. THE VANISHING TRIBE.

1.   I had wonderful experience with a Toda family who live near to Ooty.The life style,food habit,dressing,the way of doing things etc...are entirely different from others.Todas are one of the ancient tribal societies in Nilgiris.They are small pastoral community.The traditional Todas house called 'Mund it is a beautiful  oval shaped house,built with bamboo.The front portion of house is decorated  with a kind of mural paintings.The   most  speciality of the house is,a tiny entrance at the front.People have to  crawl to enter inside.The main intention is to protect them from wild animals,because they live in small groups in forests , midst of  wild animals. Today traditional Toda homes have been disappearing due to various reasons.The Todas lands are now a part of the nilgiris biosphere reserves.UNESCO declared it as world heritage site.                                                                CLOTHING                                                                                           I think Todas today are comfortable in traditional clothes . According to some anthropologists ,they are the lost tribe of Israel ,dress and stature resemble characters from the Old Testament.A single piece of cloth over  a dhoti for men and skirt for women along with long cloth                                                                                                                                                                    PHYSICAL  CHARACTERISTS                                                                                                   Original Todas are tall ,fairish , aquiline noses but today most of them got married with South Indian communities  and the appearance   also changed.                                                                                         LANGUAGE                                                                                                           Toda language belongs to the Dravidian family,mix  of Tamil and malayalam.                                                  ECONAMY                                                                                                                   Wealth and prosperity of each mund is   determined by herds of buffaloes.They roam around the forest ,when it is time to milk Todas make a kind of sound and herd returns to the mund.After the milking is over the herd again go back to forest.They sell milk and other dairy product to neighbouring  people.                                                                                                                        DANCE                                                                                                                           Toda dance is really amazing .They dance with traditional attire.