Note 5 — Chapter II · THE TODA PEOPLE

The ordinary routine of the day is often broken by the visits of people from other villages, who may have come to talk over a proposed marriage or transference of wives; to announce some approaching ceremony; to discuss some business connected with the buffaloes, or perhaps, but probably rarely, to pay a friendly call. Such a visit will probably give the opportunity of observing the characteristic Toda salutation shown in Fig. 12.5 This is essentially a salutation between a woman and her male relatives older than herself. If a man visits a village in which he has any female relatives younger than himself, these will go out to meet him as he approaches the house, and each bows down before the man, who raises his foot, while the woman places her hand below the foot and helps to raise it to her forehead, and the same salutation is repeated with the other foot. This mode of greeting is called kalmelpudithti,6 or “leg up he puts.” It is usually a salutation in which women bow down before men, but it may also take place between two men or between two women, while on certain occasions a male may bow down and have his forehead touched by the feet of a woman.