Note 2 — Chapter XXIII · SOCIAL ORGANISATION

Descent among the Todas is always reckoned in the male line. A man is always of the same clan as his father, if by his “father” we understand the man who has given the bow and arrow to his mother at the pursütpimi ceremony. In the case of the offspring of a mokhthoditi union, there is at first sight an appearance of female descent. The child of a Teivali mother and a Tarthar father belongs to the Teivaliol and vice versâ, but on further inquiry it is found that the child does not belong to his mother’s clan, but to that of her legal husband. The child of a Teivali mother in such a case is not Teivali because his mother is of this division, but because a Teivali man only is allowed to perform the pursütpimi ceremony with a Teivali woman and become the legal father of her child. If, in such a case, the pursütpimi ceremony had not been performed, the child would belong to the division and clan of neither father nor mother, but would be a padmokh, of no division and of no clan.2 I did not definitely inquire into the point, but from my general knowledge of the position of such an individual, I have little doubt that he would not be allowed to perform the pursütpimi ceremony, and could therefore never become the legal father of a child.