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He swore frightfully at the sight of strangers, and bit Peggy's finger when she tried to stroke him; but at a word from Janet he was quiet, and said, "Me gustan todas!" in a plaintive tone, with his head on one side. "What does that mean?" asked Peggy. "He's horrid, isn't he?" Janet's feeling were hurt. "He doesn't mean it!" she said. "And he always wants to be pleasant when he says that.
In an excellent article on the evolution of ceremonial institutions Herbert Spencer mentions the Fuegians, Veddahs, Andamanese, Dyaks, Todas, Gonds, Santals, Bodos, and Dhimals, Mishmis, Kamchadales, and Snake Indians, as among people who form societies to practice simple mutilations in slight forms.
But perhaps no country in the world has been so prolific of human gods as India; nowhere has the divine grace been poured out in a more liberal measure on all classes of society from kings down to milkmen. Thus amongst the Todas, a pastoral people of the Neilgherry Hills of Southern India, the dairy is a sanctuary, and the milkman who attends to it has been described as a god.
The Egyptian cult of the bull is the best-attested instance of actual worship of a domestic animal, and parallels to this it is hard to find; the Todas, for example, for whom the buffalo is the central sacred object, do not now pay worship to the animal they may have done so in former times.
I have heard Todas Santos, Commondee, Santa Guadalupe, and others, spoken of as being more extensive, and as productive as San José. "I am, most faithfully and truly, yours, In the vicinity of Los Angeles there are a number of warm springs which throw out and deposit large quantities of bitumen or mineral tar. This substance, when it cools, becomes hard and brittle like resin.
Once a year all the adult males of the village join in the ceremony of killing and eating a very young male calf seemingly under a month old. A sacred fire having been made by the rubbing of sticks, the flesh of the calf is roasted on the embers of certain trees, and is eaten by the men alone, women being excluded from the assembly. This is the only occasion on which the Todas eat buffalo flesh.
The bulk of the natives here are a colony from the plains below, who have come up hither to wait on the European visitors, and who seem to trouble themselves very little about caste or religion. The Todas, the aboriginal population of these hills, are a very curious race. They had a grand funeral a little while ago.
Passing over into Asia we find relatives of the Mediterranean man in the Dravidas and Todas of India, possibly in the degenerate Veddahs of Ceylon, and finally in the Ainus or "hairy men" of some of the Japanese islands. The last-named people certainly possess some Mongolian features, but these seem to have been added to a more fundamental form of body that is distinctly Caucasian.
A noteworthy specialization of functions is found among the Todas of Southern India, who distinguish the diviner from the magician, the prophet, and the dairyman. The diviner is inspired by a god, gives his utterances in an ecstatic state, and for the most part limits himself to the explanation of the origin of misfortunes.
Así como en el hogar comparte con el hombre los deberes de la vida, así fuera de él, en la vida pública, debe compartir con el hombre la responsabilidad de remediar y de aliviar las desdichas públicas. La beneficiencia, la caridad, la moral, por algo, tienen nombres femeninos: y es a la mujer a quien corresponde el ejercicio de todas esas virtudes en el seno de la sociedad.
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