The Toda of South India
Subtitle: a new look
By: Anthony R. Walker.
Series: Studies in sociology and social anthropology
Publisher: Hindustan Pub. Corp., New Delhi
Published: 1986
Place of publication: Delhi
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 371
Subjects: Toda (Indic people), Nilgiri Hills (Social life and customs), India (Nilgiri Hills)
Genres: Ethnology
Description: Proudly herding their long-horned buffaloes over the high plateau grasslands of the Nilgiri Hills in Tamil Nadu, the Toda people people have intrigued generations of visitors by their unusual personal appearance and their distinctive dwellings. In the annals of Indian ethnography they are famous, with such Toda practices as adelphic polyandry (brothers sharing a wife) and the sacred dairy cult having become classic examples in the anthropological literature.

For most of the present century, the outstanding authority on the Toda has been monumental work, The Todas, published in 1906 by Cambridge University anthropologist W.H.R. Rivers. But since Rivers's time, great changes have occurred not only in India and in Indian studies but even in the small, essentially conservative Toda community.

Hence the purpose of this new book on the Toda is twofold: first, to bring Toda ethnography up to date and, more importantly, to re-examine Toda society and culture, viewing them now not as isolated "tribal" phenomena (as is usual), but rather as part of the wider Hindu society and culture of South India.

Eight substantial chapters cover four major areas: the Toda people and their environment, the organization of Toda society, Toda pastoralism in its secular and ritual dimensions, and the changing Toda world from British times to the present.

This book is a "new look" at a people who themselves have a "new look".
Notes: Bibliography: p. [302]-318.
Includes indexes.
Table of contents: title: Preface (vii-x11); title: Introduction (1-9); title: Chapter 1. The Nilgiris and their Peoples: The Matrix of Toda Society (10-39); title: Chapter 2. The Toda People (40-61); title: Chapter 3. The Organization of Toda Society (62-97); title: Chapter 4. Toda Buffaloes: Basis of the Traditional Society (98-118); title: Chapter 5. Dairies, Dairymen and Dairy Herds (119-57); title: Chapter 6. Special Ceremonies for the Dairies, Herds and Pastures (158-83); title: Chapter 7. From Birth to Death in the Shadow of the Buffalo (184-239); title: Chapter 8. The Changing Toda World: 1819-1981 (240-93); title: Summary and Conclusion (294-97); title: Appendix 1: Demographic Data for Toda Hamlets Permanently Occupied in December  1975  (298-99); title: Appendix 2: Census Data 1812-1971 (300-301); title: Bibliography of References Cited  (302-318); title: Glossary (319-34); title: Author Index (332-34); title: General Index (71)335-71)