Note 3 — Chapter XIX · THE TODA RELIGION

I do not wish to lay any stress on this argument, for, as I have already indicated, it is possible that the eating of sambhar is a recent innovation, which has arisen since the advent of Europeans to the Nilgiris. Also I do not wish to indicate by the above that I commit myself to a belief in the universality of totemism as a stage in religious development. I only wish to point out that if this has been so, the Todas furnish a good case in which we might expect all traces of this descent to have disappeared or to have become so blurred and scanty as to be of little value. ↑