THE NEIiiirHERRY HILLS. 101 



Th^ ^ost remarkable fact about the Todas is that they practise 

 polyandry — the marriage of several brothers or near relatives to 

 one woman. This state of society presupposes a scarcity of women, 

 which is indeed the case with the Todas, and has been from their 

 earliest history. This condition of the population was brought 

 about by infanticide, whereby a large proportion of the female chil- 

 di-en born to the tribe were killed at their birth. 



Formerly the males of the tribe outnumbered the females two 

 to one, but since the Madras Government has suppressed infanti- 

 cide, the proportion has risen until now there are three-fourths as 

 many females as males. 



The regulations of these peojile in regard to marriage are very 

 simple, and result in a perfectly ti-anquil and harmonious state of 

 society. If my informants knew how to reckon time properly, a 

 girl's marriage to her first husband takes place when she is fifteen 

 years of age, by her own consent and choice only, and her husband 

 receives from her father a dowry of several buffaloes. After that 

 her husband's brothers may also many her and unite their herds 

 with his, thus forming a joint-stock company and one common 

 herd. The women of the tribe never own or inherit property, and 

 the men are therefore boimd to support them. 



Although the social laws of the Todas regarding betrothal, mar- 

 riage, remarriage, and divorce are so extremely elastic they are actu- 

 ally shocking, thej' bear a resemblance to the customs of the Bible 

 patriarchs, in many respects so close as to be positively alarming. 



"With the Todas, marriage seems to be quite a go-as-you-please 

 institution, except that women are so scai'ce no man is allowed to 

 have more than one wife at a time. Like many of the prominent 

 characters in the Old Testament, who indulged in polygamy and 

 polyandry, their complete social history would not make good 

 family reading. 



The practice of polyandry was bi'ought about by infanticide, 

 and the killing of female children was due to the phenomenal lazi- 

 ness of the Toda, who shrank fi'om the task of supporting a whole 

 woman and four or five children all by himself. But for that, this 

 tribe of phj'sically fine men and women might have expanded and 

 founded upon the Neilgherries a magnificent principality. 



As it is, there were in 1881 only six hundred and seventy-five 

 of them, not so many by about forty as in 1870, and they wander 

 about from one grazing ground to another like the good-for-noth- 

 ing heathens they are. 



