Toto

The Toto consider themselves ancient inhabitants of the slopes of the eastern Himalayas, and for a long time they lived from gathering in the forest and from shifting cultivation. Their geographic isolation preserved their language and customs for generations, in a region of transition between the Indian world and the Himalayan world.

In recent decades, that isolation has been breaking down. Farming has become settled, schools have arrived and contact with Bengalis and Nepalis has grown. Today the smallness of the people is the great question of their history: preserving their identity among much larger neighbors and rapid economic change.

Most live from the land. In family gardens fenced with bamboo, they grow potatoes, vegetables and bananas, and selling betel nut has become an important source of income. Some raise cows and pigs, and others work on nearby plantations. On the table you find pork, game, poultry and fish.

They live in bamboo houses raised off the ground, thatched with straw, grouped together in the village. Social life revolves around the family and the clans. Monogamy is the common form of marriage and dowry is rejected. School brings children closer to other languages and customs, while the elders watch over the village traditions.

The Toto consider themselves Hindu, but the religious life of the village is strongly tied to nature and to spirits particular to the people. Ishpa, believed to dwell in the Bhutan hills, is feared because he can bring sickness when angered, and so he is worshiped outside the homes. Cheima, protector of the village, is honored inside the households.

The rites include offerings of rice, poultry and a fermented drink called Eu, as well as animal sacrifices carried out by priests from the people themselves. This faith is not a distant system, but a way of caring for health, harvest and the protection of the family. For this reason, changing belief means disturbing ties with relatives and with the whole community.

The Toto language now has a writing system, and portions of Scripture exist in it, but there is still no complete New Testament or whole Bible. For such a small people, the path of the Word has been one of varied resources: text available in digital format, Bible teaching in audio, a mobile app, a film about the Gospels and a comic book about Jesus. Since many young people also read Bengali and Nepali, other languages help, but it is in Toto that the message speaks to the heart.

The faith of the Toto is interwoven with village life: rites, sacrifices and priests mark the calendar and the protection of the family. Following Jesus can be seen as abandoning the people and offending the spirits who, it is believed, guard everyone’s health. There is also social and religious pressure in a country where following another faith can bring hostility. Added to this are the tiny size of the community, where everyone knows each other, and the lack of complete Scriptures in their language.

The Toto need to know the living God personally and to understand that Jesus paid the full price of sin, setting them free from the fear of spirits and from the need for constant sacrifices.

They also need protection in the face of economic and cultural forces that threaten their families and their community, especially when young people adopt the customs of neighboring peoples and drift away from their own roots. There is a need for communities of faith rooted in Toto culture, for discipleship in the language of the people, and for care so that development arrives without erasing their identity.