The Todas

This illustrated book, published in 1906, was long regarded as a standard ethnography on a people in south-west India.

William Halse Rivers Rivers (Author)

9781108079129, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 February 2018

784 pages, 76 b/w illus. 1 map 40 tables
21.4 x 14 x 4.3 cm, 1 kg

A qualified physician with interests including neurology and psychotherapy, W. H. R. Rivers (1864–1922) was influential in the rise of experimental psychology as an academic discipline. He also pioneered the 'talking cure' for shell shock during the First World War. In 1897 Rivers was appointed a University Lecturer at Cambridge, and the following year he joined a Cambridge expedition to the Torres Strait to study the indigenous people's powers of perception. Rivers' experiences in the Torres Strait kindled his interest in anthropology and kinship systems, and in 1901–2 he obtained a grant to study the genealogies and customs of the Todas, inhabitants of a high plateau in south-west India. This illustrated book, published in 1906 and regarded as a standard ethnography for half a century, was the result. It focuses on the Todas' elaborate dairy rituals, and the prayers associated with them, before describing many other beliefs, customs and ceremonies.

Preface
1. Introduction
2. The Toda people
3. Dairies and buffaloes
4. The village dairy
5. The Ti dairy
6. Buffalo migrations
7. Ordination ceremonies
8. Special dairy ceremonies
9. The Toda gods
10. Prayer
11. The dairy ritual
12. Divination and magic
13. Sacrifice and offerings
14. Birth and childhood ceremonies
15. Funeral ceremonies
16. Funeral ceremonies (cont.)
17. Sacred days and numbers
18. Sacred places and objects
19. The Toda religion
20. Genealogies and population
21. Kinship
22. Marriage
23. Social organisation
24. Arts and amusements
25. Language
26. Personal names
27. Relations with other tribes
28. The clans of the Todas
29. Teivaliol and Tartharol
30. The origin and history of the Todas
Appendices 1-4
Glossary
Index.

Subject Areas: Physical anthropology [JHMP]