Credit: ©The Royal Society 2018
    Image number: RS.13535

    ‘A Toda Family and their Dwelling’

    Date
    1834
    Creator
    Jean-Baptiste Tassin (1800 - 1868, French) , Lithographer
    J Bennett (British) , Lithographer
    After
    Justinian Gantz (1802, British) , Artist
    Object type
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 165mm
    width (print): 258mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > landscape
    Description
    Landscape showing members of the Toda Tribe and their dwellings in the Nilgirri Mountains of the state of Tamil Nadu, southern India.

    The image shows a mountainous landscape with trees and three brown half-barrel shaped huts. If front of the huts stand five members of the Toda Tribe, a naked infant resting on a woman who sits on the floor, next to the woman is an elderly man sat on a rock and next to him is a man standing and a man walking away past the huts. They all wear similar white robes. The drawing style is fairly simplistic coloured with vibrant greens, browns, yellows and blues.

    The accompanying text describes the Todas People “The appearance of the Todas or Toruwars, who may be considered the original inhabitants of the hills, is very prepossessing.”

    Plate 8 (not numbered) from the book Observations on the Neilgherries, including an account of their topography, climate, soil & productions… by R Baikie, Esq M.D. ed W.H. Smoult (Calcutta, 1834).

    Inscribed below: ‘A TODA FAMILY AND THEIR DWELLING. J.B. Tassin lith. Drawn on stone by J. Bennett.’

    Robert Baikie (1799-1889) British physician and East India Company surgeon in the Madras Army. Baikie retired from service in 1844 and then practised medicine in Edinburgh.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Asia
          > India
    <The World>
       > Asia
          > India
             > Tamil Nadu
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