This is an ethnographic photograph from the People of India album. It shows the Toda tribe of the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu. They were traditionally pastoralists who used shoals (Nilgiri copses) as building materials, shade and centres for ritual activities. The original People of India albums were issued in 1868. They were initially conceived as… Read more »
In the 19th century, there was great excitement among western anthropologists about the discovery of a ‘primitive’ tribe deep in the misty heart of the Nilgiris. The Todas are a pastoral community of Dravidian origins and among the earliest outsiders who landed to document them was William E Marshall, Lieutenant-Colonel in the Bengal Staff Corps.… Read more »
This photograph was taken by Samuel Bourne of the distinctive huts of a Toda Mund (village) at Ootacamund in the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu. Traditionally pastoralist, the Todas in the past lived in thatched houses spread over the slopes of the Nilgiris. This picture is one of many examples of ethnographic photographs captured at… Read more »