VOL. XV. (2) RUDE STONE MONUMENTS OF INDIA 131 
towards them. Thus, to take that remarkable race, the 
Todas, Col. Marshall writes’: “Not only the summit of 
the Nilagiris, but the tops of the minor rounded eminences 
thereon are studded with cairns, raised for the reception 
of the ashes of the dead, by a race whose history has been 
so completely lost that not a tradition of it even remains. 
It is true,” he adds, “‘from relics exhumed from cairns, 
that their owners made use of the horse: that they prac- 
tised agriculture, holding the buffalo in high esteem, and 
burying its bell with the manes of the deceased ;” and “in 
the custom of cremation, the regard shown to buffaloes, 
the especial notice of its bell, the practice of burying 
weapons and personal ornaments,” he finds almost an 
identity with the obsequies and modes of thought dis- 
played by the Todas.* On the other hand, to quote Mr 
Breeks,3—“‘ Against the theory that the cairns [circles] 
belong to the Todas, it has been urged that they do not 
claim them. This is not strictly correct; they do, as has 
been shown, claim some. But even if the statement were 
entirely true, it is not of much consequence with a people 
like the Todas. I have known a Toda, while pointing out 
the Azarams [circles] in which a funeral ceremony then 
going forward was to terminate, profess entire ignorance 
of the object of some other stone circles close at hand, 
obviously old Azarams belonging to the same mand 
[settlement] : so that their disclaimer of the cairns carries 
little weight.”. Mr Walhouse adds that the Todas regard 
- the old circles as tabu and will not touch them.* 
Little light is thus gained by this investigation; but so 
much is fairly clear. The modern Todas use stone circles 
and conform in their death rites to those people who built 
the earlier monuments, to which they pay a certain amount 
1 “A Phrenologist among the Todas,” p. 8. 
2 Ibid, p. 9. 
3 Of. cit., p. 99. ; ; 
4 “Journal Anthropological Institute,” vii. (1877), p. 29. 
