TODARS, TODAWARS, or a remarkable race inhabiting the upper part of Neilgherry mountains (q.v.), in southern Hindustan. They are rapidly diminishing • "Written also Toda, Thoda, Thodawur. The name of a pastoral people inhabiting the Nilghlri mountains, and claiming to be the original occupants and proprietors of the whole of the hilly collo tri."—Dr. H. H. Wilson's Glossary of Indian Words.
iu number, chiefly owing to the practice of polyandry (q.v.), and their not allowing iii.erinixture with other races; in 1858, it appears that only 337 were left. They are tall, well proportioned, and athletic, with finely molded limbs, and bold, independent car riage; the nose aquiline, with black, bushy hair and beard. The dress of the men con. sists of a single toga, worn so as to leave the right arm free, not unlike the plaid of the Scottish Highlander. Both sexes are of a dull copper color, but the women are rather fairer than the men, and are often tall and handsome in feature and person. They have no occupation except tending their herds of buffaloes, and converting the milk into i butter. The buffalo, indeed, is so important to them, that they look on the pen where the herd is cooped up at night with superstitious veneration. They never attempt the cultivation of the land around them, as they obtain what grain they require from the Burghers and other agricultural tribes, who pay it in the shape of tribute (goodoo) for the lands they cultivate, over which the Todars assert an imaginary right. The Todars hold that their ancestors were the aboriginal inhabitants of these regions (see INDIA, Inhabi tants); that the Mothers, and afterward the Burghers, came among them; and that they allowed these tribes to cultivate land on condition of paying a goodoo of one-sixth of the harvest. The Burghers continue to pay their tribute of grain, but only in such amount as suits their own wants and inclinations, and rather in the shape of charity than other wise. The only use the Todars get of the buffaloes, besides their milk, is to furnish sacrifices to the manes of the dead. They are wont to salute the sun at his rising and
setting, and believe that the soul after death goes to the "great couutry." They have no distinct places of worship, except the hut in which they keep their milk, where they pour out in libations to their deities what remains after their daily, consumption. They have never been known to steal the smallest article. No civil servant, or native of any of the other tribes, has ever been able to acquire their language, which has no written character, and not the slightest affinity with Sanscrit. Their mode of collecting the goodoo is singular enough: " As soon as harvest is over, and the goodoo collected in Todanaad, the Toda men of that division pay visits to the munds (villages, or groups of huts) in Meyleanaad and Paranganaad, and take up their abode with the women of the community (to the temporary exclusion, as is the custom, of the legitimate husband). They then pay visits to the surrounding Burgher villages, and demand in their right, as temporary husbands of the women of the naad, the goodoo, which, strange to say, is paid; and thus the same man, perhaps, who has laid a whole village in his own naad under contribution, goes the round of the other two naads, appropriating the fruits of the Burghers' labor and industry, and carrying off enough grain to support his whole community in idleness and plenty until the arrival of the next year's harvest-time, and to produce by sale in the nearest bazaar sufficient money to pay the tax which is levied yearly on their tribe. I should have refused credence to such a statement, had I not received it on the best authority, that of the tahsildar of the district."—See Statistical ..41enwir of a Survey of the Heilgherry Mountains, laid before the select committee on colo nization, etc., in 1858, ordered by the house of commons to be reprinted, 1861; capt. Harkness's Description of a Singular Aboriginal Race, etc., 1832; capt. Burton's Goa and the Blue Mountains, 1861.