GREAT NICOBAR--WEST AND SOUTH COASTS
"Domeat"--Malay Traders--Trade Prices--The Shom Pe[.n] Language--
Place Names--Pulo Babi--The growth of Land--Climbing a Palm Tree--
Servitude--Population--Views on Marriage with the Aborigines--
Towards the Interior--A Shom Pe[.n] Village--The Inhabitants--
Canoe-building--Barter--The West Coast--South Bay--Walker Island--
Chang-ngeh--Up the Galathea River--Water--We leave the Nicobars
and sail to Sumatra.
We hove up anchor at 8 A.M.--the hour at which a breeze usually sprang
up--and sailed for Pulo Babi, a few miles down the coast, taking as
passenger an old man named Domeat who had been staying at Kopenheat.
He produced a number of _chits_ for our perusal, and from one we learned
that it was Domeat--now a toothless, but sturdy old gentleman, with
nutcracker jaws and a benevolent expression--who brought news of the
recovery of the body of Captain Elton, commander of the station gunboat,
who was drowned in the surf while attempting to land at Trinkat
Sambelong[80] village, on the east coast, in March 1881.
Most of the letters were written by Asiatics, and from them it seemed
that the last Malay vessel to call at the islands arrived in 1877. Many
formerly came to purchase coconuts, but this people, like our own
nation, has been ousted from the trade by the inhabitants of China and
the Indian Empire.
According to our informant, the Chinese pay the coast natives one packet
of tobacco (value 2-1/2d.) for three bundles of rattan, while the
Nicobarese, who act merely as middlemen, and have the export trade in
their hands, only give the Shom Pe[.n] one packet for six bundles! The
bush aborigines have no settled dwelling-places, but wander about,
although they have good gardens established in various localities. Their
language is quite distinct from the Nicobarese,[81] but each knows
enough of the others' speech to make themselves mutually understood.
Asked, however, whether further south we could get a man who knew the
Shom Pe[.n] language, Domeat replied: "When one of us sees a Shom Pe[.n]
he runs away, and when a Shom Pe[.n] sees a Nicobar man he spears
him!"[82]
Misunderstandings frequently occurred when we talked to him about the
various places on the coast. The name given on the chart is often not
known to the natives: the Chinese have another name, which is not given
on the chart, and the natives have a third, but are generally familiar
with that used by the traders.
I believe the following to be correct:--
_Chart._ _Trade Name._ _Native Name._
Pulo Kunyi, Pulo Kunyi, Pulo Kunyi.
Casuarina Bay, ---- Teh-hmeul.
Dagmar R., ---- Ta-ti-al.
Kopenheat, Telok Bintang, Kopenheat.
Taeangha, Pulo Nyur, Kassandun.
Koe, Pulo Rotan, Koe.
---- Pulo Babi, Kanal.
Henpoin, Pulo Bharu, Henpoin.
Megapode Island, Pulo Kotah, ----
Henhoaha, Pulo Paha, Henhoa.
Chang-ngeh, Pulo Chaura, Chang-ngeh.
Galathea R., ---- Sakheer.
---- ---- Badoi.
We arrived off the village at 11 A.M., and worked in to an anchorage
against a land breeze. The junks in whose company we had been at Kondul
were already in the harbour--a square indentation, fringed with coral.
With a look-out at the masthead we got in without accident, and anchored
in a fairly sheltered position, but some distance outside the other
vessels. Small streams debouch in either corner of the bay; but the
village, which consists of a dozen or more houses, and is the largest on
the west coast, lies to the south of the harbour, with the usual
accompaniment of numerous coco palms.
As a heavy surf was breaking on the reef fronting the houses, we rowed
up the bay and landed by a small hut, beside which was a well of good
water, and from thence reached the village by a path leading through
scrub and many screw-pines.
Interviewing the headman, we learnt that a Shom Pe[.n] settlement lay
half a day's journey in the interior, and having arranged with Nyam (the
headman) to guide us on the morrow, we set out, accompanied by his
brother Puchree, on a stroll through the village.
This really consists of two settlements--that nearest the bay, Pulo
Rotan or Koe, and the other to the south, which at high tide is cut off
from the mainland by a marshy channel--Pulo Babi or Kanal. There are
more houses, both round and square than appear from seawards, but
several are uninhabited and falling to pieces. Graves, placed between
the houses, were marked by peeled sticks and young saplings, on which a
foot or so of the branches had been left.
The land on which the village stood was of very recent formation,
consisting entirely of sand, coral blocks, and _debris_ of the roughest
kind.
It would seem that the Nicobars are not only an area of elevation (as
shown in Kar Nicobar, Trinkat, etc.), but also one of growth, as appears
to be the case in the islands where there is a central mountain mass
with radiating arms and shore plains; in these the central high land was
first elevated, and formed a core for the extension of land by the
agency of fringing reefs where the surrounding sea-bottom has only a
slight inclination.
Of this latter phenomenon Pulo Babi appears to be an example, since, for
some distance inland the shore is flat, and composed of coral sand and
_debris_, with a substratum of fresh-looking coral rock. The bay is
becoming choked with coral, and between living reef and shore are broad
belts of slimy mud, a little lower than some of the coral heads beyond,
where the reef, having reached low-water level, has stopped in its
growth and died. Meanwhile it is extending outward on its own talus, and
at the same time _debris_ and sand are cast continually shoreward, and,
with the help of smaller coralline growths, fill up the interstices of
the shore coral until a solid bank is formed, which, by further aid from
the waves of the sea, and from the land and its vegetation, is raised
above high water and in time becomes dry land.
Such action depends on the tides, slope of the sea-bottom, and the
relation of one part of the shore to another in regard to contour and
position, but particularly on the currents, which in some places would
accumulate material and in others remove it.
The crowns of the palm trees were frequented by flocks of the black and
white nutmeg-pigeon (_Carpophaga bicolor_), an uncommon bird in such a
situation. Of those we shot, several lodged in the trees and were
fetched down by the natives, who climbed with the ankles joined by a
belt or piece of rattan, and who, when lifting the feet, did not clasp
the trunk with the arms as we should, but placing one round it, pressed
against it with the other hand.
We found two Shom Pe[.n] youths in the village, who seemed to be in a
state of easy servitude, and were used for such work as carrying nuts or
fetching water.
There were between twenty and thirty men and boys dwelling here, and the
skipper (with whom the people were more communicative than with us)
said, only four women! Although, by going to Naukauri Harbour, said
Puchree, they could obtain wives,--who, however, refused to leave their
own homes,--he lamented the almost total impotence of himself and
neighbours in the way of offspring. Asked if they ever married Shom
Pe[.n] women, he said, "No, they didn't like them; they were dirty and
didn't wash"; and when we suggested that he should catch (_tangkap_) a
young one, and first train her for a year or two, and teach her
manners--"Too much trouble."
"_March_ 25.--We met Nyam and a companion at his house about six
o'clock, and after a walk of half a mile reached the bank of a little
river some 30 feet wide. Here lay a canoe, and paddles being produced we
travelled up-stream, wading now and again over the shallows, until,
having progressed a mile or so, we landed on the same bank at a spot
where a second path commenced. This we followed for 2 miles in a
northerly direction, crossing by the way the stream itself and a little
tributary by bridges of sapling, and so arrived at the Shom Pe[.n]
village.
"We had already seen two kinds of buildings amongst these people; here
we met with a third.
"The houses--five in number, and recently constructed--stood on piles
about 12 feet high; in several cases a live tree being built in. These
supports were strengthened by diagonal struts--a most uncommon form of
scaffolding among savages. The floors were made of saplings placed side
by side, and the side walls, about 3 feet high, of split nibong palm;
while the roofs, which just afforded head-room at the apex, were roughly
thatched with whole palm leaves, piled on butt downwards.
"Each house was about 8 feet square, and at one end of each a small
platform was attached, on which was the fireplace, with cooking
apparatus of bark sheets covered with large green leaves, to prevent
charring. In a corner of each hut was a shelf of split sticks, and a
long trough of split and hollowed palm trunk sloped from ground to floor
for the dogs and other animals to mount by. The ladders for human use
were about 18 inches wide, with cross-pieces fastened on by rattan
bindings.
"The village lay at the foot of a hill, above which the sun appeared
between nine and ten o'clock, and was bounded on the other side by the
bed of a stagnant brook. The trees about the houses were festooned with
bundles of rattan, and the ground round them was littered deeply with
the refuse scrapings. A few chickens and a miserable pariah cur or two
wandered about, and several little pigs were caged in the huts.
"This party seemed less well-to-do than the others we had seen, for
their only dress was cotton _kissats_ and waistcloths, and while
possessing several pieces of bark cloth, in which they wrapped
themselves at night, they had apparently no further clothing. Strings of
coloured beads were worn about the neck, and their ear-lobes were
distended by wooden plugs from 1 to 2 inches in diameter.
"They were of a most apathetic disposition. A few words were exchanged
with our guides, whom the women immediately supplied with lime and
sireh, and then, renewing their own quids, sat crouching in the doorways
of the huts, or perhaps attended by request to the head of a neighbour
who might be troubled with a parasitical itching. Although free from
elephantiasis, the body of each individual was covered with the scaly
symptoms of ringworm--_tinea circinata tropica_.
"After we had measured the whole party, there was sufficient light to
photograph the village, to which, in the dark shade of the jungle, I
gave an exposure of ten minutes. The portraits of the natives were taken
under difficulties, for the only rays of sunlight that filtered through
the branches shifted slowly with the rays of the sun, so that by the
time the subject was posed and focussed, he was generally outside the
patch of sunshine.
"We bought all the little property visible, and then returned to the
schooner by path and canoe, having found that the so-called 'half-day's'
journey resolved itself into a matter of little more than an hour.
"Later in the day we strolled through the coast village to watch the
progress towards completion of a partially-finished canoe we had
purchased. With a little supervision it was only a short afternoon's
work for three or four men to cut and fit, by means of their _daos_, the
stem and stern, cross-pieces, outriggers, and float, and quickly do all
the fastening required with tough strips of rattan.
"Our guides of the morning were rewarded with a _sarong_ apiece and we
purchased with rupees a pair of captive nutmeg-pigeons--somewhat
uncommon pets--and a couple of grey-headed parrots (_P. caniceps_) that
had been obtained as fledglings by the villagers.
"Once again on board we found canoes arriving with loads of coconuts and
numbers of fowls. Old shoes were the principal articles demanded, but
the skipper got six chickens for a white linen coat. Our estimable
captain is actuated by a commercial spirit; his invariable greeting to a
new arrival is 'Ah, _hang sudah datang_! _apa hang bawa_?'--'Ah, you've
come! what are you bringing?'"
"_March_ 26.--Spent an hour on shore, and then left with the breeze at 7
A.M. Sailing slowly down the coast we passed Henpoin, Pulo Kotah, and
Henhoa, at all of which places are many coco palms, with one or two
houses visible. Two or three miles inland a range of hills runs down the
coast, and must form the eastern slope of the Galathea Valley; until
their foot is reached, the country is low and level.
"Off South Point the wind became very light at midday, and subsequently
we worked up and down against a strong north-westerly tide, barely
maintaining our position. After a small advance, at 10 P.M. we were back
again where we had been at noon, so, getting soundings of 9 fathoms, we
anchored for the night."
"_March_ 27.--At daybreak the current was running S.S.W., at 2 knots.
This slackened at nine o'clock, and with a light breeze from the N.E. we
gradually made our way towards South Bay, until, the wind becoming more
easterly, we tacked up it, and anchored towards the top in 7-1/2
fathoms.
"The head, where the Galathea River debouches, is low and flat, but on
either side the shores are a continuation of the hills, containing the
river. The eastern cape is hilly and broken, but the western extremity
tails off in a low stretch of flat land.
"Close to the western shore is Walker Island, a small grey block of rock
that has been likened to a fort with sentries--the latter represented by
columns of stone protected from detrition by boulders of harder
formation, which once, of course, rested on the surface of the islet.
"Coconut trees grow all round the bay, and on the starboard hand we saw
a dozen houses forming the village of Chang-ngeh, from which a canoe put
off with two men. They, and two others far advanced in decrepitude, are
the sole inhabitants of this portion of the island. Formerly there was
on the eastern shore a village called Badoi, but after some of its
inhabitants had been killed by Shom Pe[.n], it was deserted.
"We got ashore near the village at a spot sheltered from surf by a
projecting reef. Close inspection showed that the houses were far more
dilapidated than they appeared to be from the sea.
"Having obtained megapodes, dongos, and sunbirds by a short excursion
into the jungle, we walked along the beach to examine the river mouth,
in view of a journey up-stream next day.
"Coming from the right, where it runs for some distance parallel to the
shore, the river turns suddenly and makes its way to the sea through a
stretch of sand, leaving on the left a quiet backwater into which the
current swirls. A continuous line of surf broke across the entrance,
which was very narrow."
"_March_ 28.--At sunrise, having made all preparations overnight, we
loaded the boat with food and bedding, mosquito nets, and collecting
apparatus, and put off for the expedition up-river.
"First we pulled ashore and landed some of the cargo, for with it all on
board and a crew of five, the boat was too heavy to negotiate the
breakers safely. Then we lay off the river's mouth watching the sea;
swell after swell came sliding in, until one larger than the rest swung
by, leapt up, and with the white foam rippling along its summit, fell
over with a thunderous crash. Pulling hard all, we swept along on its
top, then passed through the surf, and lay a few moments later on the
quiet surface of the river without having shipped a drop of water. When
the things landed had been fetched, we reloaded and pulled up-stream;
the last glimpse of the sea showing a Chinese junk rounding the eastern
extremity of the bay.
"At first the river was about 30 yards wide and ran between low banks
covered with stretches of mangroves and forest alternating, both fronted
by a border of nipah palms. About 2 miles onward the shores rose a
little, and the vegetation changed to a tangle of jungle, with a network
of climbing bamboo, rattans, and various kinds of creepers. The course
of the stream ran through no heavy forest, and in many places the banks
were fairly open, covered with scrub and patches of thick grassy
vegetation.
"Never was such a river for twisting and turning, and often as we
steered round its #S#-shaped bends we seemed to swing the sun right
round us.
"We rowed along steadily for a couple of hours, and then seeing a lime
tree overhanging the stream, stopped to gather a hatful of fruit. A few
yards further on--the bank about 12 feet high--one of the men spied a
rough hut, a mere platform with a shade of palm leaves; but when we
landed, although odds and ends of rattan lay about the ground, it was
evident that it had been unoccupied for some time.
"Now and again along the river we saw coco palms and bananas, while
_kaladies_ or yams grew plentifully at the water's edge. The banks were
covered here with jungle and there with stretches of reeds, looking not
unlike clumps of Indian corn.
"Flocks of parrots flew screaming overhead, herons flapped lazily away
in front, and now and then a monkey, startled by the unusual sight,
cursed us vigorously from a tree. Often a tiny _ceyx_--a flash of lilac
and orange--darted across the stream, and oftener still the little blue
_bengalensis_ flitted away before us.[83]
"Once we ran aground on some rocks, and twice had to scramble on fallen
tree-trunks spanning the river, and force the boat beneath them. But for
such incidents we progressed steadily upwards until eleven o'clock, when
we pulled to one of the banks, here only some 15 yards apart, and tying
up the boat, proceeded to camp during the heat of midday.
"Then, after breakfast had been disposed of, it was delightful to lie on
one's back in the shade of the jungle and watch the waving leaves
against the sky; to search with the eyes for graceful ferns and orchids
drooping from the branches overhead, and in a dreamy semi-slumber to
listen to the calls of the birds, and the faint voices of the men as
they rambled about in the forest. Presently, as the sun reached its
highest point, all became quiet, and we dozed an hour away, to wake up,
and--after boiling the kettle for some tea--start off once more.
"Gradually narrowing, the river maintained the same character, save that
the banks became more open. At one fallen tree we had to unload the boat
and haul it bodily over; several times we got round or under such
obstacles with difficulty; and so, rowing and poling as the stream
lessened, we went on, until at about five o'clock, the river, now only
25 feet wide, became so shallow and obstructed by fallen branches that
we were forced to cease all attempt at further progress, and so made
camp at a spot about 16 miles up-stream, almost in the latitude of Pulo
Babi. In the rainy season it would perhaps be possible to ascend a few
miles higher.
"While daylight lasted, the boat was partly unloaded, sticks cut to
support the mosquito nets, and supper prepared--heaped-up plates of
snowy rice, eked out by various tinned commodities. Then after
re-charging the dark slides beneath a rug, and covering the baggage with
a tarpaulin in case of rain, we turned in.
"It was a glorious moonlight night and the cicadas sang us to sleep
from the trees, while the mosquitoes hummed away vainly and viciously
outside the net.
"Now and again, for a time, came the cry of some startled bird and the
croaking of the tree-frogs; but when these died away the prevailing
silence was broken only by the sound of the dew dripping from the trees,
and the occasional fall of dead leaves or rotten branches."
"_March_ 29.--We turned out at daybreak while the river was shrouded in
mist, and after _chota hazri_, started down-stream.
"The water had fallen a foot during the night, and for some distance we
could only use the oars to pole with. Presently, however, we were
paddling quickly down the river, until we came to the fallen tree, where
it was again necessary to unload.
"All the contents were stacked on the bank, and then, while the boat was
on the trunk, I walked along the latter to take a snap-shot of the scene
from the shore. Just as it was half-way across, our craft stuck fast;
all, gathering themselves together, gave a mighty heave, and suddenly it
slipped over, taking everyone by surprise. 'Din fell into the water,
'Dul fell into the boat, Mat straddled the tree, and Abbott, by a
display of flying, gibbon-like agility, succeeded in landing safely in
the stern. It was all very amusing to see from the shore; far too funny,
indeed, at the time for me to get my photograph.
"This was the only obstacle, for, thanks to the low tide, we found no
difficulty in passing beneath the other fallen trunks. About ten o'clock
we were back at the hut and lime-tree, and stopped there for breakfast;
then, after gathering a bucketful of fruit, were off again.
"With the sun almost overhead, it now became very hot on the water; but,
pushing on, we reached the river-mouth soon after one o'clock and
unloaded the boat once more before taking it through the breakers. From
inshore they seemed much more formidable than from seaward, whence their
height and the curl of falling water were hidden. We lay a short
distance from the long, white lines that travelled across the bay, and
watched them, backing and pulling to keep our place.
"A series of breakers fell, then in rolled a monster, and as it broke
before us, we dashed in the waiting oars and sped forward at the next.
Up went the prow, and we were over and in the hollow before a second;
then over that and yet another, and we lay on the gently-heaving surface
of the bay.
"Back once more beneath the schooner's awnings, we found a welcome
supply of thirst-quenching coconuts, brought freshly from the village.
"The junk, after taking in a supply of water, had left the day before.
It is customary for these vessels, after their business on the west
coast is over, to sail round the north end of the island when leaving
for Acheen, in order to make a slight gain to windward; but this one,
having learned that we were going direct, decided to take a similar
course."
On March 30 we went ashore for the last time and found a good supply of
water at Badoi, about 100 yards inside the jungle. The stream dies away
before reaching the sea, but above the watering-place it can be followed
for some distance by wading up the rocky bed.
We were now full up with wood and water, and having obtained a good
supply of fowls and coconuts from the village, were ready to put to sea,
so left at ten o'clock in the evening, with a light wind, and a tide
running S.W.
"_March_ 31.--At 9 A.M. the point below Mataita-a[.n]la bore W. about 7
miles. Squalls of wind and rain occurred, and a succession of
waterspouts travelled across the horizon; between-times and for the rest
of the day, we experienced a dead calm, and rolled about on the swell.
Position at 4.30 P.M., 8 miles east of Campbell Bay."
"_April_ 1.--There has been scarcely any wind, and we drifted N. by E.
until Menchal and Kabra hove in sight. A school of sharks visited the
schooner, and one about 7 feet long that was hooked, was given his
quietus with a revolver bullet when hauled to the surface.
"Our live stock is flourishing. The three sober-looking parrots down in
the cabin are becoming tamer day by day, and the pair of nutmeg pigeons
will already eat chopped coconut from our hands.
"The monkeys, however, are of most interest, and are given daily
exercise on deck. The male is an adept at the most horrible grimaces,
but is an arrant coward, and, when startled, rushes to his companion,
and, although the heavier of the two, puts his arms around her and is
carried back downwards all over the place. When it is time to re-cage
them, we have only to drive them together and they run into each other's
arms, clasp convulsively, and incontinently roll over, when, as they lie
squealing and grimacing on deck, they may be picked up and put back in
their box. On one occasion this manoeuvre was executed on the rail,
and they fell overboard, sinking without a struggle, locked in a close
embrace.
"Fortunately for them, the _Terrapin_ was becalmed at the time, and they
were recovered, to be very subdued for a time after the rescue, but none
the worse for their experience.
"At 6 P.M. a light breeze sprang up, with signs of a squall from the
north, and carried us along at a 2 to 3 knot pace through the night. A
porpoise was harpooned under the bow, but broke away before it could be
secured.
"On the 2nd the wind was light all day, save for a squall that compelled
us to lower the foresail. Towards evening, Mount Thuillier, bearing W.
by N., was just visible 50 miles away. The breeze freshened, and with
darkness the last sign of the Nicobars dropped below the horizon, while
daybreak revealed ahead of us the rounded summit of Pulo Bras."
PART II
CHAPTER I
THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS AND THEIR INHABITANTS
Position--Soundings--Relationship--Islands--Area--Great Andaman
Mountains--Little Andaman---Rivers--Coral Banks--Scenery--
Harbours--Timber--Flora--Climate--Cyclones--Geology--Minerals--
Subsidence--Earthquakes--History--Aborigines--Convicts and the
Penal System--Growth and Resources of the Settlement--Products
and Manufactures.
The Andamans, which together with the Nicobars form one of the minor
dependencies of our Indian Empire, are situated in the Bengal Sea,
between the parallels of 10 deg. 30' and 14 deg. 15' N. latitude, and the
meridians 92 deg. 10' and 93 deg. 30' E. longitude, where they lie in a N. by E.
direction. To the west the coast of Madras is some 700 miles distant,
and eastward Tenasserim, bordered by the islands of the Mergui
Archipelago, lies about 320 miles away. Intervening between them and
Sumatra to the south lies the Nicobar group, and before Cape Negrais in
Burma is reached the little island of Preparis must be passed.
Close to Cape Negrais terminate the Arakan Hills, one of a series of
ranges that run down from the Eastern Himalayas; and just south of
Acheen Head we have the Gunong Mas, Batu Mukuruh, and other mountains;
therefore, looking at a map of the district, it seems difficult to avoid
the conclusion that the whole of the islands last enumerated are nothing
less than a continuation southward of the Arakan Hills.
But although they form a chain that seems to indicate a past union of
Sumatra and Burma, investigation proves that this is far from being the
case. For soundings in this part of the ocean show that between the
Nicobars and the group of islands adjacent to the north-east point of
Sumatra--entering from the open sea to the west, and thence trending
north between the Andamans and Malay Peninsula almost as far as the
latitude of Narkondam--there runs a long tongue of depressed ocean bed
with depths everywhere over 1000 fathoms. This fact, together with the
shallowness of the sea-bottom around and connecting the Andamans with
the Arakan Yoma Peninsula, suggests the inference that the former were
at one time past the termination of a seaward extension from Cape
Negrais of the Arakan Yoma Range--a conclusion that is in some degree
emphasized by the zoological and botanical conditions common to the two.
The principal islands are, Great and Little Andaman, Rutland and the
Labyrinths, the Archipelago, North Sentinel, Interview Island, Landfall
Island, and the Cocos, but there are many smaller adjacent, while to the
eastward are the off-lying volcanic islets of Narkondam and Barren
Island. The total area of the group is 2508 square miles.[84]
Great Andaman--in which may be included Landfall and Rutland Islands,
for the whole land mass is so compact and divided up by such narrow
shallow straits that it appears to be one single island that has been
broken up by subsidence and adjoining volcanic action--is 142 miles
long, and 17 miles broad at its widest point.
There are generally stated to be two straits, but as one of them
bifurcates, the Great Andaman proper is really cut into four parts.
Austin Strait, which divides North from Middle Andaman, is very narrow
and intricate, and not to be traversed by boats at low tide; but the
Andaman Strait,--generally 2 to 3 cables wide--which separates South
from Middle Andaman at a spot where the hills are lower than elsewhere,
although intricate, and possessing a bar at its eastern mouth with a
depth of 9 or 10 feet at low water, has depths from 10 to 14 fathoms
throughout the narrower part, and nowhere less than 3 fathoms at low
water. The stream is never strong, and the R.I.M.S. _Investigator_
passed through three times while surveying the islands in 1888.
Homfray Strait cuts off Baratang Island from Middle Andaman, and joins
the Andaman at its western mouth. It is intricate and rocky, but has
good depths, except at the eastern entrance, where there is a broad bar
of 8 feet. The tidal stream is weak, and the narrowest part is 60 yards
across.
The surface of Great Andaman is extremely irregular, and a central range
of mountains runs from north to south, with an escarped face on the
east, and a sloping declivity on the west, where marshy localities
abound.
The highest point is Saddle Hill (2400 feet) in North Andaman: Mount
Harriet (1200 feet) stands on the north shore of Port Blair; and Ford's
Peak, in Rutland Island, rises 1400 feet; while there are half a dozen
unnamed summits with heights between 1000 feet and 1700 feet.
Narkondam rises 2330 feet, from an oval-shaped base whose greatest
diameter is 2 miles, and the crater walls of Barren Island, 2 square
miles in area, attain an elevation of 1158 feet.
Little Andaman, some 25 miles south of Rutland, 23 miles long and 17
miles wide, with an area of about 220 square miles, is, on the contrary,
level throughout, and gradually rises to a height of 600 feet in the
centre. None of the other islands save Rutland attain this elevation.
Owing to its shape and conformation, there are no rivers and but few
streams on Great Andaman, and during the dry season--January to
April--there is some scarcity of water. Several creeks, however, are of
sufficient depth to allow passage of boats for some distance into the
interior. In the South Andaman the greater part of the drainage runs
into the creeks, which ultimately leads off to the eastern shore, and in
the North and Middle Andaman the bulk of the drainage seems to flow
through gaps in the eastern range.
Little Andaman is swampy in many parts, and possesses a few small
creeks.
On the western side, in which direction Great Andaman slopes gradually,
banks of coral occur at distances of 20 and 25 miles from land. There
are three of these, varying in length from 9 to 25 miles, all composed
of dead coral and sand, with here and there single bunches of live coral
1 or 2 feet high. The water, which is so clear that on a calm day 8 or 9
fathoms looks like 20 feet, varies in its least depths from 3-3/4 to 6
fathoms, and, judged from the appearance of the bottom and the absence
of reef-building coral, it seems probable that the surface _debris_ of
the banks is disturbed by the send of the sea, and that the rollers
topple and break on the middle bank in the south-west monsoon, though
they may not do so on the others.
This western coast is fully exposed to the south-west monsoon, and is by
no means a desirable locality to be in at that season.
Dalrymple Bank, of the same nature, lies adjacent to Little Andaman, on
the same side; but Invisible Bank, to the eastward, has depths of 17 to
50 fathoms, with a rock awash in the centre. This is of bluish-grey
sandstone, so that the Bank, taking into account its irregular surface
and the rapidly-increasing depths around, may be considered a submerged
mountain-range, of the same formation as the oldest part of the
Andamans--of which, Flat Rock, an isolated peak, rises alone above the
sea. All these banks probably formed islands, or part of the Andamans,
when the latter stood at a higher elevation than they do to-day.
Throughout the Archipelago the scenery is of exceeding beauty. The
picturesquely undulating surface is clad everywhere, save where
artificial clearings have been made, with the most luxuriant jungle,
for, situated within the tropics, with a fertile soil, and a climate
that for two-thirds of the year is somewhat moist, the islands are
covered from hill-top to sea-beach with an unbroken mantle of dense
vegetation, rendered almost impenetrable by cane-brakes and undergrowth
of rattans and other creepers. All along the shores are either stretches
of yellow sand or brilliant green mangroves, and the seas round the
islands are of the clearest water imaginable.
The coast-line is everywhere deeply indented, and affords a number--most
unusual for such a small group--of deep-water harbours and other
anchorages, where complete shelter can be found for large ships in all
weathers and seasons. The most known and the best--although Port
Cornwallis is nearly as good, and has the advantage of being some twelve
hours' steaming nearer to Calcutta and Rangoon--is Port Blair, where the
Settlement has been placed; but on the same coast of Great Andaman are
many others, the more important being, Macpherson's Straits, Shoal Bay,
Port Meadows, Colebrooke Passage, and Stewart's Sound. On the west coast
are situated, Port Andaman, Kwang-tung Harbour, Ports Campbell and
Mouat, while in the Archipelago perfect anchorage is to be found either
in Outram Harbour or in Charka-Juru,[85] Kwang-tung Strait, or
Tadma-Juru.
These are well distributed all along the coasts, and were the Andamans
situated in some position of greater political or commercial importance,
they would form an invaluable possession for this reason. As it is, the
islands are exploited merely as a convict establishment--an Indian
Botany Bay--and the only industry of any magnitude appertaining to them
is that of timber, for which indeed the harbours are very convenient, as
the forests worked are all in the neighbourhood of the seashore, or are
so placed that after the trees are felled the logs can be hauled by
elephants to the many creeks, and floated down to where the vessels
engaged in the business are anchored.
The geographical conditions, and more especially the Tertiary sandstone
of which the large area of the islands consists, point to a former
connection with Arakan, and, in accordance with these indications, it is
found that the bulk of the flora is Burmese; but the forest trees are
finer, being very lofty and straight, while not a few purely Malayan
species find their northern limit in the Andamans. The flora is not
related to that of Hindustan and India proper--a coincidence which can
be partly explained by the insular climate and difference of soil.
The forests produce valuable woods, which can be used for many trade
purposes--furniture; ship, boat and house building; railway carriages
and sleepers; paving blocks, boxes, gun-carriages and stocks, pianos,
etc.; and as profitable minor products, there are canes for furniture,
rattans for walking-sticks, and gurjan oil. Some of the woods can be
obtained in extremely large quantities; all possibly in sufficiency for
any trade that may arise with the islands.
Palms abound; the banian and padouk, that resembles mahogany;
marble-wood, of a black, mottled appearance; satin-wood; and the iron
tree, which turns the edge of an axe, are all found in the forests, in
beautiful confusion with cotton-trees, screw-pines, and arborescent
euphorbias, and with large clumps of bamboos, 30 and 40 feet high; while
all round the coasts, mangroves, the most satisfactory of firewoods,
give shelter to lovely orchids.
A very conspicuous feature of the forests is the distribution (apart
from the strictly littoral vegetation) into evergreen forest, very full
of large gurjan trees (_Dipterocarpeae_), and a leaf-shedding forest,
containing a large proportion of padouk (_Pterocarpus dalbergioides_),
or into a mixture of these two types.
The great peculiarity of the Andaman flora is that, with the exception
of the Cocos Islands, which are covered with them, and thence indeed
derive their name, no coconut palms naturally propagated are found in
the Archipelago.[86] This is the more strange when it is remembered that
all the shores of the Bengal Sea are the home of this tree, and that it
simply teems in all the islands of the Nicobar group to the south.
During the past thirty-five years advantage has been taken of trips in
the Station steamer (or by other means) to plant coconuts at suitable
localities[87] along the coasts of Great Andaman, and in recent years at
Little Andaman. Great numbers of the nuts were consumed by the
aborigines, or by wild pigs, but at several places fruit has been
obtainable, for many years past, from trees which escaped destruction.
The climate of the Andamans is equatorial in its uniformity, and greatly
resembles that of Tenasserim and Mergui. It is not generally healthy for
Europeans, but improves from a hygienic point of view when the forest is
cleared from any locality. During the first two months of the dry season
strong winds blow from the north-east, causing sickness, and damage to
vegetation.
As the islands are exposed to the full force of the south-west monsoon,
only four months of fair weather (January to April) can be counted on.
December and January are the coolest months, with a mean temperature of
79 deg. and a mean minimum of 75 deg., while March and April are the warmest,
with means of 82 deg. and 83 deg. respectively, and a mean daily maximum of 92 deg.
at Port Blair, where throughout the year the mean is 80 deg., the highest
96 deg., and the lowest 66 deg.; so that the absolute range is 30 deg.. The mean
diurnal range is as much as 14 deg. to 15 deg. in February, March, and April,
while between June and September it is only 8 deg. or 9 deg.. The mean
temperature throughout the year is about 80 deg..
The south-west monsoon sets in, accompanied by heavy rain, in the early
part of May, but occasionally in April, and lasts till October. March is
the driest month, and January and February somewhat less so; but the
rainy season lasts from the middle of May till the middle of October,
and what is called the moderate season, from October to January. During
the latter the average monthly rainfall is about 8 inches; in the rainy
season it is 16 inches, with twenty-four rainy days per month; while, on
the average, throughout the dry season rain falls on ten days to an
extent of 5 inches. At Port Blair the mean humidity is 83 per cent, and
the average annual rainfall is 117 inches; but elsewhere it varies from
100 to 155 inches, and there are about 180 wet days in the year.
At the change of the monsoons stormy weather is common, and the
neighbourhood of the Andamans is considered to be the birthplace of many
of the violent cyclones that occasionally visit the Indian and Burmese
coasts of the Bay of Bengal.
The hurricanes generally both originate either between Ceylon or the
N.W. portion of the bay, and take various courses, according to the
season; but, although situated near the cradle of these storms, the
islands are not often traversed by them. In 1864 one is recorded as
having visited the locality, and on the night of November 1st, 1891, a
violent cyclone passed over Port Blair, which, after travelling
north-westward across the bay, did much further damage at the mouth of
the Hugli and on the Orissa coast. The maximum velocity of the wind
registered at Port Blair on the latter occasion was 111 miles.
Concerning the geology of the islands, it is curious that in the valley
of the Irrawadi hot springs and other evidence of volcanic action occur
in the same relative position to the Arakan Hills as the two islands of
Narkondam and Barren Island occupy in respect to the Andamans. There
seems little doubt that these two islands--now respectively extinct and
quiescent--belong to the great line of volcanic disturbance that appears
in Lower Burma and extends right through Sumatra and Java and the
further islands of the Malay Archipelago. Thus it would seem that the
Andamans proper, possessed of no volcanoes themselves, lie just outside
the line of activity, and, with the Nicobars, occupy the same position
with regard to the volcanic track as do the chain of islands west of
Sumatra.
Possibly the land now constituting the Andamans first appeared above the
sea as an extension of Cape Negrais in the latter part of the Tertiary
epoch, at which time occurred the elevation of the Arakan Yoma Hills,
and later became isolated by subsidence due to neighbouring volcanic
action. As Mr A. R. Wallace points out,[88] the presence of active
volcanoes produces subsidence of the surrounding area by the weight of
every fresh deposit of materials ejected either in the sea or on land.
"The subsidence such materials produce around them will, in time, make a
sea if one does not already exist."
The Andamans are of Tertiary formation, and of similar geological
structure to the Arakan Yoma Range, the line of elevation connecting
them with which is represented by the Alguada Reef and Preparis Island.
(The Cocos are an integral part of the Andamans.)
Two sedimentary formations have been distinguished up to the present,
the one older, the other newer than the serpentine which intrudes in
various localities. They have been called the Port Blair and Archipelago
series respectively.[89]
The former, occurring in the south, consists of fine grey sandstone--the
characteristic rock, generally non-calcareous--and beds of conglomerate
and limestone as subsidiary members; red and green jasper also occur;
possibly, however, of an older series than the sandstone in which they
crop out. This series seems to be of early Tertiary or later age.
The second series,--Miocene, or even newer--of which the whole of the
islands of the Archipelago are formed, consist typically of soft
limestone, of coral and shell-sand, soft calcareous sandstones, and soft
white clay, with occasionally a band of conglomerate, the pebbles of
which seem to have been coral.
The intrusive rocks of the Andamans--similar to those of Manipur and
Burma in the north, and the Nicobars to the south, and of later date
than the Port Blair series--are of serpentine, often passing into
crystalline diorite and gabbro.
The Archipelago series seem to cover a large area of the Andamans, while
the Port Blair formation is restricted to the south. The greater part of
Rutland Island is formed of serpentine, in which small layers of brown
opal have been met with, and which throughout the group seems
disseminated with minute crystals of chromium. The Cinques consist of
intrusive rocks of serpentine, associated with metamorphosed, indurated,
and sedimentary series, mostly calcareous. The rocks of Little Andaman
are chiefly lime and sandstone, with a good deal of actual coral rock on
the east and south coasts; while occasionally occur outcrops of an
igneous nature. At Entry Island and Port Meadows, beds of volcanic
origin exist.
In view of the connection with them, the apparent barrenness of the
Arakan Hills goes to show that little may be expected from the Andamans
in the way of mineral products. Amongst others, however, discoveries
have been made of lignite, and the ores of chromium, copper, iron, and
_sulphur_,[90] although not in quantities that would pay commercial
development.
It is indubitable, as Kurz has shown,[91] that the Andamans are now
undergoing subsidence; but there is ample evidence, in the raised coral
beaches that fringe the shores, to show that in the immediate past this
has been exceeded by elevation.
The islands have been subjected to earthquakes from time to time. The
first recorded took place in August 1868, the next in February 1880, and
several slight shocks occurred until December 1881, when a severe
earthquake visited the group, made itself felt over a large area of the
Bengal Sea and surrounding countries, did much damage to masonry at Port
Blair, and raised waves 3 feet high, following each other at
fifteen-minute intervals for a period of twenty-one hours. Another
slight shock was experienced in February 1882.
* * * * *
The origin of the name Andaman appears to be somewhat doubtful, and it
is, of course, a word unknown to the natives. It is, however, very old,
and may--as Sir Henry Yule suggests in his Commentary on Marco
Polo--perhaps be traced to Ptolemy (who flourished at Alexandria soon
after the commencement of the Christian era), and if so, we have by him
the first-known reference to the Archipelago, for he mentions a group
of islands under the name of Good Fortune, [Greek: Agdaimonos Nedos], or
the like--"The Angdaman Islands"--whence have come the names Agdaman,
Angdaman, Andaman. Even at this early date the inhabitants were said to
be cannibals.
Doubtless the Chinese knew of the group in comparatively early times,
for they have records of the neighbouring Nicobar Islands going back for
more than a thousand years.
Skipping a long period, we next come to the ninth century, and there
have the accounts of Arab travellers (A.D. 871), which, although of an
alarming description, are tolerably correct in some details. "The people
eat human flesh quite raw; their complexion is black, their hair
frizzled, their countenance and eyes frightful, their feet very large,
and almost a cubit in length, and they go quite naked." Those ships, the
story goes on to say, which have been set back by contrary winds, and
compelled to anchor for the sake of water, commonly lose some of their
men on these barbarous coasts, and it is fortunate that the natives have
no ships or other vessels, otherwise they would seize and devour all the
passengers.[92]
Reference to the Andamans in the thirteenth-century narrative of Marco
Polo is very much of a traveller's tale. "Angamanain is a very large
island. The people are without a king, and are idolaters, and no better
than wild beasts. All the men of this island have heads like dogs, and
teeth and eyes likewise; in fact, in face they are just like big mastiff
dogs! They have a quantity of spices; but they are a most cruel
generation, and eat everybody they can catch not of their own race. They
live on flesh, and rice and milk, and have fruits different from ours."
Colonel Yule suggests that Angamanain is an Arabic (oblique) dual,
indicating "The two Andamans," viz., "The Great and the Little."
In 1563, Master Caesar Frederike set out on his travels, and returning
homeward three years later, passed near the Nicobars on his way from
Malacca to Goa. "From Nicobar to Pegu is, as it were, a row or chain of
islands, an infinite number, of which many are inhabited with wild
people; and they call those islands the Islands of Andemaon, and their
people savage or wild, because they eat one another. Also, these islands
have war one with another; for they have small barques, and with them
they take one another, and eat one another: and if by evil chance any
ship be lost on those islands, as many have been, there is not one man
of those ships that escapeth uneaten or unslain. These people have not
any acquaintance with any other people, neither have they trade with
any, but live only on such fruits as the islands yield."[93]
An Italian doctor, John Francis Gemelli, who made a voyage round the
world, touched at the Nicobars in 1695, and refers incidentally to the
neighbouring group. "Friday the 3rd, we were in sight of the island of
Nicobar. The island pays an annual tribute of a certain number of human
bodies to the island of Andemaon, to be eaten by the natives of it.
These brutes rather than men, use, when they have wounded an enemy, to
run greedily to suck the blood that runs. The Dutch are witness of this
cruelty of theirs; for they, going with fire-ships to subdue them, and
landing 800 men, though they were well entrenched to defend themselves
against those wild people, yet they were most of them killed, very few
having the good fortune to fly to their ships.... The chief motive of
the Dutch to attempt the conquest of that island, was a report spread
abroad that there was a well in that island whose water converted iron
into gold, and was the true philosopher's stone.... No man in Europe or
Asia can give any certain account of it, because those people have no
commerce with any nation in the world." This vanished wonder was
discovered by an English vessel that was driven to the islands; for a
native who was carrying a shell of water accidentally spilt some of the
contents on the anchor, and the part so wetted immediately turned into
gold! The narrative goes on to say that the unhappy native, who thus by
his clumsiness revealed the priceless secret, was immediately killed,
not by his countrymen, as might perhaps be expected, but by the
strangers! There is no mention of torture; but the well was neither
discovered then nor since.[94]
The next historian is an Englishman, for Captain Alexander Hamilton, in
his _Account of the East Indies_,[95] written about 1700, devotes some
space to these islands. "The Andamans are surrounded by many dangerous
rocks and banks, and they are all inhabited with cannibals, who are so
fearless that they will swim off to a boat if she approach near the
shore, and attack her with their wooden weapons, notwithstanding the
superiority of numbers in the boat and the advantages of missive and
defensive arms of iron, steel, and fire."
As an example of this, Hamilton tells of one, Captain Ferguson, whose
ship, bound from Malacca to Bengal, in company with another, was driven
by a strong current on some rocks, and lost. The second vessel was
carried through a channel, and was completely powerless to aid those
shipwrecked, "which," says our author, "gave ground to conjecture that
they were all devoured by those savage cannibals."
This same chronicler met a native of the Andamans at Acheen in 1694, and
says of the incident: "The Andamaners had a yearly custom to come to the
Nicobar Islands with a great number of small praus, and kill and take
prisoners as many Nicobarians as they could overcome." During one of
these raids, however, the long-suffering Nicobarese armed themselves--it
does not seem to have been their custom to resist--and, gathering
together, gave battle to the invaders, and utterly defeated them; and on
this occasion the man under discussion, then a boy of ten or twelve
years, who had accompanied his father, was taken prisoner, and, spared
on account of his youth, was made a slave.
Some years went by, and he was sold to the Achinese, who, being
Mohammedans, taught him their religion; and he remained in Sumatra,
until, on the occasion of his master's death, he was manumitted.
He had now become very homesick, and so, obtaining a boat, he set out
during the fine season from the islands of Gomus (Pulo Bras) and
Pulo-weh. "From here the furthermost of the Nicobars may be seen, and so
one island may be seen from another, from the southernmost of those to
Chitty-Andeman (Little Andaman), which is southernmost of the Andamans,
distant from Acheen about a hundred leagues." Once home, and made much
of by his relatives, who recognised him although he had long been
considered dead, he acquainted them with his knowledge of God, "and
would have persuaded his countrymen to learn of him how to adore God and
to obey His laws, but he could make no converts."
After a month or so of the old life, he returned to Acheen with a
quantity of quicksilver, which, he said, abounded in some of the
Andamans; and thereafter he made several other voyages, always returning
with a similar cargo. "Some Mohammedan faquirs would have accompanied
him, but he would not suffer them, because, he said, he could not engage
for their safety among his countrymen. When I saw him he was in company
of a seid, whom I carried as a passenger to Surat, and from whom I had
this account of his adventures."
Trustworthy history of the islands now begins; for, at the close of the
eighteenth century, the Honourable East India Company sent small
expeditions, under Colonel Colebrooke and Captain Blair, to report on
the possibilities of the group. Their accounts were so satisfactory,
that, in 1789, the latter was sent to establish a penal settlement in
what was then called Port Cornwallis--now Port Blair.
All went well with Blair and his colony until 1792, when orders were
received from Calcutta to transfer the whole establishment to the
harbour in North Andaman, which, in turn, was to be known as Port
Cornwallis. The first place of that name was henceforth for a time
dubbed Old Harbour.
Colonel Syme, who was sent on a mission to Ava in 1795, visited the
establishment on his voyage out, and found there a population of 700,
including a company of sepoys. He estimated the aborigines at 2000 to
2500, and gives a very unflattering description of them. They then used
rafts of bamboo in addition to canoes.[96]
The new settlement proved so unhealthy, that, after an existence of four
years, its abandonment was decided on: the prisoners were transferred to
Penang, and the troops returned to Bengal.[97]
For many years now, the group remained untenanted by a foreign element,
and its isolation was broken only by the rendezvous at Port Cornwallis,
in 1824, of the fleet carrying the army of Sir Archibald Campbell to
Rangoon for the first Burmese war; by the murder, while ascertaining the
mineral possibilities of the islands, of Dr Heifer, a Russian scientist
employed by the H.E.I.C.; and by the simultaneous wrecks in 1844, on Sir
John Lawrence Island, of the troopships _Runnymede_ and _Briton_, which,
in a hurricane one inky night, were flung, unknown to each other until
morning dawned, right over the reef in among the trees of the jungle.
Hardly a life was lost.
Before the Andamans again became the field of Government activity, the
Cocos group, which lie 20 miles to the north of Great Andaman, were the
scene of an unofficial attempt at colonisation.[98] The first settlers
were two men on their way to Australia, who, struck with the beauty of
the Great Coco, with its shore covered with innumerable coco palms and
other trees, gave up their original plan, and were left there in the
early part of 1849. There were no inhabitants; but the islands were
frequented during the north-east monsoon by people from Tenasserim and
Arakan, who came for the coconuts that were so plentiful. The only
animals were rats; but the bays abounded with fish and turtle, and water
was obtained by sinking wells in the beach.
In the middle of July, the _Flying Fish_--the ship that had landed the
first settlers--brought a second batch from Moulmein, and the population
then consisted of four men, two women, and four children, with a small
number of Burmese and a few Lascars.
Some months passed, and the island remained unvisited; and the whole
story of that time is one of incompetence, laziness, sickness, and
starvation. Stores failed; while food procurable on the island only
consisted of turtles, turtles' eggs, fish, and coconuts. The settlers
were, besides, suffering from dysentery, fever, and other complaints,
brought on by an unaccustomed mode of life, in dwellings that were mere
hovels, and subjection to the inclemency of the rainy season. Their
spirits became depressed, and despair succeeding discontent, they were
more like an unfortunate shipwrecked party than immigrants who had
landed to make a new home. Several of the colonists fell a prey to
despondency, that in some cases amounted almost to mental derangement.
Some of them died, and those who were rescued from that fate were
brought away from the island in an utter state of destitution, emaciated
in body and almost silly in intellect.
On October 29 the remaining settlers--of whom seven had died--were taken
off, and reconveyed to Moulmein by the Company's ship _Proserpine_.[99]
In 1855, measures were proposed at Calcutta--for the Andamans were then
an appanage of the East India Company--for the repression of the
outrages practised by the Andamanese on those crews shipwrecked on their
shores, and two years later--on the conclusion of the Mutiny--it was
determined that a penal settlement should once more be established in
the group; thus combining a headquarters, from whence the pacification
of the aborigines might be undertaken, with an abode of punishment for
such mutineers and others whose offences had not merited the death
penalty.
It was at this date that Dr F. J. Mouat, who has given an account of his
visit in _Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders_, was
sent, as head of a Commission, to examine the islands and select a
suitable locality for the establishment of a penal settlement. The
Commission spent about three weeks steaming about the coasts of the
Archipelago, and finally decided on Old Harbour, to which they gave the
name of Port Blair, in honour of its former resident.
A rather amusing incident occurred during the visit:--A nervous and
imaginative member of an exploring party brought news of the proximity
of a native village and a lurking body of aborigines. The doctor,
without waiting for further information, or to be attacked, addressed
his followers in a warlike speech, and gave the order to charge, which
the company forthwith did with such vigour that two fiery spirits were
knocked senseless by contact with burnt tree-stumps--a number of which
the party had mistaken for natives. The expedition had, however, several
serious conflicts with the aborigines, in which a few of the latter were
killed.
On return of the Commission to Calcutta their advice was soon acted on,
and the late General (then Captain) H. Man was sent to Port Blair to
formally re-annex the Andamans and put matters in train, and following
him a body of convicts arrived in charge of Dr J. P. Walker, who was
appointed first Superintendent.
For some years the death-rate was excessive (averaging 18 per cent.),
owing to the necessity of pushing forward clearing and building
operations, and it was not until 1868, soon after the appointment of
Colonel Man as Superintendent, that it fell to a more normal level
(average for ten years, 2.7 per cent.).
The pacification of the natives, by means of Homes, a school, and visits
paid to the tribes by the Station gunboat, went steadily on, until
there now remain but two or three groups of Andamanese from whom any
hostility is to be feared.
In 1872-3 the Andamans were formed in a Commissionership with the
Nicobars, and a year later general attention was drawn to them by the
death of Lord Mayo, Viceroy of India, at the hands of a convict.
* * * * *
The Andaman Islands are inhabited by people of pure Negrito blood,
members of perhaps the most ancient race remaining on the earth, and
standing closest to the primitive human type.
Geologically, the islands are connected with the opposite mainland, so
that in remote times migration was probably possible; and we find in the
Malay Peninsula, and in the Philippines, which were at one time
connected with it, aborigines who--known by various names, such as
Semang, Jakun, etc., and Aeta--are the nearest existing relatives of the
Andamanese.
There is no reason to consider the Andamanese any other than the
aborigines of the islands, for we know from their kitchen-middens, which
are found throughout the group, that they occupied it in very remote
times.
From the examination of fragments of pottery, arrowheads, and other
stone implements discovered in the shell-mounds, it is now believed that
the locality was settled some time during the Pleistocene period, and
certainly not later than the Neolithic age.
"In the Andaman kitchen-middens have been found shells, pig-bones,
pottery (referred to a stone age--at least to the Neolithic
period--and almost identical with the fragments found in the Danish
kitchen-middens), and stone implements. Every second stone picked
up showed indications of being used in some way; some as hammers,
others fastened to wood as rude hatchets, knives, etc.: a beautiful
polished celt was found, indistinguishable from European or Indian
celts of the Neolithic period, also a typical arrow-head--all of
Tertiary sandstone."--Stoliczka.
The possession by the natives, in recent times, of implements and
weapons manufactured from wood and shells only, is easily accounted for
by their having found these equally suitable to their needs, and far
easier to construct.
It would be impossible to find anywhere a race of purer descent than the
Andamanese, for ever since they peopled the islands in the Stone Age,
they have remained secluded from the outer world, and to this isolation
is due the uniformity so marked in their physical and mental
characteristics.
In stature they are far below the average height; but although they have
been called dwarfs and pygmies, these words must not be understood to
imply anything in the nature of a monstrosity. Their reputation for
hideousness, like their poisoned arrows and cannibalism, has long been a
fallacy, which, although widely popular, should now be exploded.
The average heights of Andamanese men and women, computed from a large
series of measurements, are found to be 4 feet 10-3/4 inches and 4 feet
7-1/4 inches respectively, and their figures which are proportionately
built, are very symmetrical and graceful. Although not to be described
as muscular, they are of good development, the men being agile, yet
sturdy, with broad chests and square shoulders.
The abdomens--although on the whole not to a greater extent than those
of other savages--are sometimes protuberant, in the women more so than
the men, and it is probably owing to this feature that they have been
described as figureless, a statement by no means wholly correct.
In both sexes, the small of the back is very hollow and the buttocks
prominent. The feet are rather large, and occasionally occurs a case of
the great-toe being placed with relation to the others in an almost
simian or thumb-like way. Hands are of moderate size and well shaped,
with long thin fingers.
Viewed from a distance, the skin appears of a jetty colour, especially
when shining from the fat with which it is often bedaubed: a close
examination shows, however, that it is not absolutely black, although
these people are amongst the darkest of mankind.[100] Soles, palms, and
nails are pale pinkish-brown, and while the lips of some show a slight
purplish tinge, those of the majority scarcely differ in tint from the
skin of the face.
The hair, which is similar in colour to the skin, and lustreless, is
woolly, and of what is known as "pepper-corn" type, for, when kept
short, it assumes the form of little knobs with bare spaces between,
giving to the head an appearance that has been rather aptly likened to
that of an old worn-out shoe-brush. When long, the tufts take the form
of a cone-shaped frizzly spiral. The body is glabrous, but there are
traces of hair about the armpits and other parts, and adult males
possess sometimes an excessively slight moustache, and about a dozen
hairs on the tip of the chin.
The skull is mesocephalous, with an index of about 82; the forehead of
good size, round and prominent; the face rather short, and often
quadrilateral. The nose is somewhat broad, with rounded tip and
nostrils, often short, and, when not straight, as is most common, is as
frequently convex as concave. The eyes are large, horizontal, and placed
widely apart, with black pupils and muddy yellow sclerotic; and the
lips, which are well-formed and neither excessively prominent nor thick,
are kept closed when at rest, and cover teeth strong though irregular
and often stained from use of tobacco. The ears are of good shape,
small, and lie close to the head.
Their speech is rapid and vivacious. Each tribe possesses a distinct
dialect, traceable, however, to the same source.
"The Andamanese languages are one group, and have no affinities by
which we might infer their connection with any other known group.
They belong to the agglutinative stage of development, and are
distinguished from other groups by the presence, in full
development, of the principle of prefixed and affixed grammatical
additions to the roots of words. Their form of speech is extremely
intricate; for instance, the possessive pronouns have as many as
sixteen possible variants according to the class of noun with which
they are in agreement. There is also a distinct poetical dialect,
and in their songs they subordinate to rhythm, not only the form of
words, but even the grammatical construction of sentences."[101]
They have words for the numerals "one" and "two" only, but can count to
ten by tapping the nose with the finger-tips of both hands, uttering for
each in turn the word _an-ka_ = "and this," until, when the last is
reached, the expression _arduru_ implies "all."
In disposition they are childish, but bright and merry, though petulant,
quick-tempered, and restless, and not capable of much perseverance.
Great affection is lavished on children and the young; old or helpless
are held in high consideration. Women are well treated, and not used as
drudges or slaves, but are assisted by the men, who assume a fair share
of the day's work.
In the school that at one time existed at Port Blair for the Andamanese,
it was found, that, as with all savages, the children, when educated
were as proficient up to a certain age as the children of civilised
peoples, but that point reached, they possessed no capacity for imbibing
further knowledge.
As the natives gain by education in intelligence and tractability, they
become fat and indolent, while their morals undergo much deterioration
through contact with the convicts. The clearance of the jungle has been
prejudicial to their health, and excessive tobacco-smoking among both
sexes, which has been unrestricted, has seriously undermined their
already enfeebled constitutions.
They possess very little vital power, and readily succumb to diseases,
suffering much from febrile disorders, which give rise to pulmonary
complaints--the chief cause of mortality among them. Very few reach the
age of fifty, and the average duration of life is little over twenty
years. Of the lesser ailments, skin diseases are very common.
Measles, to which over 20 per cent. of the population fell victims in
1877, was followed by an outbreak of syphilis, both introduced by
convicts. The latter disease has caused much injury, and its spread
has, it is believed, been greatly accelerated by the custom prevailing
of the women suckling each other's children.
The "sense of shame" is but little developed, and the natives pay no
attention to their own nudity, although by nature they are modest. Of
the various objects worn, those only coming under the heading of
clothing are the aprons or leaves worn with the girdle by the women, and
always carefully adjusted.
Previous to marriage, which is not permitted to those between whom any
degree of consanguinity can be traced, unchastity is the rule with both
sexes. Births out of wedlock, however, are considered discreditable, and
marriage generally follows on a girl becoming _enceinte_, in which case
there seems no objection on the part of the lover to become the husband.
Once married, conjugal fidelity until death is the rule, and bigamy,
polygamy, and divorce are unknown.
Restrictions from various tabooed articles of food, which begin at
puberty and often last for years, are brought to a conclusion after a
long series of initiatory ceremonies undergone by both sexes.
When a death occurs, the corpse is buried with a method and ceremonies
differing somewhat according as to whether it be adult or child;[102]
and after some months, during which the encampment in which the death
took place is deserted, the body is exhumed, and the bones cleaned and
made into souvenirs, which are distributed to relatives and friends.
Numerous superstitions are extant among them, and there is credence in
wizardry.
No form of worship is to be found; but there exists a belief in a
spiritual being, called _Puluga_, the Creator; and in evil spirits,
_Erem-chaugala_, the spirit of the woods; and _Juruwinda_, the spirit of
the sea, the first of whom causes sickness and earthquakes, the latter
cramp; both are demoniacal. There are also a host of minor devils, who
are self-created; none of the demons are under the control of
_Puluga_.[103]
They make no attempt at trading in the natural products of their
islands, and manufacture nothing but the weapons, personal ornaments,
implements, and utensils required for their own use. They have some
knowledge of pottery, though not of the wheel, and make rude pots, which
they ornament with patterns of wavy lines before baking.
No true musical instruments exist, but a rude sounding-board is
constructed, on which they accompany songs by beating with the
foot.[104]
The weapons used in hunting and fishing are bows and spears, and there
are both hand and large seine nets for taking fish. For food there are
pigs, musang, dugong, porpoise, fish, turtle and their eggs, molluscs,
larvae (a delicacy), fruit, honey, and roots. Food is cooked and eaten as
hot as possible: of the production of fire they, at least in modern
times, have no knowledge: this accounts for the great care taken in
preserving fire at their camping places, and when travelling.
The coast people are extremely expert swimmers and divers, but the
interior tribes naturally not so, as their mode of life is somewhat
different.
The natives are now known to be divided into twelve tribes, if groups
that in many cases number at present less than fifty individuals can be
so called. Beyond their speech there is little otherwise to distinguish
them from each other, except in the case of the Oenges and Jarawas, who
differ somewhat from the rest, but are in many ways both alike.
The enmity that the Andamanese had ever shown to all strangers was by
some believed to have been greatly due to the treatment they had
received from early Chinese and Malay traders, or _beche-de-mer_
collectors; but, prior to 1858, extreme jealousy and distrust prevailed
among adjacent tribes, and even amongst scattered communities of the
same tribe, and it was not till 1879 that members of all the Andaman
tribes (except Oenges and Jarawas) were able to meet on friendly terms at
the Homes of the Settlement.
Friendly relations have lately been arrived at with most of the
inhabitants of Little Andaman (_i.e._ the Oenges), but the Jarawas, who
inhabit the North Sentinel, Rutland Island, and South Andaman, have
proved to be quite irreconcilable, and their attitude often explains the
total disappearance that sometimes follows escapes of the convicts.
They are generally feared by all their native neighbours and, with the
boldness of ignorance, do not hesitate still to attack even superior
numbers of Europeans, as an instance that occurred during the late
census operations shows.
At Port Campbell a body of natives were seen who were pronounced to be
Jarawas, and, as it was considered to be a suitable opportunity to
attempt to establish friendly relations with them, the census party made
for the shore, in a boat manned by Andamanese, taking with them a
quantity of presents, a rifle, and some boards and cushions to serve as
shields in case of hostilities, and an Andamanese woman, whose shrill
cries it was hoped might prove to the savages pacific intentions. The
crew, as usual, took their bows and arrows, but carefully concealed
them, and, as the boat approached the shore, all waved handkerchiefs and
large pieces of red cloth, much appreciated by the other Andamanese,
while the woman loudly and unceasingly screamed friendly messages. But
it was soon apparent that the Jarawas meant fighting, for they sent
their women and children away to a distance, and then three of the men,
armed with bows and arrows, and with threatening cries and gestures,
waded out towards the boat, 100 yards distant, through the shallow water
intervening. The three advanced in line, at intervals of about fifteen
paces, and placed themselves so that the centre man could rake the boat
and the others shoot into it from either side.
No arms were shown from the boat, but friendly signs persevered with,
until the man on the right flank, who was the leader, when well within
bow-shot, raised his weapon, and as it was seen that he was evidently in
the act of discharging it, which would have been the signal for the
others to follow suit, the rifle in the boat was fired at him, wounding
him in the thigh. This caused him to spin round and make off towards the
beach, followed by his supports. After running for a short distance, he
fell, and, while his two companions pluckily picked him up and carried
him into the jungle, some of the others, who had been looking on from
the beach, yelled to the women, with the result that they were seen to
return as hurriedly as possible. As the men on the beach evidently
considered themselves in perfect safety, although only some 300 yards
distant, a second bullet was fired into the sand near them, much to
their astonishment and consternation, as they then and there fled into
the adjacent jungle with shouts of alarm. The party in the boat
thereupon returned to the launch and steamed out of the harbour.
It was suspected that these same men were responsible for the unprovoked
murder of a petty officer of an oil-collecting gang, which had recently
taken place near one of the Jarawa districts.
The population of the islands has been computed from time to time--from
the 6000 at the period of the founding of the Settlement--in variously
diminishing numbers down to the present day, when it is placed at about
1900.[105]
The case affords a striking example of the effect of contact between
civilised and savage man, for only those tribes of the Andamanese that
are still hostile or who have little or no intercourse with the
Government Settlement, have preserved any respectable number of
individuals in their ranks.
Of these, the Jarawas, although not distantly located from the
Settlement, receive all advances with inveterate implacability, while
the Oenges of Little Andaman, who were until 1884 almost totally
unvisited, are further off, and enjoy an insular position.
These two tribes between them represent by estimation some 1250 of the
total inhabitants of the islands. The numbers in the various other
tribes are now very small, but possibly were never as large as those of
the two mentioned.
Everywhere is noticeable an enormous disproportion between the numbers
of adults and children--a feature, in view of the fewness of the former,
that argues badly for a much longer continuance of the race. Concerning
the fact, some of the natives say that it is not due to sickness, but
that children are very seldom born; others state that the first, or
first and second children are dead, and that the one present is the sole
survivor. Undoubtedly, however, the infant mortality that exists is due
to the presence of syphilis, which occurs in some of its most virulent
forms amongst these people, and not to maternal neglect, as the mothers
display the greatest affection for their children.
"The Andaman Penal System is the result of the constant attention
of the Government which created it, and is the outcome of the
measures of practical men, devised to meet the difficulties with
which they have found themselves face to face, and reduced to order
and rule by some of the keenest intellects that have worked in
India for many years past. It is no paper constitution drawn up to
suit any particular theories. There have always been the convicts
in their thousands, and there have been the climate, and the
necessity for treating the convicts in the way best calculated to
benefit them, and for so employing them as to bring down their cost
to the taxpayer to the lowest limits compatible with climatic
conditions and beneficial treatment. Trusted agents of the
Government have pondered these things on the spot in the light of
an ever-increasing experience, and their ideas and suggestions have
passed under the criticisms of highly experienced administrators,
and have in the end produced the system which is now carried out.
"Repeatedly tinkered and patched and recast and remodelled though
it has been, the Andaman System is still inchoate--still on its
trial as it were. It could not well be otherwise, for in dealing
with the criminal we are attempting to solve a mighty problem as
old as criminality itself, and are plunged, perforce, into a
controversy as contentious now as it was centuries upon centuries
ago.
"From the best estimates to hand, we may take it that the permanent
convict strength of the Settlement may be placed at about 12,000,
of whom about 800 are women, and the rule is that only life
convicts are sent from India, and life and long-term convicts from
Burma. The people received, therefore, are the murderers who have
for some reason escaped the death penalty, and the perpetrators of
the more heinous offences against person and property--the men of
brutal violence, the highwaymen, the robbers, the habitual thieves,
and the receivers of stolen goods, the worst of the swindlers,
forgers, cheats, coiners, and such like--in fact the most
unrestrained temperaments of a continent. These considerations show
the scale of the work, and the nature of the task.
"The convict comes to the Andamans a creature who, by his life or
his acts, has shown himself to be so unfitted for human society
that he has been cast out of it for life, or for a long term of
years. Received thus, he is first subjected for six months to a
most severe discipline--hard, rigid, uncompromising. He is taught
what it is like to be forced to bend his uncontrolled nature to the
iron yoke of a _regime_, not of hard toil, but of soul-crushing
monotony. From the stern Cellular Jail he is next transferred to
one of the associated jails, to the comparative blessing of hard
labour, in company with others, but still under a strict
discipline. He works and feeds with others in gangs, and there is a
certain variety in the tasks demanded, but he still sleeps in his
separate cell. Here he stays for a year and a half, and then for
the next three years he is a slave, as the word is ordinarily
understood, locked up with other slaves in barracks at night, but
working in the open at any kind of task that the needs of the
Settlement may require of him, according to his capacity--an
unpaid, unrewarded labourer, but well fed, housed, clothed, and
cared for, and always under watch and guard. During the following
five years he is still a labouring convict, but the severity of his
life is eased down a little for him. He is now eligible for the
petty posts of supervision, and for the less irksome and less
slave-like forms of labour, and he gets a little--a very
little--allowance, to buy a few small luxuries, or to place in the
Savings Bank against future necessities. Having thus served ten
long probationary years, he is eligible, if he has any capacity, to
take a ticket-of-leave and become what is locally known as a
self-supporter.
"The convict is now in a sense 'free.' He earns his living in his
own chosen way; he lives in a village, in his own house; he farms a
little land; he keeps cattle; he can move about unwatched; he can
send for his wife and children, or, the far more frequent course,
he can marry a convict woman, who, under her own regulations, is
eligible for marriage. He can thus become _pater familias_, with a
little hoard of his own earning, and differing outwardly in no way
from the ordinary villager or properly conducted member of human
society. In reality, however, he differs so greatly, that he misses
all those things that 'free' men prize so highly. He has no civil
rights under the ordinary law, and all the affairs of his life are
dealt with by the executive authority. He must live where he is
told; and generally conduct his life as he is told; he may move
about beyond his village and his fields by permission only; he
cannot leave the Settlement; he may not be idle, under pain of a
forced return to convict labour. In this state he remains ten or
fifteen years, according to the crimes that have sent him here,
until the happy day comes when the order for absolute release is
placed in his hands and he goes free as other men.
"As in the other portions of his life in transportation, even in
the condition of self-supporter the convict passes through two
distinct stages. In the first stage he is assisted at the beginning
with house, food, and tools, and then by exemption from rent,
taxes, fees, and other cesses payable by the free towards the
common benefit. In the second stage he receives no assistance
whatever, but finds the whole of his means of livelihood, and is
charged with every public payment which would be exacted from him
in his own country.
"The women are dealt with on the same lines, but more gently, as
becomes the gentler sex. For the first three years the convict
woman works in the Female Jail as a mere slave, fed, housed,
clothed, and cared for. Then for two years she is treated to the
same easing down of severity as is granted to the men, and after a
total of five years she is eligible for marriage and domestic
service. Assuming that she marries, she joins her husband in his
village, where she leads the ordinary life of an Indian woman, but
subject to the same disabilities as her husband until she has
completed fifteen years in transportation, when she may go free
with him whithersoever he may go.
"Now through all this long education to useful citizenship there
run continuous threads of practice in self-help and self-restraint,
and of inducement to profit by the practice. The length of the
convict's stay in the Cellular Jail depends entirely on his conduct
in it, and so it remains throughout his career, up to the point of
self-support. Efforts to behave well, and submission to control,
mean promotion upwards from grade to grade in due course. Every
serious lapse means the retarding of promotion, or actual
retrogression. And when he has obtained his ticket-of-leave, it is
to his own effort, his own thrift, his own steadiness, that he has
solely to look for that little hoard which is to be so much to him
when he goes back to his native land--no pauper, no mere jail-bird,
no unwelcome burden on his relatives, but a self-respecting
citizen, with a little capital of his own earning, for years
habituated to provide for himself in an orderly way, and thoroughly
broken to harness as it were.
"It does not require much imagination to contrast the difference in
the personality of the same human being as he reaches and leaves
Port Blair. He that arrived an outcast, void of restraint, and
unfit for association with his kind on equal terms, goes forth a
useful citizen, broken to restraint, and not only fitted for human
society, but well used to submit to the conventions by which alone
that society can be maintained. And men so reformed are not sent
back to India by ones and twos, but by scores every year. Every one
of the life convicts sent home is such a man. The incorrigible are
kept till death, and the slow to learn are kept until they mend
their ways, while those only that have good in them, and are
capable of reform, are returned to the society they once disgraced.
"The difference between transportation to Port Blair and
imprisonment in a jail lies in this very matter. While the Port
Blair returned convict is a man fitted to, and habituated to,
support himself, the prisoner released from a jail is not only a
pauper but has became pauperised. That is, he has become
unaccustomed to find for himself, and this disability has grown
upon him with the length of his imprisonment. On this important
ground alone, one cannot help hoping that some day it may be found
feasible to extend the Andaman System to long-term prisoners from
India.
"Besides the direct personal education that the Port Blair convict
receives, he is taught various lessons of general importance in
indirect ways. There is the value of justice, for instance. For
though his life is absolutely controlled by executive officers,
everything that happens to him is the result of a quasi-judicial
procedure. No punishment can be inflicted without a proceeding,
without registration, or without record of the evidence on which it
is awarded. There is a regular course of appeal, and a further
untrammelled appeal to the Head of the Administration himself.
Thus, though the punishments in such a place as Port Blair must on
occasion assume a form of deterrent severity, there is as much
security of justice in award as elsewhere.
"Then there is the system of local marriage. This is no
concubinage, no temporary or irregular alliance. Every inquiry is
made and every step is taken that is necessary to render convict
marriages legal, according to the customary personal law of the
contracting parties. Long is the waiting in many cases between
proposal and completion, and many are the disappointments when the
conditions are found to bar completion. Once married, the husband
and wife are made to clearly realise their condition, and must
depart together or not at all.
"The children, of course, are a very serious question, but the best
is done for them,--their health is so well cared for, that in Port
Blair, probably alone in all the East, it is the rule to
successfully rear the whole of a young family; primary education is
here compulsory, again probably alone in all the East; and
technical training is free to all. Their inheritance of temperament
and their early associations are the points of anxiety regarding
them, but these matters may be fairly said to be beyond
control.[106]
"The Savings Bank has already been mentioned as a factor in the
education of the convict. How great has been the effect of this
beneficent institution will be seen from the fact that it was
started twenty-seven years ago with 54 accounts, and is now, and
has for years past been, the largest local bank of the kind in
India. It has now over 2300 open convict accounts, and has had
12,000 accounts opened during its existence. This means, that for
years, more than one fourth of the whole body of the convicts have
kept their savings in it, thus showing how well they have taken to
heart the lessons of thrift and of faith in the honesty of the
Government.
"But far be it from concealing the fact that there is a seamy side
to life in Port Blair. It could not be otherwise; and it would be
easy enough to paint a lurid picture of its inhabitants,--easy
enough to preach a scathing condemnation of the envy, hatred, and
malice, the uncharitableness, the evil-speaking, lying and
slandering, the murder and the cruel death, of the amazing
immorality, the callous depravity, the downright unabashed
wickedness, that are so constantly forced upon the view. But such
is not to the purpose. Human faults are easily seen and easily
denounced, for such things lie on the surface. The difficult thing
always is to perceive aright the good that there is in bad men,
and bring that out, and that is the object that the Government is
aiming at in the system just explained.
"Any one observing the work of the English in the East may possibly
be struck with the idea that the reason for the acknowledged
capacity of the race for colonial enterprise and the maintenance of
empire is the ability and the willingness of the average Englishman
to put his hand to any kind of work that may come his way, without
any special training, from framing suitable laws and regulations
and creating suitable organisations to making roads and ditches,
building houses, and clearing land and ploughing it. Here in Port
Blair, the officers entrusted with the creation, organisation, and
maintenance of the Penal Settlement, have, without any special
training for the work, and without any special guidance and
teaching, managed with the worst possible material to work
upon--life and long-term convicts from every part of India and
Burma--to create in little more than forty years, upon primeval
forest and swamp, situated in an enervating, and until mastered, a
deadly climate, a community supporting itself in regard to many of
its complicated wants.
"They began with the dense forests, the fetid swamps, and the
pestilential coral banks of tropical islands, and have made out of
them many square miles of grass and arable lands, supporting over
fifty villages besides convict stations. Miles upon miles of swamp
have been reclaimed, the coral banks have been controlled, and a
place with regard to which the words climate and pestilence were
almost synonymous has been turned into one favourably spoken of as
to its healthiness. The Settlement now grows its own vegetables,
tea,[107] coffee, cocoa, tapioca, and arrowroot; some of its
ordinary food grains, and most of its fodder. It supplies itself
with the greater part of its animal food, and all its fuel and
salt. In other lines of work, it makes its own boats, and provides
from its own resources the bulk of the materials for its buildings,
which are constructed and erected locally. Amongst the materials
produced are all the timber, stone, bricks, lime, and mortar, and
most of the iron and metal work are made up there from raw
material. In the matter of convict clothing, all that is necessary
to be purchased elsewhere are the roughest of cotton hanks and
wool in the first and rawest condition, every other operation being
performed on the spot. It provides much of its own leather.
"In achieving the results, the officers have had first to learn for
themselves as best they could how to turn out the work to hand, and
then to teach what they had learnt to the most unpromising pupils
that can be imagined,--only about 3 per cent. of the convicts sent
there having been previously employed on the work required of them
in Port Blair. And they have been hampered all along by the
necessities of convict discipline, by the constant release of their
men, and their punishment for misconduct. It is under such
conditions that the Corps of Artificers and the other convicts have
had to be utilised. Nevertheless, the roads and drains, the
buildings and boats, the embankments and reservoirs, are as good
and durable as are the same class of structures elsewhere. The
manufactures are sufficient for their purpose, and there are among
the taught those who are now skilled in the use of many kinds of
machinery. Cultivation is generally fair, and some of it very good.
The general sanitation--but here there are peculiar advantages--is
literally second to none."[108]
First of all the industries of the Andamans is that of timber, and
to accelerate and increase it a Steam Tramway has been instituted,
and there are now some 14 miles of line connecting the forests with
the shores of Port Blair. As a further adjunct, Steam Saw-mills
were erected in 1896, and a Forest Department, that employs
500 to 600 men daily under its own officers, not only supplies
the Settlement with the whole of its requirements in timber from the
local forests, but also exports timber and forest produce to various
places in India and Europe. Of these latter exports, rattans and
gurjan oil are the chief; other natural products of the islands are
trepang--_beche-de-mer_--tortoiseshell and edible birds' nests, but
they are only collected in small quantities.
The principal cultivations in which convicts and ex-convicts are engaged
are paddy, sugar-cane, Indian corn, and turmeric; coconuts have during
the past thirty-five years been extensively planted, and besides the
agricultural products previously mentioned, vegetables and fruits of
various kinds are grown.
The larger industries in which the penal community is engaged in have
already been alluded to, but there are many minor employments, the
products from which also go towards making the Settlement
self-supporting. Amongst these are to be found the manufacture of all
kinds of furniture, cane chairs, baskets, many varieties of bamboo-work
and ornamental wood-carving, woven articles, from serviettes to
saddle-girths and blankets, pottery, rope and mats, silver, tin, brass
and iron work, shoemaking, rickshaw and cart building, besides the
production of such materials as lime, bricks, and tiles.
Port Blair is in communication three, and often four times a month, with
Calcutta, Madras, and Rangoon, by the vessels of the Asiatic Steam
Navigation Company. The distances between the Settlement and the ports
named are 796, 780, and 387 miles respectively.
CHAPTER II
THE NICOBAR ISLANDS AND THEIR ABORIGINES
The Nicobar Islands and their Aborigines--The Islands--Coral
Banks--Nankauri Harbour--Population--Geology--Earthquakes--
Climate--Flora--History--The Shom Pe[.n]: their Derivation,
Appearance, Houses, Gardens, Cooking-vessel, Domestic Animals,
Manufactures, Trade, Clothing, Headmen, Position of Women,
Disposition, Diseases.
The Nicobars lie 80 miles south of the Andaman group and 110 miles from
Sumatra proper, and constitute a chain of islands 160 miles long, lying
in a N.N.W. 1/2 W. direction, with a branch forking out from their
centre N. by E. The area of the group is about 600 square miles, and it
consists of some twenty islands, of which the principal are, Kar
Nicobar, Batti Malv, Tilanchong, Chaura, Teressa, Bompoka, Kamorta,
Trinkat, Nankauri, Kachal, Little Nicobar, and Great Nicobar.
Besides these, there are several small satellite islands: Great Nicobar
possesses Kondul and Kabra; Little Nicobar, Milo and Menchal, with
Treis, Trak, and Meroe further off; and lastly, near the south extremity
of Tilanchong, there is the rocky islet named "Isle of Man."[109] There
are villages on Kondul and Milo, but Batti Malv and Tilanchong are
uninhabited.
Two large isolated coral banks occur--one near Chaura, with only 1-1/2
fathoms of water; and another, far more extensive, in the Sombrero
Channel, with 11 fathoms of water above it.
Although the Nicobar Islands are scarcely ever heard of, the China Mail
boats and other great ocean steamers pass almost in sight of them nearly
every day, and they possess in the central group one of the finest
harbours in the eastern seas. Nankauri Harbour has not only entrances on
the east and west, that make it practicable for any sort of vessel in
both monsoons, but these are further protected by the islands of Trinkat
and Kachal respectively, which give sheltered anchorage outside the
mouth of the harbour itself.
By any other nation than the British it would be highly valued at the
present time as a coaling station, but, owing to its proximity to the
Straits Settlements, and the failure of the small islands around to
produce anything more valuable than coconuts, it is completely neglected
by its possessors, from both commercial and strategical standpoints.
The natives of the group number at present a few short of 6000 (to which
should be added a possible 300-400 Shom Pe[.n]), and there are generally
some 200 foreigners resident in the north during the trading monsoon.
The islands increase in size as they are passed towards the south, but
the contrary is the case with regard to population, which decreases
regularly, island by island, with one or two exceptions, from Kar
Nicobar in the north with 3451 inhabitants, to Great Nicobar with only
87.[110]
* * * * *
"The Nicobar Islands belong to an area of elevation which can be traced
from the Bay of Bengal far into the southern seas,[111] and is
characterised by two phenomena: first, the activity of the interior of
the earth, showing itself in volcanic action; and secondly, the activity
of the coralline animals, disclosing itself in the formation of that
kind of coral reefs known as fringing or coast reefs. The islands occupy
a gap without volcanoes between the volcanic ranges of Sumatra, and
Barren and Narkondam Islands, and the occurrence of young volcanic rock
in them is improbable. They are distinctly characterised as a portion of
the chain of oceanic elevation which began in former geological periods
and still continues, by the upheaved coral banks, and by the continuous
formation of coral reefs. The synclinals and anticlinals in the
geological structure of the islands are coincident with the direction of
the great geological line of elevation which connects the northern part
of Sumatra with the Andamans.
"Among the geological formations of the Nicobars, three are the most
important:--(1) An eruptive serpentine, with gabbro formation. (2)
Marine deposits, probably of a younger Tertiary age, consisting of
sandstone, slates, clay marls, and plastic clay. (3) Recent coral-reef
formations.
"The serpentine and gabbro formation is characteristically of an
eruptive nature. The Tertiary sandstones, slates, and clay marls appear
forcibly broken through; their strata is partly inclined, partly bent in
flat, parallel, wave-like undulations. These rocks are accompanied by
coarser and finer breccias, composed of angular fragments of these same
rocks, and they can partly be regarded as friction breccias, partly as
sedimentary tufas, in which beds of an argillaceous marl are
interstratified. The eruption of these plutonic masses appears therefore
to fall in a time when the formation of the marine deposits was
partially completed, partially still in progress. They broke through on
lines of fracture, of which the principal strike from S.S.E. to N.N.W.
agrees with the longitudinal extension of the islands. On the middle
islands the serpentine and gabbro attain their greatest development: on
Tilanchong, Teressa, Bompoka, Kamorta, and Nankauri, they form bare hill
ranges of 200-500 feet, and their configuration often marvellously
resembles that of younger volcanic formations. The elevatory power has,
however, acted most strongly on the southern islands, and has here
upheaved sandstones and slates to heights of 1500-2000 feet above
sea-level; on the northern islands the same power was, on the contrary,
weakest.
"The clay marls of the northern and central islands (Kar Nicobar,
Teressa, Bompoka, Kamorta, Trinkat, and Nankauri) and the sandstones and
slates of the southern (Kachal, Little and Great Nicobar) appear to be
only petrologically different products of one and the same period of
deposition. There are, at the same time, very few materials from which
the age of the marine formation could be determined, as the only fossil
remains which have been found in their strata are fragments of
_driftwood_ changed to brown coal, plants resembling _Fucoids,
Foraminifera_, and _Polycistinae_. All these indicate more or less
distinctly a young Tertiary age.
"We find a repetition of the geological condition of the Nicobars on the
southern coast of Java and the south-west coast of Sumatra.
"The third principal formation of the Nicobars are coral formations
belonging to the most recent or the present period. Coral banks of great
thickness are found on Kar Nicobar, Bompoka, Trinkat, and other islands.
They consist partly of compact coral limestone, partly of a coral and
shell conglomerate upheaved 30 or 40 feet above the present level of the
sea. On all the islands the original area is to be observed enlarged by
coral land which is only separated by the higher sand-dunes along the
shores from the still continuing formation of the coral reefs
surrounding all the islands in the character of fringing reefs. Although
these raised coral banks are decided evidence of the long-continued
upheaval of the islands--that, in connection with the eruption of the
serpentines and gabbros--the formation of the flat coral lands elevated
a few feet only above the sea, can, on the other hand, be explained by
the accumulation of coral fragments, of sand and shells, by the waves
and breakers on the shallow surface of the fringing reefs."[112]
* * * * *
Coal of a brown variety has been found in Little Nicobar, Treis, Milo,
and Kondul, but everywhere in isolated masses and single fragments,
showing traces of rolling, met with here and there without order, in
sandstone and slate, and evidently derived from driftwood.
The only traces of minerals discovered have been ores of copper and
iron pyrites, finely disseminated through dioritic and serpentine rocks.
The possibility of the occurrence of copper ores in the eruptive
formation cannot be denied, but no discovery has yet been made which
would indicate it. On the other hand, the islands are rich in useful
building materials. The sandstone of the southern islands must give
excellent working stones; the plastic clays of the north could,
doubtless, be worked into bricks or pottery; the natives of Chaura
largely employ it in their earthenware manufactures.
Although the islands are generally beyond the sphere of cyclonic
disturbances, they have more than once experienced the effect of
earthquakes. One of the most remarkable of these is said to have
occurred from October 31 to December 5, 1847, when fire is reported to
have been seen on one of the mountains of Great Nicobar. Part of the
northern coast of the latter, especially in the vicinity of Ganges
Harbour, sank beneath the sea, and for long the locality was deserted by
the aborigines.[113]
On December 1881, an earthquake, felt also at the Andamans and
throughout the Bengal Sea generally, caused extensive damage in Kar
Nicobar to the coconut groves and huts of the natives. Vents were opened
in the sandy soil; inland, trees were overthrown; sea-waves broke on the
island, and at the village of M[=u]s, water rose into the houses of the
Burmese traders, which stood on platforms 2-1/2 feet high.
There was another earthquake at Kar Nicobar in November 1899, when
strong, but not alarming, shocks, lasting ten minutes, were experienced.
The last occurred on September 18, 1900, when two heavy and severe
shocks, each lasting five minutes, were felt throughout the island, but
caused no damage.
The climate of the Nicobars is more uniform than that of the Andamans,
for it is less diversified by wet and dry seasons, heat and cold, and in
this respect resembles that of the Malay Peninsula at the same latitude.
The prevalence of malaria renders the group unhealthy alike for
foreigners and, in certain localities, for the natives, and all the
attempts at settlement have resulted in great mortality from this
cause, although where jungle exists an improvement is said to have taken
place when the land has been cleared.
The average mean annual temperature is about 82.5 deg., the maximum in the
shade between 93 deg. and 94 deg. and the minimum 73 deg.. March and April are the
hottest months, with means of 82 deg. and 83 deg. and a maximum of 89 deg., while
August to December--when the mean temperature is 79 deg.--is the coolest
part of the year. The mean annual temperature at Nankauri is 80 deg., and
while the highest reading recorded is 99 deg., the lowest is 70 deg.. The mean
diurnal range there varies between 9 deg. and 11 deg. only.
Although the seasons of the monsoons are the same, they are not so well
defined among the Nicobars as on the coast of the Bay of Bengal
generally; but heavy rains occur in May, June and July--when the
south-west monsoon is at its height--and rains rarely cease until
December. March is the driest month, and while from May to December
there is an average monthly rainfall of 12 inches, with twenty wet days
per month, for the rest of the year the monthly average is only 2.9
inches, with showers on twenty-six days only.
At Nankauri the mean humidity is 79 per cent, and the annual rainfall
110 inches; while, as regards the southern group of islands, there is
good ground for the belief that much more rain falls, probably not less
than an average of 150 inches annually; this is doubtless attributable
to the forest-clad mountains of Great and Little Nicobar.
The prevailing winds are the monsoons--the south-west from the beginning
of May till mid-October, followed by variable winds to the end of the
year; the north-east monsoon from January until April, with an interval
of more variable winds before the other sets in. Hurricanes seldom visit
the islands, but in March 1892 the central group was subjected to a
cyclone which caused much destruction in the forest. During the
south-west monsoon frequent thunderstorms and gales of wind occur,
especially in the vicinity of Great Nicobar. The north-east monsoon
brings fine weather, but sometimes blows with considerable strength.
A remarkable feature of the Nicobars is the manner in which the general
botanical appearance of the islands coincides with the geological
division, for, while the southern group (Great and Little Nicobar with
Kachal) are wooded from beach to summit, the forests of the other
islands are restricted to the plutonic rocks and the slopes and dells of
the older alluvium, while the hilly plateaux and ridges are covered with
park-like grass heaths.
The most prominent features of the flora are, perhaps, the quantities of
_Barringtonia speciosa_, which, with their large shiny leaves and
beautiful crimson-tipped tassel-like blossoms, grow all along the
coasts; the tall screw-pines (_Pandanus larum_), bearing the immense
fruits that provide the main food of the natives; and the graceful
Nicobar palms (_Ptychoraphis augusta_), which occur in all the forests.
Giant bamboos are extremely scarce, but the climbing species
(_Dinachloa_) is common everywhere in the jungle, and beautiful tree
ferns (_Alsophila albo-setacea_) grow in the forest and along the river
banks of the south.
A mangosteen (_Garcinia_, sp.) and a cinnamon (_Cinnamomum
obtusifolium_) grow wild, as do the pepper vine (_Piper betel_) that
supplies the sireh leaf, and the betel palm (_Areca catechu_). These two
are also cultivated, and it is said that the latter is not indigenous.
The large numbers of milky climbers leads to the hope that some
rubber-yielding varieties may be discovered capable of supplying a
sufficient quantity of raw material for export. The vanilla orchid
occurs, and the southern forests produce quantities of rattan, both as a
small variety that is exported, and a large cane two inches or so in
diameter, which the natives use for the horizontal rafters in the
circular framework of their houses.
_Semecarpus heterophyllus_, _Morinda citrifolia_, _Artocarpus lakoocha_,
and _A. chaplasha_, _Cordia mixa_, _Mallotus philipenensis_, and _Amomum
fenzlii_, may be mentioned specially as species capable of yielding
commercial products; but their sparseness, coupled with the fact that
it is easier and cheaper to cover the soil with coconuts and areca
palms, puts out of the question the possibility of utilising the species
to any profit.
The Nicobars produce few trees of any commercial value as timber, and
those probably not in large quantities: the best of these are _Myristica
irya_ and _Terminalia bialata_, and of secondary value in this respect
are _Mimusops littoralis_, _Hopea odorata_, _Artocarpus chaplasha_ and
_lakoocha_, _Calophyllum spectabile_, _Terminalia procera_ and species
of _Garcinias_.
Evergreen forest predominates, and mixed forest appears only
occasionally, but pure leaf-shedding forest is not met with; and as
regards species, there is a marked absence of Dipterocarpus trees.
* * * * *
It is in the writings of Ptolemy that we find the first probable
reference to the Nicobars, for after the Andamans, the next group
mentioned by him is the "Barussae," which seems to be the Lankha
_Balus_ of the older Arab navigators, since these are certainly the
Nicobars.[114] The islands were also known to the same voyagers under
the names of Megabalu and Legabalu.
The Chinese, another race of great navigators in these seas, have
records of the Nicobars for a thousand years and more.
The next reference of any importance is that of an Arab trader who came
into contact with the group during a voyage to Southern China in 851
A.D.[115] "Nagabalus, which are pretty well peopled: both the men and
women there go naked, except that the women conceal their private parts
with leaves of trees. When shipping is among these islands, the
inhabitants come off in embarkations, and bring with them ambergris and
coconuts, which they truck for iron, for they want no clothing, being
free from the inconveniences of heat or cold."
Rashuddin writes of the islands in nearly the same terms, under the
name of Lakvarem, opposite Lamuri (a kingdom of Sumatra), and the very
imaginatively-minded author, Friar Oderic,[116] compiled a chapter on
Nicoveran which is a mass of the wildest fable, utterly unworthy of
credence, containing, as it does, details of people with faces like
dogs, who are stout in battle (not a characteristic of the modern
Nicobarese) and worshippers of the ox, while their king possessed
strings of pearls, and the largest ruby in the world.
"Concerning the island of Necuveran, when you leave the island of
Java the less (Sumatra) and the kingdom of Lambri, you sail north
almost 150 miles and then you come to two islands, one of which
(Great Nicobar) is called Necuveran. In this island they have no
king nor chief, but live like beasts. And I tell you they all go
naked, both men and women, and do not use the slightest covering of
any kind. They are idolaters. Their woods are all of noble and
valuable kinds of trees; such as Red Sanders, and Indian-nut, and
Cloves, and Brazil, and sundry other good spices. There is nothing
else worth relating," says Marco Polo, who probably only passed
near the islands in or about the year 1293, but who gathered fairly
accurate information about them.
After the Cape of Good Hope was doubled in 1497, the islands were
frequented by voyagers, as expeditions to the East became more numerous.
"It was the Nicobar custom in 1566," says Master Caesar Frederike,
that "if any ship come near to that place or coast as they pass
that way, as in my voyage it happened, as I came from Malacca
through the channel of Sombrero, there came two of their barques
near our ship, laden with fruit, as with _monces_ (which we call
Adam's apples, which fruit is like to our turnips, but is very
sweet and good to eat). They would not come into the ship for
anything we could do, neither would they take any money for their
fruit, but they would truck for old shirts or old linen breeches.
These rags we let down with a rope into their barque unto them, and
look what they thought their things to be worth; so much fruit they
would make fast to the rope, and let us hale it in: and it was
told me that sometimes a man shall have for an old shirt a good
piece of amber."[117]
In his _East Africa and Malabar_,[118] Barbosa refers shortly to the
Nicobars. "In front of Sumatra, across the Gulf of the Ganges, are five
or six small islands, which have very good water and ports for ships:
they are inhabited by Gentiles, poor people, they are called Niconbar;
and they find in them very good amber, which they carry thence to
Malacca and other ports."
Captain John Davis, of Arctic fame, the inventor of the "back-staff,"
the earliest form of quadrant, piloted a Dutch ship to the East Indies,
and touched, in 1599, at the Central Nicobars. He wrote that "... the
people brought in great store of hens, oranges, lemons, and other fruit,
and some ambergris which we bought for pieces of linen cloth and table
napkins. These isles are pleasant and fruitful, lowland, and have good
road for ships. The people are most base, only living upon fruits and
fish, not manuring the ground, and therefore having no rice."[119]
During the reign of Elizabeth, Sir James Lancaster made several voyages
to the East Indies, and touched at the Nicobars. Two of his officers,
Barker and May, have chronicled a visit to the islands in 1592, in a
description that would apply more accurately to the Pulo Wai group. "The
islands of Nicobar," says Barker, "we found inhabited with Moors, and
after we came to an anchor, the people came aboard us in their canoes
with hens, cocos, plantains, and other fruits, and in two days they
brought to us royals of plate, giving us them for calicut cloth, which
royals they find by diving for them in the sea, which were lost not long
before by two Portugal ships which were bound for China and were cast
away there. They call in their language the coco, _calambe_ (Malay,
_klapa_); the plantain, _pison_ (Mal., _pisang_); a hen, _iam_ (Mal.,
_ayam_); a fish, _iccan_ (Mal., _ikan_); and a hog, _babi_ (Mal.,
_babi_)"; and May, the other writer, says that the natives were in
religion Mohammedans.
Lancaster's own account of the "Islands of Nicobar" is more interesting,
and is based on his experiences there in 1602. Of either Pulo Milo or
Kondul he writes:--
"Here we had fresh water and some coconuts, other refreshing had we
none. Yet the people came aboard our ships in long canoes which
would hold twenty men in one of them, and brought gums to sell
instead of amber, and therewithal deceived divers of our men: for
these people of the east are wholly given to deceit. They brought
us hens and coconuts to sell, but held them very dear, so that we
bought few of them. We stayed here ten days....
"We were forced to go to the island of Sombrero (the Portuguese
name for Chaura) some 10 or 12 leagues to the northward of Little
Nicobar. Here we lost an anchor, for the ground is foul and groweth
full of counterfeit coral and some rocks, which cut our cable
asunder.
"The people of these islands go naked, having only the privities
bound up in a piece of linen cloth, which cometh about their
middles like a girdle and so between their twist. They are all of a
tawny colour, and anoint their faces with divers colours: they are
well limbed, but very fearful: for none of them would come aboard
our ships, or enter our boats.
"The General reported that he had seen some of their priests all
apparelled, but close to their bodies, as if they had been sewed in
it; and upon their heads a pair of horns turning backwards
(_ta-choekla_), with their faces painted green, black, and yellow,
and their horns also painted the same colour. And behind them, upon
their buttocks, a tail hanging down very much like in the manner as
in some painted clothes we paint the devil in our country. He
demanding wherefore they went in that attire, answer was made him,
that in such form the devil appeared to them in their sacrifices,
and therefore the priests, his servants, were so apparelled. In
this island grow trees which for their tallness, greatness, and
straightness will serve the biggest ships in all our fleet for a
mainmast, and the island is full of these trees." This description
of the island cannot be said to be applicable at the present day.
"Here likewise we found upon the sand by the seaside a small twig
(_Virgularia mirabilis?_) growing up to a grand tree, and offering
to pluck the same, it shrunk down into the ground, and sinketh
unless you hold very hard. And being plucked up, a great worm is at
the root of it: and look how the tree groweth in greatness the worm
diminisheth. Now as soon as the worm is wholly turned into the tree
it rooteth in the ground, and so groweth to be great. This
transformation is one of the strangest wonders I saw in all my
travels. For the tree being plucked up little, the leaves stripped
off, and the pill by that time it was dry, turned into an hard
stone, much like to white coral; so that the worm was twice
transformed with different natures: of these we gathered and
brought home many."[120]
Towards the middle of the century, Koeping, a Swede, touched at one of
the islands in a Dutch vessel and thought he perceived men with tails,
"like those of cats, which they move in the same manner," but he was
deceived by the peculiar clothing. He further credits the Nicobarese
with cannibalism, for a boat's crew of five men that went ashore never
returned, but next day their bones were found strewn over the
beach![121] Next, Dampier was put ashore by the privateer he piloted on
the N. W. coast of Great Nicobar, and after a short sojourn left with
his companions in a native canoe, and succeeded in reaching Sumatra.
The first recorded murder of a European by the natives seems to be that
of Captain Owen, who was wrecked on Tilanchong, and from thence taken to
Nankauri, where he was put to death on account of his ill-judged
behaviour towards the inhabitants. This incident is related by Hamilton
in his account of his own experiences in the East Indies from 1688 to
1723,[122] where he gives a little information about the Nicobars.
The first attempt at a settlement on the islands was made by Jesuits on
Kar Nicobar in 1711, but they succumbed to the climate, and the effects
of such results as they had attained to soon disappeared. Hitherto no
efforts had been made to convert the natives, although missionaries of
the same denomination were well acquainted with the group.
In 1756 Tanck took possession of the Archipelago in the name of Denmark,
and under the designation of "Frederiks Oerne," and founded a colony on
the north coast of Great Nicobar, which in 1760 was transferred to
Kamorta, and there came to an end owing to the unhealthy climate.
In 1766 fourteen Moravians were installed on Nankauri, with a view to
extending the influence of the Danish East India Company, but in a dozen
years nearly every member of the settlement was dead. They are said to
have made no conversions.
A Dane, named Koenig, who was a doctor of the same religious body,
voyaging from India to Siam in 1778, spent several hours on Kar Nicobar,
and in his diary left some account of his visit; and almost
contemporaneously a vessel under the Austrian flag, the _Joseph and
Theresa_, Captain Bennet, anchored off the northern island: her voyage
was made to obtain plantations and trading stations in the East for the
Austrian Empire. This was the scheme of a Dutchman, named Bolts, who
entered the Austrian service in 1775, and who accompanied the ship, a
chartered English vessel with an English crew. The expedition spent five
months in the group: a fort was erected on the island, and ships
purchased to trade between Madras, Pegu, and the Nicobars. War in Europe
ruined the company, and it was suspended after an existence of seven
years.
In 1779 two more Moravians settled on Nankauri, in an attempt to found a
fresh Danish Mission, but eight years later this was abandoned, and the
survivor returned to Europe.
With the commencement of the nineteenth century, English traders from
India began to visit the islands for coconuts, and, through contact with
their crews, the custom and life of the natives seems to have undergone
much growth and alteration.
In 1831 Denmark made a last attempt to colonise the group by missionary
enterprise, and Pastor Rosen was sent out. He dwelt on Nankauri, in the
middle of the north side of the harbour, and for a time also lived on
Trinkat; but after three years he returned to Europe, and some time
later published his experiences.
The year Rosen left, two Catholic missionaries arrived at Kar Nicobar
from Malacca, and lived on Teressa and Kamorta, but after a time one of
them, Borie, died of fever, and the survivor left. This was the last of
the series of missionary endeavours to found a settlement and convert
the inhabitants.
In 1845, Mr Mackay, Danish Consul at Calcutta, chartered a schooner and
made a voyage to the group in search of coal, which was prospected for
without success.[123]
A year later the Danish corvette _Galathea_,[124] voyaging round the
world, spent some months among the islands, and her commander, Steen
Bille, took possession of the central group for Denmark, and invested
two natives with the insignia of chief magistrates. Two years
afterwards, however, the _Valkyrien_ was sent to the islands to bring
away the flags and batons, and the last of several ineffective
annexations came to an end. The _Galathea_ expedition surveyed much of
the coasts, sought for coal and other minerals, and named the principal
river the "Galathea."
In 1858 the Austrian frigate _Novara_[125] spent a month in the group,
during which, half the time was passed at sea. Many parts hitherto
unsurveyed were charted by them, and valuable knowledge as to the
ethnographical and geological conditions of the islands was obtained.
The islands were finally taken possession of by the Indian Government in
1869--the British had officially annexed the group in 1807, but not
occupied it--and a settlement was formed at Nankauri Harbour to check
the piratical proceedings of that place, and although this was given up
in 1888, after it had served its purpose, the history of the Nicobars is
now bound up with that of the Andamans, to which they are affiliated.
Although the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands were originally all of
the same stock, various causes have contributed to bring about a
distinction amongst them, and they are now separated into two distinct
ethnical groups,--the Shom Pe[.n] of the interior of Great Nicobar, and
the coast people, or Nicobarese, who are found in all the inhabited
islands.
Of the Shom Pe[.n] but little is known, as, with the exception of a few
families who have friendly intercourse with the coast villages, they
have, as now constituted, always been persistently hostile to the
Nicobarese, but it is probable that they number at most between 300 and
400 individuals.
It was for long believed that the interior of Great Nicobar was
inhabited by a race of Negritoes akin to the Andamanese, but the Shom
Pe[.n] are an isolated group of primitive Malayans, and although they
must be regarded as the aborigines of the islands, many features amongst
them point to the fact that they are no longer racially pure.
Not only does the facial appearance vary greatly, but the hair, which is
universally regarded as an almost infallible indication of race amongst
primitive peoples, occurs in all the grades between curly and straight.
To account for this latter difference, and for the dull brown colour of
the skin--far darker than is usual amongst Malays--one may of course
suggest remote Negrito admixture. Possibly the Andamanese, on one of the
predatory voyages which it seems they were not unaccustomed to make in
this direction,[126] may have reached the island, and for some reason
unable to return, have intermixed with the inhabitants.
But I think it more probable that these peculiarities are due to a
Dravidian strain, and that some mariners of this race, who, from before
the time of Solomon, were accustomed to make trading voyages to the
Eastern Archipelago,[127] became stranded on these islands, and
incorporated themselves with the people they found there.
In this way, not only would the nature of the hair, colour of the skin,
and occasional definiteness of feature, be accounted for, but the
aborigines would be left as we now find them, unreduced in height, while
mixture with the Andamanese would probably have the effect of lessening
their stature.
Furthermore, I have, since my acquaintance with these people,
occasionally met Tamils, whom, if I had seen similarly garbed in the
forests of Great Nicobar, I believe I should have been unable to
distinguish from Shom Pe[.n].[128]
On the other hand, they much resemble, in appearance and mode of life,
descriptions of many of the primitive Malayans who have intermixed with
Negritoes. Of these the Kubus of Sumatra are an instance,[129] and of
the Jakuns of Johore, who are believed to be of Negrito origin, but
much interbred with Malays. Mr H. Lake[130] writes: "The true Jakun is
of short stature, 5 feet 2 inches is a fair average height. They are
much darker in colour than the Malay, and, as a rule, not so well set
up. The hair, which in the pure Negrito curls closely, is here in most
cases simply wavy, or even straight. They live in small communities, and
subsist miserably on fruits, roots, etc. They seldom remain many weeks
in the same spot, but wander from place to place, living under scanty
shelters built on rickety poles at a considerable height from the
ground. It is not uncommon to find a dozen in company, with a tame
monkey or two, cats and dogs, living in perfect harmony under the same
roof."
We may therefore consider the Shom Pe[.n] to be the aborigines of the
group, who, although everywhere else either exterminated or absorbed by
settlers from outside, have in Great Nicobar found a refuge in the
forest depths, and by long-standing hostility to the intruders, arising
from some unknown cause, have preserved to a great extent their natural
traits and existence, although somewhat degenerated, both on account of
the less favourable circumstances in which they live and of the
interbreeding that the smallness of their numbers compels.
Although the Shom Pe[.n] are by measurement as tall in the average as
the coast people, to the eye they appear smaller, and they are less
robust, with lean though bony figures (average chest measurements, 35.2
inches), sinewy rather than muscular.
Fourteen measurements of adult males gave a maximum height of 67-3/4
inches, a minimum of 62-1/8 inches, and an average height of 64 inches.
Of eight women measured, the tallest was 65-1/4 inches in height, and
the smallest 57-3/8 inches, while the average stature of that number was
found to be 60.8 inches.
The colour of the skin is a dark muddy-brown or bronze (several shades
deeper than the coast natives), but it is liable to slight variation,
and is generally a little paler in the women and girls, who resemble far
more distinctly the coarse Malayan type than the men do.
The hair of the head is very luxuriant, and of all varieties between
wavy and curly, but is not crisp or frizzly to any degree. No hair grows
on the face, or on the body, save about the armpits, etc.
The outline of the face is an oblong rectangle, and the forehead is
somewhat retreating, but occasionally high and rounded, though narrow;
the supraciliary arch is prominent, but the eyebrows are light. The
eyes, with black pupils, are both oblique and horizontal, and when the
latter, are often accompanied by the Mongolian fold, which occurs most
frequently among the women.
The nose is broad and flattened, with rounded tip and rather rounded
nostrils, the plane of which is upward. It is generally of medium size
and straight, but now and again has a pronounced bridge, or a slightly
concave outline.
The cheekbones and zygomatic arch are prominent, and a degree of
prognathism is prevalent. The teeth are large, irregular, and
discoloured, and project outwards. The mouth is large, the lips thick,
with the upper very curved from centre to ends; they are generally
closed. The lower jaw is commonly large and heavy, and the chin is
pointed, as the bones converge directly from the basal angle. The ears
lie close to the head, and are hidden by the hair, but the lobes are
much distorted with plugs of wood.
The huts in which the Shom Pe[.n] dwell, although always built on piles,
show considerable differences, and vary from a well-built floor with a
carefully constructed roof of palm leaf attap, to a rough platform often
placed against the side of a tree and sheltered by two or three palm
branches fastened to the corners.[131]
They are said to possess gardens enclosed in zigzag fences, where they
cultivate bananas, yams, and other tubers. The pandanus fruit they cook
in a well-made vessel of sheets of bark, carefully protected with green
leaves and luted with clay, in which we can, perhaps, see one of the
origins of pottery; for it is quite admissible that, in course of time,
the leaves should be discarded, more clay added, and at length the
effect of fire on the latter having been observed, the bark also would
be done away with, or only used as a mould for a clay vessel, from which
more suitable shapes would finally be evolved.
The domestic animals are dogs, cats, chickens, and pigs, which are
generally caught when young in the jungle, and apparently not permitted
to attain any respectable size. All find a refuge in the houses, up to
which a sort of inclined plane is arranged for their convenience.
Their manufactures are very few. They make canoes; construct a spear out
of a single piece of wood, baskets, both of rattan and palm spathe, and
a rough cloth from the inner bark of a tree.[132]
The friendly Shom Pe[.n] are energetic collectors of rattan, which they
trade with the Nicobarese, and so obtain garments, beads, knives,
_parangs_, axes, and tobacco, which is smoked in the form of cigarettes.
They are great consumers of betel-nut, in combination with lime and
sireh.
Amongst these friendly families, the clothing worn is similar to that of
the Nicobarese, with necklaces of beads, and they employ a large wooden
ear-distender an inch and a half in diameter.[133] The sheets of bark
cloth are used as pillows and coverings at night, and amongst the
hostile aborigines it is said the women wear short petticoats of this
material, while the men go entirely clothesless.
Amongst those met with, there was generally one man in each party, who,
by virtue possibly of superior intelligence or knowledge of the coast
language, seemed to have some slight authority over the remainder.
They are monogamous, and, unlike the Nicobarese, marry for life. The
position of the women is apparently a satisfactory one, for they are
regarded as little or in no way inferior to the men. The men obtain the
food, the women prepare it. Rattans are collected in the jungle by the
men, and by them carried to market; both sexes together prepare it, by
scraping and splitting, for sale. When bringing articles for barter, the
men bore the spears, and the baskets and cloth were carried by the
women, and generally such things as were obtained in exchange were
immediately handed over to the latter.
All those met with seemed quiet, stolid, and timid in disposition; but a
cupidity for the goods of their neighbours at times overcomes the latter
characteristic amongst the less accessible of the aborigines, and many
are the murderous attacks they are said to have made on the Nicobarese
for the purpose of loot.
No infants or young children were seen, although surprise visits were
paid to several of the villages, neither were any old people _en
evidence_, but the ages were judged to vary between ten and forty-five
years.
The language differs from all others in the islands, but here and there
are individuals who know sufficient of the coast speech to hold converse
with the Nicobarese.[134]
Their carelessness with regard to their water-supply--for any muddy pool
or stagnant brook is made use of--is probably sufficient reason for the
large number of cases of elephantiasis occurring among them; the only
other affection besides this, that seems to be in anyway chronic, is the
common body ringworm of the tropics.
[Illustration: Iron Buffalo and Pig Spears.]
CHAPTER III
THE NICOBARESE
The Evolution of the Nicobarese--Description--Character--Language--
Legends of Origin--Origin of Coco Palms--Invention of Punishments--
Superstitious Beliefs--Diseases--Medicines--Marriage--Matriarchal
System--Divorce--Polygamy--Courtship--Property--_Takoia_--Headmen--
Social State--Position of Women and Children--Domestic Animals--
Weapons--Tools--Fishing--Turtle--Food--Beverages--Narcotics
and Stimulants--Cleanliness--Clothing--Ornaments--_Coiffure_--
Amusements--Arts and Industries--Cultivation--Produce--Traders
and Commerce.
If the Shom Pe[.n] are not racially pure, the Nicobarese or
coast-dwellers are still less so, and what components have gone to form
them as they now exist is an interesting ethnical question.
To account for a certain similarity in all the people of the
Archipelago, we may suppose that not all, but most, of the islands were
occupied by groups of the aborigines, who everywhere but in Great
Nicobar--where, because of its size and forest-clad nature they could
find a refuge--became either exterminated or absorbed by successive
arrivals of colonists that have since made the presence of the former
almost indistinguishable.
In spite of the partial likeness of type, it is doubtful whether all, or
nearly all, the islands were occupied by the aborigines. Tilanchong, for
instance, is uninhabited, and it is questionable whether such forestless
islands as Kar Nicobar, Chaura, or Kamorta, etc., could be suitable
habitats for such a primitive people. In Kachal, Nankauri, and Little
Nicobar we have islands of a similar character to Great Nicobar,
although in them no traces of a rude people are to be found. It is
probably on account of the smallness of these areas that the immigrants
succeeded in eradicating the first inhabitants, who, in the other island
alone, hostile causes notwithstanding,[135] have preserved for
themselves a separate existence.
To account for such features as are common to both peoples everywhere,
we may conclude, therefore, that while many of the latter aborigines
survived separately, the others were absorbed by settlers on the coasts,
who, by communication and intermarriage with islands not possessing an
indigenous element, carried the Shom Pe[.n] strain throughout the
Archipelago.
The arrival of numerous colonists from the eastward would account for
the lighter complexion of the Nicobarese; for it is only natural to
suppose that if a separate branch of the same people, the one living in
the open on the coast would be darker in complexion than the other,
instead of which the contrary is the case.
As to the component parts of the Nicobarese, various suggestions have
been made. They are Malays modified by a Burmese element;[136] the
descendants of Malays before Mahommedanism spread among them (close of
thirteenth century), but separated at a much earlier date;[137] or,
again, they are of the same race as the Battaks.[138]
They are described as offshoots of the Malay race, being a people which,
while possessing much in common with the Indo-Chinese stock,
nevertheless, in their physical characteristics, hold a place midway
between the Malays and the Burmese.[139]
It has also been said of them that they are "descended from a mongrel
Malay stock, the crosses being probably in the majority of cases with
the Burmese, and occasionally with natives of the opposite coast of
Siam, and perchance also in remote times with such of the Shom Pe[.n] as
may have settled in their midst."[140]
The natives of Teressa are probably not greatly wrong when they say that
the inhabitants of Nankauri are Malays, who when out fishing lost their
boats and settled there, and the Kar Nicobarese are descendants of the
Burmese who, in a revolution that took place in their country, were
obliged to leave the Tenasserim coast.[141]
In the first case, it is not difficult to admit that fishing-boats
belonging to Sumatra (90 miles distant), or to the Malay Peninsula (260
miles away), should be blown off-shore in a storm, and safely reaching
Nankauri yet not care to face the voyage back.[142]
Pegu is about 400 miles from the islands, and Tenasserim a little less.
About 1000 A.D. the first historical conquest of the Lower Irrawadi was
effected by the Burmese, and its inhabitants, the Mous, became known as
"Talaings," or slaves. Their final defeat took place in 1757.
Nothing is more possible than that, after one of their disasters, a
small section of the Talaings fled from their home and established
themselves in the Nicobars, which they had probably become cognisant of
in the way of trade.[143] At present the only sea-going craft are a few
score "kallu," small junks of 20-60 tons, built in Tavoy, which, manned
by five or six Talaings, venture as far as the Nicobars, where they ship
coconuts in the fine monsoon.[144]
Nor are these all, for the islanders are doubtless leavened by stray
immigrants from India,[145]--which would account for the not infrequent
occurrence of Caucasian features among them,--by Arabs, and even by
Chinese.
Malays and Burmese--or rather Talaings--formed, however, the greater
part of the intrusive element.
Although colonisation was very local--the reason possibly for so many
distinct languages in the group--the islands now exhibit a state of
transition, due to intercrossing. Individuals occur at the extremes of
the Archipelago who bear a striking resemblance to each other, but
nevertheless there is a marked, though vague, difference to be seen when
the natives of several of the islands, or groups of islands, are
compared with each other as a body.
"All things considered, it may be inferred that the Archipelago
was originally occupied by primitive peoples of Malayan stock, now
represented by the Shom Pe[.n] of Great Nicobar, and was afterwards
resettled on the coast-lands by Indo-Chinese and Malayan intruders,
who intermingled, and either extirpated and absorbed, or else drove
to the interior, the first occupants."[146]
It is difficult to picture a typical representative of this much-mixed
people, as even in those islands that have a distinct speech of their
own, and whose inhabitants might be supposed to be fairly homogenous,
wide differences are met with, as above pointed out. The variations,
however, are not sufficient on the whole to merit separate descriptions
of the inhabitants of each island.
These variations occurring in size, features, and hair, show that the
Nicobarese are a thoroughly mixed race, for the points do not coincide
with each other; that is to say, curly hair does not always go with a
prominent nose, or straight hair with Malayan features.
It is hardly possible to describe a representative specimen who combines
all the prominent prevalent characteristics, but they seem capable
of division into two classes, the smaller of which is superior in
appearance to the other, and is often strikingly Caucasian, with oval
face, straight eyes, aquiline nose, and thin lips.[147]
The result of about forty measurements shows that the maximum height of
an adult male Nicobarese is 70-3/4 inches; the minimum, 59-1/4 inches;
and the average stature, 63.9 inches.[148] While thus somewhat under
middle height, they are well built (average chest measurement, 35.3
inches) and proportioned, muscular, and on the whole a sturdy-looking
race.
The colour of the skin is a brown much resembling in colour the tint of
a sun-burnt, weather-beaten Malay, such as a sailor; it is darker than
the ordinary native of that race, and has less of the olive or yellow
about it.
The hair is of a rusty black, but generally glossy with oil: it is thick
and luxuriant, and reaches to the shoulders, varying between a slight
waviness and pronounced curls. It is somewhat coarse, and when kept
short with boys, is almost bristly, and stands up stiffly all over the
head. In about 5 per cent. of the men there are traces of moustache and
beard, otherwise the faces are smooth, but the axillae and elsewhere, and
often legs and thighs, are profusely covered with hair.
The form of skull is brachycephalic, with an index of about 80.5, and
the back of the head, among the natives of the central and southern
groups of islands (excepting the Shom Pe[.n]), is noticeably flat.[149]
The face is broad, and, but for the cheek-bones, which are generally
prominent and developed laterally, approaches the oval type. Often,
however, it has a somewhat rectangular outline, owing to the squareness
of the lower jaw in the rear. The features are somewhat flat. The
forehead is slightly rounded and even well-formed, but it is often
compressed at the temples, and falls away somewhat suddenly.
The supraciliary arch is prominent, and the eyebrows are generally fixed
in a permanent scowl; the pupil is black, and the eyes often--though not
as a rule--slightly oblique, with the Mongolian fold at the corner.
The nose is generally broad, and coarse in outline, is straight, and of
medium length, depressed at the bridge, flattened, with rounded tip,
has inflated _alae nasi_, and the plane of the nostrils directed
upward.[150]
There is often marked prognathism of the dental variety, and the teeth
are irregular and blackened, large and projecting--frequently growing
outwards at an angle, like those of a rabbit.
The mouth is naturally large, and its shape is not improved by holding
the betel-quid between the upper lip and teeth. The lips are moderately
thick, and the lower is often pendulous and turned down, showing much of
the mucous membrane. When at rest, the lips are kept apart.
The chin is usually rather retreating, small, with a rounded and pointed
tip; but the jaw is somewhat heavily hung at the base, and the posterior
angle is strongly marked.
The ears are well formed, moderately large, and lie close to the head,
unless drawn out of shape by much use of ear-distenders.
The Nicobarese have not always been given a good character by their
acquaintances. They have been called lazy, inactive, and drunken,
cowardly and treacherous, but this last must be taken as applying more
to those bands of pirates--with a probable large foreign element--who
committed so many crimes during a long period; otherwise, they are
harmless and good-tempered. The accusation of cowardice is made with
more truth, and it is a quality they frankly own up to.
Lazy and inactive they may be from our point of view, but hardly
otherwise. Food is abundant all round them, weapons are not necessary,
and clothing they do not really need. They show plenty of application
and care when making their canoes, building their houses--which in
construction are models of neatness--and in gathering the toddy, that
with betel-nut is, perhaps, their only native luxury. Drunken they
certainly are on many occasions, but the state with them is one that,
fortunately, does not give rise to troublesomeness.
They are honest in their commercial transactions, and are most indignant
should their integrity be impugned, while the accusation of
untruthfulness brings them up in arms immediately.
Somewhat absent in manner, unemotional and apathetic, the more
intelligent are yet extremely inquisitive towards strangers, and ask
endless questions of a personal kind.
Although not remarkable for courtesy, or possessing any forms of
salutation,[151] they are very hospitable, and always ready with
coconuts, cigarettes, etc., for a visitor. It is customary for natives,
when travelling, to enter without remark any house on their path, help
themselves to food and drink, and depart in silence.[152]
They are exceedingly independent in manner and spirit, are of a somewhat
commercial turn of mind, and are occasionally gifted with a distressing
importunity, which is most common in those places where visits from
Europeans have been most frequent.
Parents seem to possess great affection for their infants, and the
number of men, especially, who may be seen about the villages carrying
their children, or otherwise amusing them, is remarkable.
Six distinct dialects and languages are spoken in the Archipelago--one
on Kar Nicobar, another on Chaura; Teressa and Bompoka together have
one; the central islands of Kamorta, Nankauri, Trinkat, and Kachal speak
a fourth; while Little and Great Nicobar with their adjacent islands
have a fifth. Lastly, the Shom Pe[.n] of the interior of Great Nicobar
employ a speech that is dissimilar to the others.
The language, which is somewhat harsh in sound, has, however, "an
extraordinarily rich, phonetic system--as many as twenty-five
consonantal and thirty-five vowel sounds (it possesses a peculiar double
series of nasal vowels)--is polysyllabic, and untoned, like the
Malayo-Polynesian, and the type seems to resemble the Oceanic more than
the Continental Mongol subdivision."[153]
* * * * *
This is the theory of the Kar Nicobarese with regard to their origin:--
A certain man, from some unknown country, arrived at the Nicobars on a
flat, with a pet female dog, and settled in Kar Nicobar. In course of
time he espoused the bitch, and begot a son. When this son was grown up,
he concealed his mother by covering her with a _ngong_, a kind of
petticoat made of coco-palm leaves, and, after killing his father in the
jungle, took his mother to wife. From such parents the Nicobarese
believe they originated, and it is their progeny who now people the
island.
The two-horned head-dress--_ta-choekla_--worn by all males, they consider
symbolic of their mother's ears; the end of the loin-cloth that dangles
behind, they call her tail; and the piece of cotton reaching to the
women's knees only, they compare with the _ngong_ petticoat, which was
her first dress.
Until comparatively recently, this _ngong_--a thick fringe of palm leaf
about 15 inches deep, inserted in a band--was in universal wear (see
Koeping, Hamilton, Lancaster, and others) and, even now, it is worn
sometimes by the women when working in the plantations. It is also worn
at Teressa, and still more at Chaura.[154]
Another version of the legend varies somewhat, making the father a dog
and the mother a woman. It is owing to this belief that the natives say
they are sons of a dog, and for this reason they treat their dogs very
kindly, and never beat them: they quiet them by simply saying "Hush!
hush!"
There is another tradition amongst the Nicobarese, to the effect that
the first stranger who came to their islands, seeing something moving on
the sand, perceived small people the size of an ant. He took care of
them until they attained the common size of men--and this was the origin
of the natives.[155]
To account for the coconut trees that grow in such abundance on the
island, the Kar Nicobarese version runs thus:--
Once upon a time there was a scarcity of water, and a certain man then
produced it from his elbow by means of magic arts. The people therefore
considered him to be a devil-man--wizard--and beheaded him. On the spot
where the head fell there sprang up a tree, and after a time it became
very big, and began to bear fruit, and the fruit resembled the head of
the slain man.
For a long time the people were afraid to approach the tree or to taste
the nuts, because they had grown out of a human head, and so, by the
falling of the ripe fruit, there grew up a dense grove of coconut palms.
At last some wise men brought to the trees an old man who was dying, and
made him taste of the nuts, to find out their qualities! The old man
accordingly ate one, and found it to be very delicious, and from
continually eating nuts he became very strong, and grew to look like a
young man.
Thenceforth the people began to make use of the coconut!
* * * * *
In the old days it was the custom to kill men for any offence, grave or
simple. But at length the elders, finding that the population had
greatly diminished thereby, held a council, and introduced the system of
killing pigs, burning houses, felling trees, breaking canoes, and
destroying clothes, etc., and this method is continued at the present
day side by side with the former.
The people seldom have open fighting among themselves, neither do they
use their fists, or flog. In extreme cases only (witchcraft) do they
commit murder.
The Nicobarese have no conception of a Supreme Being, or a future state,
but there is a universal belief in evil spirits, who are in part ghosts
of the wicked, and who can be propitiated by offerings and kept away by
exorcisms.
These creations of the imagination, who in the northern island are
called _Siyas_, seem much akin to the _Nats_ of Indo-China, but are far
less localised, and, as a rule, have no particular tree, rock, or stream
for their abode. They are the cause of every misfortune and disease that
occurs to man, but death in the ordinary course of things is considered
to be a natural event.
[Illustration: "Scare-devil," or device for exorcising evil spirits
(Kachal).]
It would appear that in Kar Nicobar, Teressa, and Chaura, where the
superstitious practices are nearly alike, some idea is entertained of
spirits not altogether inimical to mankind; but in the other islands,
whose beliefs are all homogenous, the _Iwis_ are all harmful to human
beings, and are kept at a distance by a redundancy of charms and
talismans that does not occur in the north.[156]