etc. Writing in 1872, Mr. Breaks remarked that "about Ootacamund, a few Todas have latterly begun to imitate the religious practices of their native neighbours. Occasionally children's foreheads are marked with the Siva spot, and my particular friend Kinniaven, after an absence of some days, returned with a shaven head from a visit to the temple of Siva at Nanjengudi." A man who came to my laboratory had his hair hanging down in long tails reaching below his shoulders. He had, he said, let it grow long because his wife, though married five years, had borne no child. A child had, however, recently been born, and, as soon as the second funeral of a relation had been performed, he was going to sacrifice his locks as a thank-offering at the Nanjengōd temple. The following extracts from my notes will serve to illustrate the practice of marking (in some instances apparently for beauty's sake) and shaving as carried out at the present day.
- (1) Man, aged 28. Has just performed a ceremony at the ti mand. White curved line painted across forehead, and dots below outer ends thereof, on glabella, and outside orbits. Smeared with white across chest, over outer side of upper arms and left nipple, across knuckles and lower end of left ulna, and on lobes of ears.
- (2) Man, aged 21. Painted on forehead as above. Smeared over chest and upper eye lids.
- (3) Man, aged 35. White spot painted on forehead.
- (4) Man, aged 30. Hair of head and beard cut short owing to death of grandfather.
- (5) Boy, aged 12. Shock head of hair, cut very short all over owing to death of grandfather.
- (6) Girl, aged 8. Hair shaved on top, back and sides of head, and in median strip from vertex to forehead.
