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Updated: May 31, 2025
There seems to be no touch of burlesque intention in Luis de Leon's presentment of the man. On one occasion, the fatuous Zúñiga produced a short treatise entitled Manera para aprender todas las ciencias, and, stating that he proposed sending this pamphlet to the Pope, made bold to ask what his interlocutor thought of it. Can he have been vain enough to expect a favourable verdict?
She is spiritually dangerous, and the principle of 'taboo' is made to cover a great many of her relations to man. In Tahiti a woman was not allowed to touch the weapons or fishing implements of men. Amongst the Todas women are not permitted to touch the cattle. If a wife touches the food of her husband, among the Hindus, the food is unfit to be eaten. An Eskimo wife dare not eat with her husband.
Strange tales of wild adventure told by Alan Hawke returned to her now the mysteries of Thibet, the weird ferocity of Bhotan, the quaint tales of the polyandrous Todas, and the strange story of Vijaynagar, the desecrated city whose streets are peopled but ten days in the year! A lotos land where crime broods, where the cobra hides under the painted blossoms of Death!
Certain fires must be kindled by specially appointed sacred persons: among the Todas of Southern India, when a new dairy is visited or an old dairy is reconsecrated; among the Lacandones of Central America, on the occasion of the renewal of the incense-bowls; in the Peruvian temple at the feast of Raymi, when the flame was intrusted to the care of the Virgins of the Sun, and was to be kept up during the year; in the temples of Hestia and Vesta; throughout Greece, when the fires had been polluted by the presence of the Persians, it was ordered that they should be put out and rekindled from the sacred fire at Delphi.
It is possible that the Todas have borrowed some customs from the Hindus. They have certainly adopted some Hindu gods, and Rivers suspects Hindu influence in their recognition of omens and lucky and unlucky days, in certain of their magical procedures, and in their use of pigments and ashes in some sacred ceremonies.
Savage tribes often make gods of articles they get from civilized people. The Todas worship a cow-bell. The Kotas worship two silver plates, which they regard as husband and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of a king of hearts. Man, having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for the fact that most of the high gods have been males.
+1056+. In most savage and half-civilized communities sacrifice is a simple affair, and the details of the ceremonies of worship are rarely reported by travelers and other observers. An exception exists in the case of the Todas of Southern India, who have elaborate ceremonies connected with the milking of buffaloes.
As good an instance of this phase of culture as may be had is afforded by the tribes of the Andamans, or by the Todas of the Nilgiri Hills. The scheme of life of these groups at the time of their earliest contact with Europeans seems to have been nearly typical, so far as regards the absence of a leisure class.
The Todas also make much use of a certain bark for purification. The origin of these customs is obscure; they go back to times and conditions for a knowledge of which data are lacking possibly to the early conception of the sacredness of all natural objects. It is less difficult to explain the belief in the purifying power of fire.
So amongst the Todas of India, who practise polyandry, the girls can accept or refuse any man. With many savages it is the custom to betroth the females whilst mere infants; and this would effectually prevent preference being exerted on either side according to personal appearance.
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