The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-02-01
Toda Women Marry All the Male
Members Of a Family-Queer
Facts bout a Fast-dying Race.


CAadras. India. Cor. st. Louis Globe
Demoerat)-
ONLY 1o1 left out Of race that. at
the beginning of the ninsteenth
century, was still 10o,0eo heads
strong. This is the news your CORE
spOndent carries back from Todaland.
presidency Of Madras. where. amid al
most Inaccessible mountains and preci-
piees, he found the sad remnants of one
o the proudest and handsonest tribes
that ever lived in the hemisphere.
Polyandry is the cause for the aston
ishing and unprecedented degeneration
Or the race Of warriors sueeumbing to
the physical consequences of a law
made several hundred years before
Christ.
A Toda tradition says that their fore
fathers belonged to the army OF Alex
ander the Great, who entered India s27
=. c.: other legends claim Roman sol
d'ers as the Todas' grandsires. In either
ease these earliest settlers were prob
ably as hard I'D for wives as the an
eient Romans, who had 70 steal theirs.
Consequently, when the ancestors of
the T0das first settled on the mountain
tops Of Nilgiri, about 1000 feet above
son for the cruel rule that girl. given
in marriage. should be wife not only to
one but also to her husbands brothers.
In the interest of race propagation it
was decFeed that no one man should be
allowed the monopoly of womans love
and affection, but, on the contrary.
should permit his brothers. or in case
ne had none, his other near relatives,
to participate iH his conjugaI bliss.
no. al 60. - -
was a practice that must have prevailed
in one form or another with our bibll-
cal forefathers also.
Whether poiyandry prevailed IN To-
daland through all the centuries of the
Christian era your correspondent was
unable TO ascertain, but he did learn
that it was revived at the beginning Of
the present century, after the TOdas
had become a strong and numerous
people.
The surviving eighteen or nineteen
Teda families consist of a wife and
from four to six or seven husbands.
The male children from these unions,
or number of unions, are credited 70
the chief or original husband. The old
est female child is supposed to be the
offspring of the husbands eldest broth
er, the second baby calls the second
Oldest DaUa. etc.
The degeneration of the race mani
tests itself solely in the decrease of
population. Individually the Todas are
healthy, beautiful of face and limb.
Men and women wear only a single
garment, a square piece of white or
gray linen, in which they drape their
plastic forms with dignity and cOquetry.
Up to the time of the interference Of
the Madras British government the wo-
men were dressed solely in their crown
ing glory, a mantle Of beautiful black
tresses, which they were loose around
their shoulders, and a girdle or metal
chain around their naked waists. To-
day they braid their hair ard let it fall
gracefully upon their nude neck as Of
old; silver or gold links encircle their
waists and, really, the official linen cloth
does not in the least interfere with the
display Of their charms.
The faces of both plen and women in
dicate European origin; they have lit
tie in common with the race character /
istics Of the people of India. The mouth /
is firm. the teeth, are good and the fore /
heads high and slightly reeeding. Both !
sexes have bushy eyelashes and Greek |
noses The men ali wear long. black |
and thick beard. Men and women are
tail and have plastic forms, with small !
extremeties. Like other children eff ma [
tHre. they have no notions Of Drudery /
or moral restriction.
The mountains plateau they inhabit is
stepped in eternal spring and summer. /
they know nothing Of cold seasons or Of /
want. They have a god of their own,
whom they honor IN a temple a little /
larger than. but otherwise correspond /
ing with. their own huts. TWO priests, /
an old and a young man, act as inter- J.
between the Toda god and his +
people. These must adopt the single 1
state for a while. but are allowed to 4
take a wife after a certain period.