, a Toda family with less than twenty buffaloes is considered
poor.
COMMUNAL ORGANIZATION?
The
social structure of any community includes interpersonal relationships, duty
components of ideal behavior, expected behavior, and the salaried behavior of
community members. Therefore, a social organization is a network of
relationships that exists between individuals and groups in a community. The
Toda community is based on the patriarchal lineage of a male lineage, its
lineage, and its members. Patriarchal morality is a cultural principle that is
automatically incorporated into the culture from the time of childbirth by
their male ancestors in the family. The
Todas tribe is spilit into two endogamous category, namely:
(i)
Tharthazoll
(ii)
Theveioll
In
accordance with the toda tradition, the Toda women of Theveioll avoid coming to
Tharthazol. It is said that the reason for this ban was that on one occasion a
goddess woman, when visiting a Tharrthazoll mandu, folded a cloth and placed it
under her putkuli like a child. When the food was served, she asked the baby
for some food and, on top of that, displayed the cloth. Tharrthazoll, who did
not appreciate the slightest humor, decided to humiliate all the goddess women.
Even today, although the Todas of Tharrthazoll are interested in seeing the
women of Theveioll, Theveioll avoids seeing Mandus where Tharrthazoll resides.
Toda women participate in agricultural activities, raise cattle, collect
fires, and obtain clean water. They participate in lucrative activities and
observe habitudes. The unlike life process habitude that are observed differ in
detail with categories and parti-clans. Despite the absence of the polyandry
relationship, the observance of this ritual continues as a cultural event.
conventionally the toda pastoral lived in the natural and animal dependence, A
quarter of those who came after it engaged in commercial farming, especially
growing vegetables such as potatoes and cabbage. Some of them have leased
agricultural land in lieu of a certain amount to be paid at harvest time.
DAIRY TEMPLES?
The
Toda people’s ceremonial purity and cleanliness determined based on their
dairy’s animals especially buffaloes. Toda people ranked their temple buffalos
according to capacity of their dairy products. The buffalo’s dairy information
is continuously analysed and the higher dairy product produce buffaloes are considered
for highest care because they are placed a crucial role in ritual sacrilege.
Dairyman-Priest only drawn the temple buffaloes’ milk to maintain the purity,
ritual status. Toda dairy temples are half-barrel shapes, two remaining
conical, sacred dairies and termed poh. The dairies have rear and front room in
which front room has wall build in earthen side. The constructed room is
treated as dairyman rest room; along with this, buffalo’s assistant also stayed
in that room. In the front room, ritual products, firewood chopper, axe
chopper, dairyman vessels, ablutions, food grains, rice basket and dairyman
clothe are kept. The dairy room is split
into two parts such as inner room and outside room because it also used for
dairyman priest sleeping process. Afterwards different churns and vessels are
kept in that room to manage the products received from the dairy activities.
Along with this, special place is allocated for dairyman to change their languti.
Next important room is inner room here, most important ritual related things are kept and dairyman perform his duties like churning of buttermilk and butter are performed here. Inside of inner room two principal areas are presented to categorize the dairy equipment. The less scared equipment’s are kept in the room entrance right hand side; here new earthen shelves are built and the products are stored in this place.
The other shelves are constructed in other side to kept the cooking vessels, dairy man products, bamboo vessels
and other food grains. In Toda dairy temple there is no lighters and matches
therefore, they are storing the fire sticks which used to generate the light by
doing the friction process. Few dairy temples having the highest sacredness
related ritual artifacts which includes gold, silver and iron. These artifacts
are attached with the dairy’s inner room wall and that is protect with ferns to
maintain their purity.
God
of Todas are generally named as god of mountains because these peoples are live
in the Nilgiri peak especially in Shola forest. Toda people has numerous number
of goddesses and god they are worship with different sacred activities.
However, these people does not workship the deities and idols. Women are
permitted to participating the religious rites in neither conventional diaries
nor temples. Toda men heavily interconnect with scared buffaloes because they
are churning the milk and preparing ghee, butter etc. Toda religion created
these ritual activities and the temples are maintain by poojari or priest. The
priest accepts the office work with renunciation and self-discipline.
RELIGION?
Traditional Todas theory identifies two sphere: the sphere of the living, ruled by the godess Tökisy. There is no concept of eternal hell, still, those who have led unrestricted life are said to experience many humiliations before finally reaching the other sphere. On the yatra journey to Hindu temples, Toda's belief in divinity finds ceremony facial appearance principally fashionable the faith of the sacred dairies and their befriend confuse herds. Confuse are sort by type as not spiritual or religious (the chief support of the traditional saving) or blessed (accompanying numerous ranges). considering the latest, tradition circle each duty with respect to the dairy man: gather, exploit, agitating, along with fitting ghee (purified butter) from butter, in addition to migratory or occasional state of being active to a degree blazing the pastures (now ended), designate a buffalo, bestowing seasoning to the herds, forceful them to parched-season fields, and dethatching or restore a producer of milk products constructed dwelling.
Dairies, which Todas label as the house of worship, exist buildings retained tense of ritual innocence for fear that dairymen-man who is the minister in the roman or orthodox catholic church (of comparable tradition innocence) can process inside the ruling class the milk belonging connected herds of protected confuse. Ranking in one step, every producer of milk products bears its mix grade of protected buffalo and dairyman man who is the minister in the roman or orthodox catholic church. The taller the producer of milk products, the greater the need for ceremony innocence and the more elaborate the tradition that encircles something the occurring everyday tasks of the dairyman. Another category of conscientious person who is an expert in a field is the "supernatural being worshipped by people male human," the one in hypnotic state evolve into mouthpieces of particular worshiped being, frequently Hindu alternatively Todas. Different deities, the "gods of the holy places," show the more blessed dairy composite; they excessively are now and then realize anthropomorphically. New Todas worship Hindu deities, show for public viewing lithographic image of Shiva, Vishnu, Murugan, Aiyappan, etc., fashionable their homes and now and then even consistency an elaborate "gods' range" such as individual finds with the Hindu mainstream. The Todas system of beliefs exist the vaguest and minimal kind, some traditional male human of a sincerely believing turn of mind create salam to the climbing Brightest star(brish) and at some seasons to the Moon (tiggal) and fast at eclipse, and now and then they concede possibility prostrate themselves at dismissal from the responsibility of the Palthuchi (dairy). Still, none except the pujari attempts unidentified object or event beyond this, and he pronounced, “Grant permission all exist well! May the buffaloes happen well”.
They depend on the life of an invisible and most
excellent soul and fashionable a future state. However, this they appear to
regard all at once of a somewhat ordinary type, in connection with buffaloes
and abundance of search out the portion of the trusty. They also pay high opinion of something to
though they act not worship, inferior objects, in the way that hills and area
with many trees and the climbing brightest star, precisely as act the old
Celts.
HOLIDAYS?
Toda
people celebrate their festival holidays concerning their dairies. Generally,
they enjoy their dairy-related festival in Earlier January or Late December. Nos
Clan conducts these dairy-related festivals, but most of Todas are trying to
join this ceremony. Along with this, at particular weekend function is undertaken
in the village when normal daily activities are held. Then the local Toda functions
are held at Mariamman temple located in Ootacamund. The udhagamangalm is the
headquarters of the Nilgiris District.
CLOTHING?
But
nowadays, Toda people dress sensing is changed according to western culture
like a short, pant. They are wearing this western cloth by using a traditional
cloak (depending on their choice). Traditional Toda people were walking
barefoot, but new days, they are utilizing shoes while walking. Saree, blouse,
and churidar wearied by women and children dressed up according to western and
south Indian clothes. They are purchasing the cloaks materials and ready-made
clothes from Ootacamund bazaars.
EDUCATION?
In
the 1960s, government schools had created for Toda children, which help to
provide formal education to the people. However, only 54% of men and 42.01%
females around 43.43%, is the literacy rate obtained from the 1981 census.
Further, education criteria are examined in scheduled tribe peoples in
Nilgiris. According to the 2001 report, most of the Toda peoples are literate
and the percentage is increased to 50%. Most of the Toda people literacy in
Tamil. In addition to this, Christian Toda peoples are highly educated and they
are settled their life in the form of government employees, nurses, teachers
and businessman.
CULTURAL HERITAGE?
Dancing
is most important cultural heritage in Toda people which occurred in Toda
rituals. Traditionally, male only participated in this dance ceremonial but now
women also involved to recreating the dance. The men form the circle and move
towards the counter clock-wise direction and starting their dance. Any number
of person can join in this circle and their dance continued in the standardized
format.
After
dancing, singing is other cultural heritage of Toda people. The singing is done
by oral poetry that includes their daily activities, dairy rituals, buffalo
caring process, milking activities and other Toda people cultural activities.
ENTERTAINMENT?
Todas
recreating their ritual functions, dancing and singing for making their
entertain. The popular one is Riddling. In Ootacamund, movies and theraters are
their famous entertainment; people seeing Tamil movies and enjoyed themselves.
Men famous time passing place is coffee shops.
Folk Art, Craft and Hobbies
Toda
women are experts in embroidery works and making many decorative patterns.
After 1950, most of the industries are taken efforts to create the Toda
embroidery works in handicrafts products. However, in local markets Toda
embroideries are exists.
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