THE
ANDAMAN ISLANDERS
A STUDY IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
(ANTHONY WILKIN STUDENTSHIP RESEARCH, 1906)
BY
A. R. BROWN, M.A.
FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1922
TO
Dr A. C. HADDON, F.R.S.
AND
Dr W. H. R. RIVERS, F.R.S.
TO WHOSE INSTRUCTION AND KIND ENCOURAGEMENT IS DUE
WHATEVER VALUE IT MAY POSSESS,
THIS WORK OF APPRENTICESHIP IS DEDICATED.
PREFACE
This book contains some part of the results of anthropological research
carried out in the Andaman Islands in the years 1906 to 1908, under the
terms of the Anthony Wilkin Studentship in Ethnology of the University
of Cambridge. The funds supplied by the studentship were supplemented
by grants from the Royal Society and from the government of India. In
its original form the monograph was presented as a fellowship thesis at
Trinity College. The work of rewriting it was interrupted by absence
from England and was only completed in 1914. There has since been a
long delay in publication as a result of the war.
The book deals with the social institutions of the tribes of the Great
Andaman. These had previously been studied by Mr E. H. Man to whose
work I have been obliged to make many references in order that my
account may be as complete as possible. I should have preferred to
devote my attention almost exclusively to the natives of the Little
Andaman, about whom very little is known. I found, however, that it was
not possible in the time at my disposal to do any satisfactory work
amongst these people owing to the difficulty of language. The natives
of the Little Andaman know no language but their own, and that is so
little related to the languages of the Great Andaman that even a
thorough knowledge of the latter is of almost no use in an attempt to
learn the former. I spent nearly three months camped with natives of
the Little Andaman, giving most of the time to learning their language.
No one who has not actually made the attempt to learn the language of a
savage people without the help of an interpreter, can form an adequate
idea of the difficulties of the task. At the end of three months I
found that at the same rate of progress it would take me two or three
years to learn to speak the language sufficiently well to begin to
question the natives about their customs and beliefs and understand
their answers. I was therefore regretfully compelled to give up the
idea of making a study of the people of the Little Andaman, and devoted
the remainder of my time to the study of the tribes of the Great
Andaman, particularly those of the North Andaman among whom Mr Man had
not worked. I kept one boy from the Little Andaman with me for some
months in the hope that he would learn sufficient Hindustani to act as
an interpreter and so enable any future investigator to begin work with
the great advantage that I had lacked.
In my work amongst the natives of the Great Andaman I at first made use
of Hindustani, which the younger men and women all speak more or less
imperfectly, and gradually acquired a knowledge of the dialects of the
North Andaman. Towards the end of my stay in the islands I was able to
obtain the services as interpreter of a man of the Akar-Bale tribe who
spoke English well and was of considerable intelligence. He is shown in
the photographs of Plates V and XIII. With his help I was able to do
some work with the Akar-Bale and A-Pučikwar tribes, and I found that
with such an interpreter I was able to obtain much fuller and more
reliable results than I could by using my own knowledge of the native
language supplemented by Hindustani. If I had had his services from the
outset my work would have been much easier and more thorough.
The results of my researches on the physical anthropology of the
Andaman Islanders have not been published. I hoped to be able to obtain
the services of some one more competent in such matters than myself to
assist or direct me in the measurement and study of the collection of
skulls and skeletons that I brought to England and that is now in the
Anthropological Museum at Cambridge. In this I was disappointed, and
absence from England has prevented me from completing my work in this
branch of research.
The languages of the Andaman Islands are chiefly of interest as
affording material for the study of comparative grammar and the
psychology of language. I had hoped to be able to make some use of the
large mass of linguistic material collected by Mr E. H. Man and
arranged by Sir Richard Temple, which the latter was so kind as to
permit me to examine. Mr Man, however, expressed the intention of
publishing that material himself. Therefore, rather than delay longer,
I began the publication of my own linguistic studies in a series of
papers in the journal Anthropos, of which, however, only the first had
appeared when the outbreak of war interrupted them [1]. I cannot say
when the publication of these notes will be resumed.
Chapters V and VI of the present work contain an attempt at an
interpretation of the Andamanese customs and beliefs, which I regard as
the most important and hope will be the most valuable part of the book.
It is some years since they were written and although they have
undergone some revision they now seem to me so inadequately to express
my thought that I could wish to rewrite them entirely. At the time they
were written (1910) they exhibited an attempt to develop a new method
in the interpretation of the institutions of a primitive people. That
method will not perhaps seem so novel now as it would have done then.
However, I hope that the two chapters will still have value as an
example of the method which I believe to be fundamental in the science
that has lately come to be known as social anthropology [2].
Of the many imperfections of the book I am, I think, only too well
aware. It is indeed an apprentice work, for it was through my work in
the Andamans that I really learnt anthropology. However good may be his
preliminary training (and mine under Drs Haddon, Rivers and Duckworth
at Cambridge was, I think, as thorough as possible) it is only by
actually living with and working amongst a primitive people that the
social anthropologist can acquire his real training. Naturally work
done while learning how to do it must necessarily be faulty.
It is very late now to place on record my obligations to the officers
of the settlement of Port Blair, particularly to Colonel Herbert and
Colonel Browning, the successive chief commissioners, for their
kindness and help during my stay in the islands.
To Dr Haddon and Dr Rivers I am obliged for reading the proofs and for
many helpful suggestions.
A. R. BROWN.
University of Cape Town,
January 1922.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
Introduction 1
I. The Social Organisation 22
II. Ceremonial Customs 88
III. Religious and Magical Beliefs 136
IV. Myths and Legends 186
V. The Interpretation of Andamanese Customs and Beliefs:
Ceremonial 229
VI. The Interpretation of Andamanese Customs and Beliefs:
Myths and Legends 330
Appendix A. The Technical Culture of the Andaman Islanders 407
Appendix B. The Spelling of Andamanese Words 495
Index 499
LIST OF PLATES AND MAPS
Frontispiece. An Andaman Islander shooting fish with bow and arrow on
the reefs at Port Blair
PLATE
I. A young man of the North Andaman To face p. 26
II. A young married woman ,, ,, ,, 27
III. A man of the North Andaman and his son. (The
man’s height is 1438 mm., 4 feet 8 inches) ,, ,, ,, 28
IV. A married woman of the Great Andaman wearing
belts of Pandanus leaf and ornaments of
Dentalium shell ,, ,, ,, 29
V. A man of the Akar-Bale tribe with South
Andaman bow and arrows, wearing belt and
necklace of netting and Dentalium shell.
(Height 1494 mm., 4 feet 9 inches) ,, ,, ,, 30
VI. Portion of the village of Moi-lepto,
Akar-Bale tribe. On the right is an
unfinished mat of palm leaves for the roof of
a new hut ,, ,, ,, 32
VII. A hut in the village of Moi-lepto, showing ,, ,, ,, 34
the mode of construction
VIII. A village of the Middle Andaman ,, ,, ,, 36
IX. Woman decorated with odu clay ,, ,, ,, 120
X. Woman decorated with odu clay ,, ,, ,, 121
XI. Three men and a young woman decorated with
odu clay ,, ,, ,, 122
XII. A young man decorated with white clay in
readiness for a dance ,, ,, ,, 124
XIII. A man with a pattern of white clay on his
face ,, ,, ,, 125
XIV. A woman with her child ,, ,, ,, 126
XV. A young married woman, showing pattern
scarified on body and arms ,, ,, ,, 127
XVI. A girl during the ceremony at puberty,
decorated with strips of Pandanus leaf ,, ,, ,, 128
XVII. A woman wearing clay on her forehead as a
sign of mourning ,, ,, ,, 129
XVIII. A girl wearing her sister’s skull ,, ,, ,, 132
XIX. The peace-making dance of the North Andaman ,, ,, ,, 134
Map 1. South-eastern Asia, showing the present
distribution of the Negrito Race ,, ,, ,, 6
Map 2. The Andaman Islands, showing the distribution
of tribes ,, ,, ,, 11
LIST OF FIGURES IN THE TEXT
PAGE
Plan of Andamanese Village 34
Fig. 1. Section of Little Andaman bow, in the middle and
near the end 420
,, 2. Shoulder of Little Andaman bow 420
,, 3. Bow-string of twisted fibre, Little Andaman 421
,, 4. Diagram showing the method of making the loop
in the end of the Little Andaman bow-string 421
,, 5. Section of bow from North Sentinel Island 422
,, 6. Section of Jarawa bow 422
,, 7. Upper end of South Andaman bow 423
,, 8. Section across the blade of a South Andaman bow 424
,, 9. Loop of bow-string, South Andaman 425
,, 10. Ornament on South Andaman bow 426
,, 11. Section across the blade of a North Andaman bow 427
,, 12. North Andaman bow seen from the front 429
,, 13. North Andaman bow; A, in the half-strung or
reversed position; B, in the fully strung
position 429
,, 14. Toy bow of the North Andaman 432
,, 15. Section across the middle of four Semang bows 434
,, 16. Fish-arrow of the Great Andaman 437
,, 17. Head of pig-arrow, Great Andaman 437
,, 18. Pig-arrow with detachable head, Great Andaman 437
,, 19. Method of making the cord of the Great Andaman
pig-arrow 437
,, 20. Pig-arrow, Little Andaman 440
,, 21. Head of Jarawa pig-arrow 440
,, 22. Arrow with head of Areca wood, Great Andaman 440
,, 23. Harpoon, Great Andaman 440
,, 24. Turtle net, South Andaman 442
,, 25. Knot used in making the North Andaman turtle net 443
,, 26. North Andaman fish-gig 444
,, 27. Boar’s tusk, used as a spokeshave 448
,, 28. Adze and knife 449
,, 29. Method of making bamboo mat, Little Andaman 456
,, 30. Diagram showing the technique used in making
mats of thatch 457
,, 31. Diagram showing the technique used in Great
Andaman mats 457
,, 32 a, 32 b. Pot, tied up for carrying, North
Andaman 459, 460
,, 33. Basket for carrying pot, South Andaman 461
,, 34. Portion of basket of Little Andaman 462
,, 35. Portion of basket of South Andaman 464
,, 36. Pig’s skull with basket-work, Jarawa 466
,, 37. Diagram showing netting needle, and method of
netting 471
,, 38. Shape of North Andaman pot 473
,, 39. Shape of South Andaman pot 474
,, 40. Necklaces of mangrove seed-tops, Great Andaman 480
,, 41. Diagram showing method of making ornamental cord,
Little Andaman 481
,, 42. Designs incised or painted on belts of Pandanus
leaf, Great Andaman 484
,, 43. Designs on bamboo necklace from the North Andaman 485
,, 44. Transverse section of canoe and outrigger 487
,, 45. Showing manner in which the boom is connected
with the float 488
,, 46. Paddle 489
INTRODUCTION
The Andaman Islands are part of a chain of islands stretching from Cape
Negrais in Burma to Achin Head in Sumatra. This line of islands forms a
single geographical system, as it were a submarine range of mountains,
the highest points rising here and there above the surface of the
ocean. Some 80 miles or so from Cape Negrais lies the first of the
islands in the chain, Preparis Island, between which and the mainland
the sea depth does not exceed 100 fathoms. Southwards of this the
submarine ridge sinks to a depth of about 150 fathoms, rising again to
form the small group of islands known as the Cocos, some 50 miles from
Preparis. Geographically the Cocos may be regarded as part of the
Andaman Group. Landfall Island, the most northerly point of the
Andamans proper, is only distant from them some 30 miles, and the sea
depth between does not exceed 45 fathoms. The Andaman Group itself
consists of the Great and Little Andaman with their outlying islets,
and occupies a distance approximately north and south of about 210
miles. Eighty miles to the south of the Andamans lie the Nicobar
Islands, a scattered archipelago occupying a distance of about 160
miles from north to south. The sea between the Andamans and the
Nicobars is over 700 fathoms deep. Deep sea also divides the Nicobars
from Sumatra, which is about 110 miles distant from the most southerly
point of Great Nicobar.
This line of islands is part of a long fold extending from the eastern
end of the Himalayas, which includes the Arakan Yomah Range of Burma
and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and finds its continuation in the
islands off the west coast of Sumatra [3].
On the west the Andamans are separated from the coast of Madras, 700
miles distant, by the Sea of Bengal. On the east the Andaman Sea, a
depression with a depth of over 1000 fathoms, separates the Andamans
and Nicobars from the Malay Isthmus and Peninsula. Across the Andaman
Sea, less than 100 miles distant from the Andamans, there runs a line
of volcanic activity, marked by two small islands, Barren Island in
Lat. 12° 15´ N. and Long. 93° 50´ E., and Narkondam in Lat. 13° 26´ N.
and Long. 95° 15´ E. [4]
The Cocos, the Andamans and the Nicobars are now part of the Indian
Empire. The Cocos Islands are occupied by a station for wireless
telegraphy. In the Andaman Islands there is a penal settlement at Port
Blair, to which are sent the criminals of India and Burma. The Nicobars
are treated as one with the Andamans for administrative purposes.
Until the nineteenth century the Cocos Islands were uninhabited. The
Andamans and the Nicobars have for many centuries been inhabited by two
entirely different races. The Andamanese belong to that branch of the
human species known to anthropologists as the Negrito race. They are
short of stature with black skins and frizzy hair. The Nicobarese, on
the other hand, resemble the races of Indo-China and Malaya, and have
brown skins and lank hair, and are of medium stature.
The Andaman Islands consist of the Great Andaman and the Little
Andaman, and a number of smaller islands. The Great Andaman may be
regarded as one island, although it is divided by narrow sea water
creeks into four areas, often spoken of as separate islands and called
North Andaman, Middle Andaman, Baratang and South Andaman. It is a long
narrow stretch of land with a much indented coast, surrounded by many
smaller islands, of which the most important are Interview Island off
the west coast, Ritchie’s Archipelago on the east, Rutland Island at
the extreme south, and the outlying North Sentinel Island. The length
of the Great Andaman with Rutland Island is nearly 160 miles, while the
breadth from sea to sea is nowhere more than 20 miles. The Little
Andaman lies to the south of the Great Andaman, about 30 miles distant
from Rutland Island, from which it is separated by a shallow strait
with a maximum depth of only 21 fathoms. The island is about 26 miles
long from north to south and about 16 miles wide.
Viewed from the sea the islands appear as a series of hills, nowhere of
any great height, covered from sky-line to high-water mark with dense
and lofty forest. The hill-ranges run approximately north and south, in
the same direction as the islands themselves, and attain a greater
elevation on the east than on the west. The highest point of the North
Andaman is Saddle Peak (2402 feet), that of Middle Andaman is Mt
Diavolo (1678 feet), while the South Andaman has the Mt Harriett Range
(1505 feet), and in Rutland Island there is Mt Foord (1422 feet). There
are no streams of any size. The water drains from the hills into tidal
creeks running through mangrove swamps, often many miles in length. The
coast is broken by a number of magnificent harbours. The shores are
fringed with extensive coral reefs, and on these and in the creeks
there is abundance of fish and molluscs.
The islands, save for the clearings of the Penal Settlement, are
covered with dense tropical forest. There are few mammals, the only two
of any size being a species of pig (Sus andamanensis, Blyth) and a
civet-cat (Paradoxurus tytlerii, Tytler). The other mammals are a few
species of rats, a tree-shrew and some species of bats. Of birds there
are many different species, some of them peculiar to the islands. The
reptiles include a considerable number of species of snakes, and a few
species of lizards, of which the most noteworthy is the large Monitor
lizard (Varanus salvator).
The climate is warm and moist, and fairly uniform throughout the year.
The mean temperature for the year at Port Blair is about 86° F. (80° F.
on the wet bulb thermometer). The lowest temperatures are recorded in
January and February, and the highest in March, April, or May. The
average lowest temperature in the South Andaman over a period of seven
years is 66·7° F., the minimum during that period being 63° F. The
average highest temperature in the shade for the same period was 96°
F., the maximum being 97°. The average diurnal variation is 10°.
The average rainfall of seven stations in the Penal Settlement of Port
Blair, for a period of seven years, was 138 inches per annum, the
averages of the different stations varying from 104 to 172 inches. For
the same period the average number of rainy days in the year was 177,
the minimum being 160 and the maximum 196.
The islands are sufficiently far from the Equator to have a single
well-defined rainy season. The greater part of the rain falls during
the south-west monsoon, which lasts from the middle of May to the
middle of November. The north-east monsoon extends over the other six
months of the year, which include the dry and hot seasons.
The average weather can be shown most conveniently by means of a
calendar.
January. Cool; little or no rain; wind N.N.E.; nights sometimes foggy.
February. Cool; little or no rain; wind N.N.E.; very clear; light airs.
March. Hot by day, cool nights; little or no rain; wind N.N.E.; light
airs, occasional haze; the weather gets hotter as the month passes.
April. Very hot; little or no rain; wind variable, off-shore at night
and on-shore by day; calm and hazy.
May. The first half of the month like April; the south-west monsoon
sets in about the 15th; the remainder of the month cooler and with wind
W.S.W.
June. Fairly cool; heavy rains; wind W.S.W., squally.
July. }
}
August. } Do. do. do. do.
}
September. }
October. Variable wind and weather; generally some calm weather;
waterspouts may occur.
November. During the first half of the month the wind and weather are
very uncertain; a cyclone may occur; after the middle of the month the
north-east monsoon sets in.
December. Fairly cool; not much rain; wind N.N.E.
Many of the violent cyclonic storms that sweep across the Sea of Bengal
seem to form themselves a little to the south of the Andamans. Cyclones
of exceptional violence struck Port Cornwallis in 1844 and Port Blair
in 1864 and 1891.
The aborigines of the Andaman Islands have been in their present home
for a great many centuries. It is not possible to say with any degree
of certainty how or when they first reached the islands. Geological and
other evidence would seem to show that the Andamans were united to the
mainland along the line of the Arakan Fold in later Tertiary times, but
even this is perhaps not quite certain [5]. In any case the period of
past land connection seems to be so remote that it had probably ceased
to exist at the time when the islands were peopled by the ancestors of
the present natives. If the ancestors of the Andamanese reached the
islands at the time of a past land connection, they can only have done
so from the Arakan region of Burma. On the other hand, if they
travelled by sea they must almost certainly have started from the
Burmese coast (Pegu or Arakan). The north-east monsoon would drift them
thence on to the Andamans. It is conceivable that they might have
travelled from Sumatra by way of the Nicobars, but the north-east
monsoon would have opposed their progress in this direction, while the
south-west monsoon would have driven them to the east of the Andamans
[6]. It is hardly possible to imagine them coming from the Malay
Peninsula across the wide stretch of the Andaman Sea. The balance of
probability is in favour of the view that the Andamans were peopled,
either by sea or by land, from the region of Lower Burma.
Of the Negrito race, to which the Andamanese belong, there are two
other branches still in existence. The first of these consists of the
people who may be conveniently spoken of as the Semang, inhabiting the
interior of the Malay Peninsula between 5° and 7° N. Latitude. The
other branch of this primitive race is found in the interior of the
Philippine Islands. From their present distribution it is clear that
the Negritos must at some long past time have wandered over a wide area
in south-eastern Asia. The connection between the Andamanese and the
Semang can only have been either through Sumatra and the Nicobars, or,
more probably, by way of Lower Burma. Communication between the Malay
Peninsula and the Philippine Islands must have been either by way of
Borneo or Celebes, or else by way of Annam and Cochin China. It is
certainly many centuries, and probably many thousands of years, since
the three surviving branches of the race were cut off from all
communication with each other [7].
In the Malay Peninsula and in the Philippines the Negritos have for a
long time been living in contact with other races. They have been
driven back from the coasts and fertile valleys into the less
accessible districts. There is ample evidence that they have adopted
many of the customs of the races around them, and have even adopted to
a great extent the language of their alien neighbours. The original
Negrito culture and language and even perhaps the original physical
type have been modified in these two branches of the race.
In the case of the Andaman Islanders it is possible that they have been
entirely isolated in their island home, and have not been affected by
contact with other races, but have been free to develop their own
culture in adaptation to their own environment. If a hypothesis to this
effect were accepted we should see in the Andamanese the direct
descendants, in physical character, in language, and in culture, of the
original Negrito race. In historical times it is known that the islands
have been avoided by mariners navigating the adjacent seas, owing to
the fact that the natives attacked all strangers who landed or were
wrecked upon their shores. Moreover, the islands offered little
inducement to visitors or settlers. The coconut, which is one of the
mainstays of life in tropical islands, was not found in the Andamans
prior to the first European settlement.
The earliest authentic reference to the Andaman Islands seems to be
that of two Arab travellers dating from A.D. 871. In the eighteenth
century the Abbé Renaudot translated the account of these travels. Of
the Andamans we read, “Au de-là de ces deux Isles on trouve la mer
appellée d’Andeman. Les peuples qui habitent sur la coste, mangent de
la chair humaine, toute cruë. Ils sont noirs, ils ont les cheveux
crespus, le visage et les yeux affreux, les pieds fort grands et
presque longs d’une coudée, et ils vont tout nuds. Ils n’ont point de
barques, et s’ils en avoient ils ne mangeroient pas tous les passants
qu’ils peuvent attraper. Les vaisseaux se trouvant retardez dans leur
route par les vents contraires, sont souvent obligez dans ces mers de
mouiller à la coste où sont ces Barbares pour y faire de l’eau, lors
qu’ils ont consommé celle qu’ils avoient à bord. Ils en attrapent
souvent quelques-uns, mais la pluspart se sauvent [8].”
It would seem that the Chinese and Japanese knew the islands in the
first millenium A.D., and referred to them by the names Yeng-t’o-mang
and Andaban respectively [9]. Marco Polo gives a brief notice of the
islands. “Angaman is a very large island, not governed by a king. The
inhabitants are idolaters, and are a most brutish and savage race,
having heads, eyes, and teeth resembling those of the canine species.
Their dispositions are cruel, and every person, not being of their own
nation, whom they can lay their hands upon, they kill and eat [10].”
Some of Marco Polo’s statements about the Andamans, as that the natives
live on rice and milk, and that they have coconuts, and plantains, are
incorrect. It is evident that all he knew of the islands was derived
from hearsay. The passage quoted is only of importance as showing that
the reputation of the Andamanese was such as to cause them to be feared
and avoided.
A more trustworthy account is that of Master Caesar Frederike, who
passed near the Nicobars in 1566. “From Nicubar to Pegu is, as it were,
a row or chain of an infinite number of islands, of which many are
inhabited with wild people; and they call those islands the Islands of
Andemaon, and they call 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 so 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 lost there that
escapeth uneaten or unslain. These people have not any acquaintance
with any other people, neither have they trade with any, but live only
of such fruits as those islands yield [11].”
There are numerous references to the Andamans in the seventeenth and
eighteenth century, and all of them show that the islands were feared
and avoided. During these and the previous centuries wrecks must have
occurred in considerable numbers, and it is probable, from what is now
known of the natives, that the mariners would be immediately slain.
Visits were also paid by ships whose water supply had run out, and by
Malay pirates. There is evidence that boats, either Malay or Chinese,
sometimes visited the islands in search of edible birds’ nests and
trepang. In some cases Andamanese were captured and carried off as
slaves. It is extremely improbable that such visitors ever succeeded in
establishing friendly relations with the islanders.
There is one way in which the life of the Andamanese was affected by
the vessels that visited or were wrecked upon their shores, since it
was by this means that they learnt the use of iron.
It is impossible now to determine the date at which they became
acquainted with the metal. The earliest reference to the subject is in
an account of a visit to the Andamans in 1771, where it is shown that
the natives were at that time aware of the value of iron [12]. Until
the middle of the nineteenth century the only supply of the metal was
from wrecks, of which there have always been a fair number.
Until the end of the eighteenth century there was no attempt made to
open up communication with the Andaman Islands, although the Nicobar
Islands were the scene of several attempts to establish a colony. In
1788, owing to the menace to shipping constituted by the islands and
their inhabitants, the East India Company, under Lord Cornwallis,
commissioned Archibald Blair to start a settlement, convicts being sent
as labourers. The settlement was founded in September, 1789, in the
harbour now known as Port Blair, but then called Port Cornwallis. In
spite of the hostility of the natives the colony seems to have been
successful. In 1792 it was transferred from the first site to the
harbour in the North Andaman now known as Port Cornwallis. The transfer
was made with the idea of creating a naval base, for which the spot
chosen was well adapted. Unfortunately the new site proved to be very
unhealthy, and in 1796 the scheme was abandoned, the convicts were
transferred to Penang, and the settlers returned to India.
During the next sixty years the islands remained unoccupied save by the
aborigines. There were a number of wrecks in different parts of the
islands, and in some cases the crews were slain. In 1839 a geologist,
Dr Helfer, visited the islands in the hope of finding minerals, and was
killed by the natives. In 1844 two transports, the Briton and the
Runnymede, were wrecked in a cyclone on Ritchie’s Archipelago, one of
the ships being thrown high up over a reef into a mangrove swamp. The
crew and soldiers were safely landed, and were eventually rescued with
hardly any loss of life. As they were a large party they were safe from
the possible attacks of the natives, and they lived on stores rescued
from the wrecks.
In view of the number of wrecks that occurred on the islands and the
desirability of establishing there some harbour where vessels might
safely call for water or shelter from storms, the East India Company
again considered the question of colonizing the Andamans. When the
Company, at the end of the Indian Mutiny, found themselves with a large
number of prisoners on their hands, it was decided to create a new
Penal Settlement, and the site of the settlement of 1788 was chosen for
this purpose, and renamed Port Blair.
The Penal Settlement was established in March 1858, and has been in
existence ever since. The aborigines were hostile from the outset, and
gave much trouble by their raids. They made a determined effort to oust
the invaders from their country. To establish friendly relations with
them an institution known as the Andamanese Homes was founded, to
provide free rations and lodging, and medical attendance, to such of
them as could be induced to visit the Settlement. Through the efforts
of successive officers in charge of these Homes friendly relations were
established, first of all with the Aka-Bea tribe in the neighbourhood
of Port Blair, then with other tribes of the South Andaman, and at a
later date with the inhabitants of the North Andaman and the Little
Andaman. At the present day there is only one body of Andamanese still
persistently hostile, and these are the so-called J̌a̤rawa of the
interior of the South Andaman. These J̌a̤rawa, since about 1870, have
made repeated attacks on isolated parties of convicts and forest
workers and on the friendly Andamanese. Punitive expeditions have been
sent against them on several occasions, and attempts to set up friendly
relations with them have been made by leaving presents in their huts,
and by capturing some of them and keeping them for a time at Port
Blair. At the present time the J̌a̤rawa are as hostile as ever.
Although of one race throughout, the Andaman Islanders are divided into
several groups, with differences of language and culture. There are two
main divisions, which will be spoken of as the Great Andaman Group and
the Little Andaman Group respectively. The Great Andaman Group includes
all the natives of the Great Andaman with the exception of those of the
interior of the South Andaman who are known as J̌a̤rawa. The Little
Andaman Group includes all the inhabitants of the Little Andaman, those
of the North Sentinel Island and the J̌a̤rawa of the South Andaman.
These two different divisions exhibit many differences of language and
culture. All the languages of the Great Andaman Group are closely
related to one another. They have the same grammatical structure, and a
large number of roots are the same in all or in several of them. In the
same way the language of the J̌a̤rawa, so far as it is known, is very
similar to that of the natives of the Little Andaman. On the other hand
when the language of the Little Andaman is compared with the Great
Andaman languages there is a very striking difference. Of a vocabulary
of several hundred words collected in the Little Andaman there were
less than a dozen in which the root or stem was clearly the same as
that of words in the Great Andaman. While the grammatical structure of
the languages of the two groups is fundamentally the same, this can
only be shown in a somewhat detailed analysis, and there are many
important differences.
With regard to technical culture the same grouping appears. There is a
general similarity between all the tribes of the Great Andaman Group,
while the J̌a̤rawa and the inhabitants of the Little Andaman have a
technical culture of their own that is markedly different from that of
the other division.
The natives of the Great Andaman Group are divided into tribes, of
which there are ten, each with its own distinctive language or dialect,
and with a name. The following is a list of these tribes, passing from
north to south:—Aka-Čari, Aka-Ko̱ra, Aka-Bo, Aka-J̌eru, Aka-Kede,
Aka-Ko̱l, O̱ko̱-J̌uwo̱i, A-Pučikwar, Akar-Bale, and Aka-Bea. In each case
the name is given in the form in which it is used by the tribe itself.
Thus the Aka-Bea speak of the A-Pučikwar as Aka-Boǰig-yab, and refer to
the Akar-Bale as Aka-Bala-wa, and there are similar variants of other
tribal names.
The natives of the Little Andaman refer to themselves as Önge (men). It
is probable that the so-called J̌a̤rawa of the South Andaman have the
same word. In a vocabulary obtained by Colebrooke in 1790 from a J̌a̤rawa
near Port Blair, the word Mincopie is given as meaning a native of the
Andaman Islands. This would seem to be simply the same phrase as the
Little Andaman M’önge-bi = I am Önge, or I am a “man.” The word J̌a̤rawa
is apparently derived from the Aka-Bea language, but is now used by all
the friendly natives (i.e. the natives of the Great Andaman Group) to
denote those of the Little Andaman Group. In the official publications
dealing with the Andamans, however, the term J̌a̤rawa has come to be
applied solely to the hostile natives of the Great Andaman. It is in
this sense that the word is used in the present work, the name Önge
being reserved for the natives of the Little Andaman. It must be
remembered, however, that the so-called J̌a̤rawa probably call themselves
Önge, while the Önge of the Little Andaman are called J̌a̤rawa by the
natives of the friendly tribes of the Great Andaman. The name Mincopie
was at one time common in ethnological literature as a term for the
Andaman Islanders.
It is convenient to divide the tribes of the Great Andaman Group into
two subdivisions, to be spoken of as the Northern Group (including the
first four tribes mentioned above) and the Southern Group (including
the other six tribes). Between these two divisions there are a number
of differences of culture. They have, for example, different forms of
bow, and different kinds of baskets. The differences between them are
much slighter than those between the Great Andaman tribes and the
natives of the Little Andaman, but they are of sufficient importance to
make it necessary to distinguish them from one another.
The different divisions of the Andamanese may for convenience be set
out in the form of a table.
I. Great Andaman Group.
A. Northern Group, including the tribes:—
Aka-Čari,
Aka-Ko̱ra,
Aka-Bo,
Aka-J̌eru.
B. Southern Group, including the tribes:—
Aka-Kede,
Aka-Ko̱l,
O̱ko̱-J̌uwo̱i,
A-Pučikwar,
Akar-Bale,
Aka-Bea.
II. Little Andaman Group.
A. The inhabitants of the Little Andaman (Önge).
B. The J̌a̤rawa of the South Andaman.
C. The inhabitants of the North Sentinel Island.
The distribution of these different groups as it was in 1858 is shown
on the map.
There is one important feature of this distribution that requires a few
words of explanation, and that is the presence in the South Andaman of
the J̌a̤rawa who are allied by language and technical culture to the
natives of the Little Andaman. There can be no doubt that the J̌a̤rawa
are the descendants of emigrants who at some time in the past made
their way across from the Little Andaman and thrust themselves in upon
the inhabitants of Rutland Island and the South Andaman, maintaining
their footing in the new country by force of arms.
The identity of the flora and fauna of the Little Andaman with those of
the Great Andaman and the shallowness of the strait between the
islands, suggests that at no very remote period they have been united
by a continuous land connection. Whether or not this connection existed
at the time when the islands were first peopled, it is at any rate
reasonable to suppose that the original ancestors of the present
Andamanese had one language and one culture. Once the Little Andaman
was peopled, the strait between it and the Great Andaman seems to have
acted as an effective barrier, to keep the two divisions of the race
apart for many centuries. During the period of this separation each
division followed its own line of development, with the result that
there arose the considerable differences of language and culture that
now exist.
At a much later date than this separation of the Andamanese into two
isolated groups, and after the typical differences of language and
culture had been developed, a party of natives must have made their way
by canoe from the north of the Little Andaman to Rutland Island. They
would have found that country occupied by natives of the Great Andaman
Group. In spite of this they succeeded in establishing themselves in
the South Andaman, and became the progenitors of the present J̌a̤rawa.
Owing to the difference of language all communication between the
Little Andaman invaders and those already occupying the invaded country
would be impossible. (At the present day a native of the Little Andaman
cannot make himself understood to a native of one of the Great Andaman
tribes.) The result has been that the J̌a̤rawa have lived in a state of
constant warfare with their neighbours, and this hostility has lasted
down to the present day.
It is only on the above hypothesis that it is possible to explain how
it comes about that we find in the South Andaman people with language
and technical culture very similar to that of the Little Andaman, and
differing from that of the remaining inhabitants of the Great Andaman.
It is impossible to say how long it is since this invasion from the
Little Andaman took place. At the end of the eighteenth century the
J̌a̤rawa were to be found in the neighbourhood of Port Blair. Lieutenant
Colebrooke in 1790 came across an individual of this tribe and obtained
from him a vocabulary. A comparison of this vocabulary with the
language of the Little Andaman shows it to be essentially the same
language [13].
A few words must be said on the position of the natives of the North
Sentinel Island. Almost nothing is known of these people. What little
information is available concerning their weapons and implements seems
to point to their belonging to the Little Andaman Division. There is no
communication between them and either the Great Andaman or the Little
Andaman. It is possible that they have been separated from the other
Andamanese as long as those of the Little Andaman have been separated
from those of the Great Andaman, and would therefore constitute a third
separate division. The South Sentinel Island is uninhabited.
The total area of the Andamans is estimated to be about 2500 square
miles. This area is divided as follows:—
Sq. miles.
North Andaman, being the territory of the four tribes 540
Aka-Cari, Aka-Kora, Aka-Bo, and Aka-Jeru
Middle Andaman and Baratang, occupied by four tribes, 790
Aka-Kede, Aka-Kol, Oko-Juwoi and A-Pucikwar
The Archipelago, occupied by the Akar-Bale tribe 140
The South Andaman, occupied by the Aka-Bea and the Jarawa 630
North Sentinel Island 30
Little Andaman 370
----
2500
It is not possible to give accurately the area occupied by each tribe,
as the boundaries are difficult to discover. The Aka-Bea is in an
exceptional position, as there was no definite boundary between them
and the J̌a̤rawa. The two parties of natives lived in the same territory
at enmity with each other. It would seem that the Aka-Bea kept on the
whole more to the coast, while the J̌a̤rawa lived in the interior.
Leaving aside the Aka-Bea, the largest of the Great Andaman tribes, as
regards area of territory, was the Aka-Kede, which possessed over 300
square miles. After this tribe in order of size come the A-Pučikwar,
Aka-J̌eru and Aka-Ko̱ra tribes, while the smaller ones are the O̱ko̱-J̌uwo̱i,
Aka-Ko̱l, Aka-Bo, Akar-Bale and Aka-Čari, the last being perhaps the
smallest of all.
In 1901 an enumeration of the natives of the Great Andaman was
attempted in connection with the census of India. Such an enumeration
was of course very difficult, and liable to considerable error. The
results are given in the following table:—
Name of Tribe Adults Children Total
Males Females Males Females
Aka-Cari 16 15 6 2 39
Aka-Kora 31 32 14 19 96
Aka-Bo 15 16 7 10 48
Aka-Jeru 98 80 26 14 218
Aka-Kede 24 30 3 2 59
Aka-Kol 6 2 3 11
Oko-Juwoi 21 19 7 1 48
A-Pucikwar 31 14 2 3 50
Akar-Bale 5 10 3 1 19
Aka-Bea 14 16 3 4 37
--- --- -- -- ---
Total 261 234 74 56 625
These figures are likely to be more accurate for the southern tribes
(the last five on the list) than for the northern tribes. It is
probable that, in the North Andaman, some of the persons enumerated
were entered under the wrong tribe. For many years the officers of the
Andamans did not know of the existence of the Aka-Ko̱ra and Aka-Bo
tribes, and members of these tribes have fallen into the habit of
describing themselves to Europeans as either Aka-J̌eru or Aka-Čari. My
own opinion is that the numbers given for the Aka-J̌eru tribe are too
large, while those of the Aka-Ko̱ra and Aka-Bo, and perhaps also the
Aka-Kede, are too small.
For the census of 1901 an attempt was made to estimate the numbers of
the J̌a̤rawa and the natives of the Little Andaman, any attempt at
enumeration being impossible. The estimate given was as follows:—
Little Andaman 672
South Andaman Jarawa 117
Rutland Island Jarawa 351
North Sentinel Island 117
----
Total 1257
This estimate is not of any great value. As regards the Little Andaman,
my own information would lead me to estimate their numbers at between
600 and 700, thus agreeing with the estimate above. Concerning the
North Sentinel Island nothing is known on which a satisfactory estimate
could be based. The figures for the Rutland Island J̌a̤rawa are certainly
very much too high. In 1907 I spent some weeks on Rutland Island trying
to get into touch with the J̌a̤rawa there. At that time there were
certainly not more than 50 all told on the island. I was only able to
discover one camp, and that had been deserted just before it was
discovered, but had not contained a dozen persons. The Rutland Island
J̌a̤rawa have been cut off from the other J̌a̤rawa by the spread of the
convict Settlement since about 1885. The majority of the J̌a̤rawa now
inhabit the interior and western coast of the South Andaman north of
Port Blair.
During the last fifty years the numbers of the Andamanese have been
greatly diminished. This has been the result of the European occupation
of the islands, and is chiefly due to new diseases that have been
introduced amongst them. Syphilis was introduced among the tribes of
the South Andaman about 1870, and this has now spread among all the
Great Andaman tribes (that is, excluding the hostile J̌a̤rawa). A large
number of natives are infected, and the disease is responsible directly
and indirectly for a considerable increase in the death-rate. In March,
1877, an epidemic of measles broke out among the Andamanese, introduced
with a batch of convicts from Madras, and spread rapidly from one end
of the Great Andaman to the other. In six weeks 51 out of 184 cases
treated in hospital proved fatal. It is almost certain that the
proportion of deaths was much greater in the case of those, the vast
majority, to whom no medical aid could be given. A writer on the
Andamans [14] has estimated that the mortality from measles and its
sequelae was one-half if not two-thirds of the whole population of the
Great Andaman. Other diseases which were formerly unknown to the
islands seem also to have been introduced, including influenza.
While the death-rate amongst the friendly Andamanese has been
enormously increased, the birth-rate has at the same time fallen to
almost nothing. This is evident from the proportion of adults to
children in the population table given above. In 1907, out of a total
of about 500 natives whom I saw at different times, there were not more
than a dozen children of less than five years old. A birth is a rare
occurrence, and of the children born very few survive infancy.
This decrease of population has not as yet affected the Little Andaman.
The natives of this island have had very little contact with the Penal
Settlement or with the tribes of the Great Andaman, and have thus
escaped the diseases which are mainly responsible for the depopulation
of the larger island.
Several attempts have been made to estimate the former population of
the Andamans. In the “Census Report” for 1901 the estimate given is
4800 for the whole group. Mr M. V. Portman has given an estimate of
8000. It seemed to me that one of these is too small and the other too
large. Judging from what it is possible to learn about the habits of
the natives, and the food supply available, I should estimate that the
former population of the islands (in 1858) was about 5500 [15]. An
estimate for the proportion of the different groups is as follows:—
Estimated former Density per
population. square mile.
North Andaman (four tribes) 1500 2·75
Middle Andaman with Baratang 2250 2·5
and Ritchie’s Archipelago
South Andaman (Aka-Bea and Jarawa) 1200 2·0
Little Andaman and North Sentinel 700 1·75
---- ----
Total 5650 2·25
With regard to the comparative density per square mile of the different
groups it may be pointed out that the reason for the smaller density of
the South Andaman is the fact that the Aka-Bea and J̌a̤rawa were living
there at war with one another, and the territory was therefore probably
not so fully occupied as in other parts of the islands where boundaries
between neighbouring tribes were well defined. The food supply of the
Little Andaman does not seem to be so abundant as that of the Great
Andaman in proportion to its area. It must be remembered that length of
coast-line is of more importance to the Andamanese than the actual area
of their country. The natives of the Little Andaman are not able to
harpoon turtle and large fish, which constitute an important element of
the food supply of the tribes of the Great Andaman.
If the figures of the above estimate be correct, it will be seen that
the population of the North Andaman has been reduced in less than fifty
years (1858–1901) to about 27 per cent. of its former volume, while in
the same period the population of the Middle Andaman and South Andaman
has been reduced to about 18 per cent. As the tribes in the south were
the first to come into contact with the Settlement, their numbers have
diminished more rapidly than those of the northern tribes. It is
probable that in another fifty years the natives of the Great Andaman
tribes will be extinct.
The diminution of population has combined with other causes to alter
considerably the mode of life of the islanders. What were formerly
distinct and often hostile communities are now merged together. The
different languages have become corrupt, and some tribes have adopted
customs of other tribes and have abandoned their own. Most of the
younger men and women of the friendly tribes of the Great Andaman now
speak a little Hindustani (Urdu) in a somewhat corrupt form. The
friendly natives are under the charge of an officer of the Settlement,
known as the Officer in Charge of the Andamanese. A Home and Hospital
are provided for them in Port Blair, and natives from all parts, even
from the extreme north, go there either to be treated in the Hospital
or to stay at the Home. During certain parts of the year some of the
natives are employed in collecting trepang (bêche de mer) under the
direction of petty officers, who are natives of India or Burma. The
trepang, together with wild honey and shells collected by the
Andamanese, is sold, and the money is devoted to the service of the
Andamanese Department. There is also a grant of money from the
Government of India, in return for which the Officer in Charge must,
when necessary, provide Andamanese to track and capture any convicts
who may run away from the Penal Settlement. The funds thus made
available serve to provide the natives with blankets, cloth, iron tools
and scrap iron, rice, sugar, tea and tobacco. The result of this system
is that there is a free circulation of natives in all parts of the
Great Andaman. Whereas, formerly, the natives kept carefully to their
own part of the country, they now make long journeys, either in their
own canoes, or in Government launches, and members of the northern
tribes are to be found at Port Blair and elsewhere in the south, while
men and women of the southern tribes are to be found engaged in
collecting trepang in the north.
The natives of the Little Andaman have as yet scarcely been affected by
these changes. Within recent years, however, some of the natives of the
northern part of the Little Andaman have been in the habit of making
periodical visits to Rutland Island in their canoes, and occasionally
come as far as Port Blair. Their chief reason for visiting the
Settlement is to obtain iron for their arrows and adzes, but they have
also begun to appreciate sugar and tobacco.
The manners and customs of the Andaman Islanders have formed the
subject of a number of writings. By far the most important of these is
a work by Mr E. H. Man, who was for some years an officer of the Penal
Settlement of Port Blair, and for four years of that time was in charge
of the Andamanese Home. Mr Man made a special study of the language of
the Aka-Bea tribe and compiled an extensive vocabulary, which, however,
has never been published. His observations on the manners and customs
of this tribe and others of the South Andaman were published in the
Journal of the Anthropological Institute of the year 1882 (Volume XII),
and were reprinted in the form of a book On the Aboriginal Inhabitants
of the Andaman Islands. As the reprint is difficult to obtain, the
references to Mr Man’s work in the chapters that follow are all to the
pages of the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Volume XII.
Another writer on the Andamanese is Mr M. V. Portman, who was for some
years an officer of the Andaman Commission, and was for a long time in
charge of the Andamanese. His Manual of the Andamanese Languages,
London, 1887, is full of errors and entirely unreliable. A later work,
entitled Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group of Tribes,
Calcutta, 1898, is of much greater value, and though not entirely free
from errors, is on the whole useful and accurate. Mr Portman has also
compiled A History of Our Relations with the Andamanese (2 volumes,
Calcutta, 1899), which contains a mass of information on the subject
with which it deals, but does not add very much to our knowledge of the
Andamanese themselves. The British Museum possesses an excellent
collection of photographs of the Andamanese taken by Mr Portman.
A good general description of the islands and of their inhabitants by
Colonel Sir Richard Temple, who was for many years Chief Commissioner
of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, is contained in Volume III of the
Census of India, 1901, here referred to as “Census Report” 1901.
CHAPTER I
THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION
In the present chapter we are to deal with the customs and institutions
by which the natives of the Great Andaman regulate the conduct of
persons one to another. At the outset it is necessary to get as clear
an idea as possible of the structure of the Andamanese society. That
structure, as will be shown, is extremely simple.
What is really of interest to the ethnologist is the social
organisation of these tribes as it existed before the European
occupation of the islands. The changes that have taken place in recent
years have been extensive, the most important being the great
diminution in numbers and the merging together of what were formerly
distinct and often hostile communities. It is fairly easy, however, to
discover from the natives themselves what was the constitution of the
society in former times, though there remain a few points about which
no satisfactory information can be obtained.
When the islands were first occupied by the British, before
depopulation had affected their institutions, the natives of the Great
Andaman were to be found living in small communities scattered over the
islands, mostly on the coast, but some of them in the forest of the
interior of the island. Each such community, which will be spoken of as
a “local group,” was independent and autonomous, leading its own life
and regulating its own affairs. Each group had occasional relations
with other neighbouring groups; visitors might pass from one to
another; or the two groups might meet together for a few days and join
in feasting and dancing. On the other hand there were often quarrels
between neighbouring groups, which might result in a state of feud
between them for many months. Between communities separated from one
another by a distance of only 50 miles or even less there were no
direct relations whatever. The members of one community kept to their
own part of the country, only leaving it to visit their friends within
a narrow radius.
These local groups were united into what are here called tribes. A
tribe consisted of a number of local groups all speaking what the
natives themselves regard as one language, each tribe having its own
language and its name. The tribe was of very little importance in
regulating the social life, and was merely a loose aggregate of
independent local groups.
The local groups are further distinguished by the natives themselves as
being of two kinds according as they lived on the coast or inland. This
division was independent of that into tribes. Some tribes consisted of
coast-dwellers only, while others included both coast-dwellers and
forest-dwellers.
Within the local group the only division was that into families. A
family consists of a man and his wife and their unmarried children own
or adopted.
These were the only social divisions existing among the Andamanese, who
were without any of those divisions known as “clans” which are
characteristic of many primitive societies.
The natives of the Great Andaman (leaving aside the J̌a̤rawa, who by
language and culture belong to the Little Andaman division of the race)
are divided into ten tribes, each occupying a certain area of country.
Each tribe consists of a number of persons who speak what is regarded
by the natives themselves as one language. That the tribe is
fundamentally a linguistic group is shown by the tribal names. These
are all formed from a stem with the prefix aka-, which prefix is used
in the languages of the Great Andaman to convey a reference to the
mouth and thereby to the function of speech. Thus in the Aka-J̌eru
language the stem poŋ means “a hole of any kind,” and aka-poŋ means
“the mouth,” there being no other word for that part of the body. In
the same language the stem -ar- meaning “to talk” can only be used with
the prefix aka-, as ak’-ar-ka, “he says.” The prefix which is
characteristic of the tribal names, indicates, therefore, that these
are really the names of languages.
The meanings or derivations of some of the tribal names have not been
ascertained with certainty. The name Aka-Čari is derived from the word
čari meaning “salt water,” and therefore means “the salt-water
language.” Similarly the name Aka-J̌eru is derived from ǰeru, a species
of Sterculia from which canoes are made. In the Northern languages the
word ot-bo means “the back” of anything, and oŋ-ko̱ra means “the hand.”
It is possible that the names Aka-Bo and Aka-Ko̱ra are derived from
these stems (the ot- and the oŋ- being prefixes), but there is no
evidence that they are associated with them in the minds of the natives
of the present day. Among the Southern tribes the name Akar-Bale is
derived from a word meaning “the other side” of a creek or strait, thus
referring to their position in the Archipelago. The name A-Pučik-war
(of which the Aka-Bea equivalent is Aka-Boǰig-yab) means “those who
speak our own language,” from a stem pučik (Aka-Bea, boǰig) which means
“belonging to ourselves” as opposed to strangers of the same race. Mr
Portman [16] gives the following meanings of the other tribal names of
the South and Middle Andaman, but the derivations are somewhat
doubtful.
Aka-Bea Fresh water.
O̱ko̱-J̌uwo̱i They cut patterns on their bows.
Aka-Ko̱l Bitter or salt taste.
I may take this opportunity of pointing out two errors in the names of
the tribes given in the “Census Report” of 1901. The name Aka-Čari is
given as Aka-Chariar; the stem -ar- means “to talk” and is not an
essential part of the tribal name; Aka-Čari-ar-bom means “he talks the
Čari language.” The name Aka-Bo is given as Aka-Tabo; t’a-Bo means “I
(am) Aka-Bo,” just as t’a-J̌eru means “I (am) Aka-J̌eru,” the prefix aka-
being contracted to a- after the personal pronoun t’ = I or my.
Although the natives themselves thus recognize and give names to ten
distinct languages, all of them are closely related. There is, on the
whole, not a great deal of difference between two neighbouring
languages. A man of the Aka-J̌eru tribe could understand without any
great difficulty a man speaking Aka-Bo. On the other hand many of the
languages included two or even more distinct dialects. In the Akar-Bale
tribe there were two dialects, one in the southern half of the
Archipelago, which was allied to Aka-Bea, and the other in the northern
half, showing affinities with A-Pučikwar. Even in such a small tribe as
the Aka-Čari it would seem that there were differences of dialect.
Thus, even from the point of view of language, the tribe was not
entirely homogeneous.
Leaving aside the Aka-Bea, the average extent of territory occupied by
a tribe was about 165 square miles. Of the nine tribes the largest, as
regards area, was the Aka-Kede, with over 300 square miles, while the
smallest was probably the Aka-Čari, with less than 100 square miles.
Save in the case of the Akar-Bale tribe, which occupied the islands of
Ritchie’s Archipelago, it is difficult to find any marked geographical
features that might be supposed to have determined the extent and the
boundaries of the different tribes.
The Aka-Bea tribe was in an abnormal position as there was no
recognized boundary between them and the J̌a̤rawa. Together, these two
divisions of the Andamanese occupied an area of about 600 square miles.
The Aka-Bea seem to have kept more to the coast while the J̌a̤rawa
occupied the interior of the South Andaman and Rutland Island.
If the estimate previously given [17] of the former population of the
islands be correct, the nine tribes (leaving aside the Aka-Bea) would
have formerly contained about 3750 persons of all ages. At the present
time the four tribes of the North Andaman number altogether about 400,
of whom about 100 or less are children. The other six tribes taken
together (including the almost extinct Aka-Bea) number about 200, of
whom not more than 30 are children. Mr Man estimated the numbers of the
Aka-Bea tribe (called by him Boǰig-ŋiǰi-da) in 1882 at about 400, and
supposes them to have numbered about 1000 in 1858. In 1901 that tribe
consisted of only 37 persons.
Besides the division into tribes, and independent of it, the Andamanese
recognize another division into coast-dwellers and forest-dwellers. In
the Aka-Bea language the coast-dwellers are called Ar-yoto, while the
forest-dwellers are called Erem-taga. The difference between them is
due solely to the difference of their food supply. The Ar-yoto obtain
much of their food from the sea. They are expert in fishing and turtle
hunting. They make canoes and use them not only for hunting but also
for travelling from one camp to another. Some portion of their food
they also obtain from the forest, edible roots and fruits and the flesh
of the wild pig being the chief. On the other hand the Erem-taga rely
solely on the forest and the inland creeks for their food supply. Their
only use for canoes is in the creeks. They are entirely ignorant of
such matters as turtle or dugong hunting, but they are more at home
than the coast-dwellers in the forest, and are generally more skilful
at pig-hunting. The advantage certainly rests with the coast-dwellers,
for they have both the sea and the forest to draw upon for their
sustenance.
Some tribes consist only of coast-dwellers, such as the Aka-Čari, the
Akar-Bale and perhaps the Aka-Ko̱l. On the other hand the Aka-Bo,
although their territory includes a part of the west coast, are, by
their occupations and mode of life, forest-dwellers, and the same seems
to have been the case of the O̱ko̱-J̌uwo̱i. The A-Pučikwar, the Aka-Kede,
the Aka-J̌eru and perhaps also the Aka-Ko̱ra tribes contained both
coast-dwellers and forest-dwellers.
Each tribe formerly consisted of a number of independent local groups.
The local group, and not the tribe, was the land-owning group, each one
owning or exercising hunting rights over a certain recognized area. At
the present time, owing to the breakdown of the local organisation,
through the settlement of the islands and the resulting decrease of
population, it is difficult to ascertain what area of country was
occupied by each of these local groups. In many cases it would seem
that the boundaries between two neighbouring groups are not very
clearly defined, there being portions of forest over which the members
of both hunted when the groups were at peace [18]. There is no doubt
that in the more favourable localities, particularly on the coast, the
country occupied by a single group was smaller than in places of less
abundant food supply. It is probable that the forest-dwelling local
groups occupied considerably larger areas in each case than the coast
groups. Some of the coast-dwelling groups seem to have occupied areas
of less than ten square miles.
It is not easy to discover at this time exactly what number of persons
would have been included in one local group. Mouat, who visited the
islands in 1857–8, says of the natives, “They are rarely or never seen
living alone, several of their little huts being raised in the same
locality, where they dwell together in numbers varying between thirty
and three hundred [19].” In another passage he states, “They are
generally divided into small groups, the numbers of which vary
considerably, some not containing more than ten individuals, while in
others as many as two or three hundred may be found. The great majority
of these groups of the natives consist on an average of from thirty to
fifty men, women, and children, although sometimes as many as three
hundred are found together [20].” It is probable that, if so small a
party as ten were seen, they were a hunting party spending a day or a
few days away from the main camp. On the other hand so large a number
as three hundred could only be found together on the occasion of one of
the periodical meetings of several local groups for purposes of
festivity. Mouat’s statement that the groups consisted on the average
of from thirty to fifty persons, agrees very well with the statements
of the natives themselves, and may be taken as being fairly accurate.
Mr Man, writing in 1882, speaks of the Andamanese as divided into
communities “each consisting of from twenty to fifty individuals,” and
elsewhere says that “permanent encampments vary in size and consist of
several huts, which in all are rarely inhabited by more than from fifty
to eighty persons [21].”
From the information that I was able to obtain from the natives
themselves I came to the conclusion that an average local group
consisted of from 40 to 50 persons of all ages, the average number of
local groups to a tribe being about 10. This would give the average
extent of country occupied by each local group as about 16 square
miles, but some groups certainly had a larger territory than this and
some had smaller.
Mr M. V. Portman speaks of the tribes of the southern part of the Great
Andaman as being divided into what he calls “septs,” but he does not
explain what he means by that term. He states that the Aka-Bea were
divided into seven septs, the A-Pučikwar into four, the Akar-Bale into
two, while the Aka-Ko̱l and O̱ko̱-J̌uwo̱i had no real subdivisions [22].
Whatever Mr Portman may have meant by the term sept, it is clear that
he did not use it to denote what is here called a local group, but some
larger subdivision of the tribe. What these septs seem to have been are
groups consisting each of four or five local groups having friendly
relations with one another and meeting together occasionally at the
festival gatherings to be described later in the present chapter.
There were, strictly speaking, no distinctive names for the local
groups. A local group might be denoted by a reference to the district
that it occupied or to one of its chief camping places. Thus, in the
Akar-Bale tribe, those occupying the island of Teb-ǰuru were spoken of
as Teb-ǰuru-wa, the word wa meaning “people,” and the inhabitants of
the east coast of Havelock Island were similarly denoted as
Puluga-l’ar-mugu-wa from the name of the district that they occupied.
In the tribes of the North Andaman the word equivalent to wa of the
South is koloko. Some of the local groups of the Aka-Bo tribe were
distinguished as Teraut buliu koloko, Kelera buliu koloko, Teradikili
buliu koloko etc., from the names of the creeks (buliu) that they
occupied. In the Aka-Čari tribe the local group occupying the island of
To̱nmuket and the adjoining mainland were called Taroto̱lo koloko. When a
man was asked to what part of the country he belonged he would
generally answer by mentioning one of the chief camping places of his
local group. Thus a man of the Taroto̱lo koloko might say that he
belonged to Laropuli, this being one of the chief camps of that
country. A man of the Teraut buliu koloko might similarly say that he
belonged to the village of Čaičue.
A man or woman is generally regarded as belonging to the local group in
the country of which he or she was born. There is nothing, however, to
prevent a person from taking up his residence with any other local
group if he so wishes, and if the members of that group are willing to
welcome him. It would seem that there were a fair number of such cases
in which a man or a woman left his or her own local group to join
another. In particular, when two young people belonging to different
groups got married they might fix their residence either with his or
with her parents.
The local group, as stated above, was characterised as the land-owning
group. A man might hunt over the country of his own group at all times,
but he might not hunt over the country of another group without the
permission of the members of that group. Even at the present day, when
the local organisation has largely broken down, some of these hunting
rights are still observed. I noticed a case in which some of the men
asked and obtained permission to hunt pig in a certain part from a man
who was explained to be the owner of that part of the country, being
one of the few survivors of the local group to which it belonged. It
would, in former times, have been an offence that might easily have led
to a serious quarrel for the men of one group to hunt or fish in the
country or the waters of another group without having been granted
permission to do so.
Within the territory of each local group there are a number of
recognized camping places. During the greater part of every year the
members of the local group would be found living together at one or
other of these. Some of these camping-grounds have been in use for many
centuries, as is shown by the heaps of refuse many feet deep, chiefly
consisting of the shells of molluscs and the bones of animals. Such
kitchen-middens, as they have been called, are to be found in numbers
all around the coasts of the islands.
In the case of the coast-dwelling communities the camping sites are
always close to the sea-shore or to a creek, so that they can be
reached by canoe. In the case of those dwelling inland this is of
course not so. In any case one of the chief factors determining the
choice of the site is the existence of a supply of fresh water. This is
of extreme importance in the case of a site to be occupied during the
dry season when fresh water becomes scarce.
Within their own territory the local group is what we may speak of as
semi-nomadic. The coast-dwellers rarely reside continuously at the same
spot for more than a few months, but shift from one camp to another,
moved by different causes. If a death occurs the camp is deserted for
several months and a new one is occupied. A change of camp often takes
place at a change of season, some spots presenting particular
advantages, such as shelter from the prevailing wind, or better hunting
or fishing, at certain times of the year. Another cause of the
abandonment of a camp by the coast-dwellers is that all refuse is
thrown away close to the camp, and after a few months the decaying
animal matter thus accumulated renders the spot uninhabitable. The
natives seem to find it easier to move their camp than to clear away
their refuse. The truth is, perhaps, that they are so accustomed to
change their camp from one spot to another, in order to make the best
use of the natural resources available, that there is no necessity for
them to take those sanitary measures that would be essential if they
wished to remain for many months continuously at the same place.
The forest-dwellers are less nomadic in their habits than the
coast-dwellers. One of the reasons for this is that as they cannot
convey their belongings from one place to another by canoe, but must
carry them overland, the moving of a camp is a more tiresome business
with them than it is with the coast-dwellers. During a great part of
the year the forest-dwellers were accustomed to remain at one camp,
which was thus the chief camp of the group. In particular they would
spend there the whole of the rainy season. During the cool and hot
seasons they would leave the chief camp for a few months, leading
during that time a more nomadic life, living in temporary hunting camps
and paying visits to their friends in other groups. At the opening of
the rainy season they would return once more to the main camp.
The camps of the natives of the Great Andaman may be distinguished as
being of three kinds. Of the first kind are what may be spoken of as
permanent encampments. Certainly every group of the forest-dwellers,
and probably every group of the coast-dwellers had its permanent
encampment, which was, so to speak, the headquarters of the group. At
this spot there would be erected either a communal hut, or a carefully
built village. Communal huts have in recent times fallen into disuse,
as the natives now wander about the islands much more freely than was
their wont. I did not see a single one in the Great Andaman during my
visit, though I was told of one that was falling to ruins in the
interior of the Middle Andaman. One such communal hut was photographed
in 1895 by M. L. Lapicque, at a spot called Lekera-l’un-ta [23]. It was
perhaps the last that the natives of the Great Andaman erected. What
the communal hut was like it is possible to discover both from the
statements of the natives and also from the fact that they are still to
the present day used by the natives of the Little Andaman and by the
J̌a̤rawa. The hut was roughly circular in form and might be as big as 60
feet in diameter and 20 or 30 feet high at the centre. The shape was
somewhat that of a beehive. Two concentric circles, one of tall posts
near the centre and the other of shorter posts near the circumference,
were connected by horizontal and sloping roof-timbers, and on these
were laid and fastened a number of mats of palm-leaves. These mats
reached, as a rule, as far as the ground, a small doorway being left on
one side.
Such communal huts, while still used in the Little Andaman and by the
J̌a̤rawa, and formerly used by the forest-dwellers of the Great Andaman,
were apparently not often erected by the coast-dwellers of the larger
island at the time the islands were occupied in 1858. Mr Man seems to
have regarded them as being peculiarly characteristic of the J̌a̤rawa and
the natives of the Little Andaman [24]. There is evidence, however,
that even the coast-dwellers formerly erected such huts, for in the
Akar-Bale tribe there are several places with names such as Paruŋ Bud
and Golugma Bud, which show that communal huts existed there at some
time. The word bud is used to denote a communal hut, as compared with a
village, which is called baraiǰ.
A large communal hut took some little time to erect. The posts had to
be cut and erected, this being the work of the men, and the palm-leaves
had to be collected and then made into mats by the women. Once the hut
was built it would last for several years, and if it were in fairly
constant use, particularly if it were not abandoned in the rains, it
might be used, with a little occasional patching, for ten years or even
more.
Among the coast-dwellers it was more usual to erect at the headquarters
a semi-permanent village. A portion of such a village is shown in the
photographs reproduced in Plates VI and VII.
The village occupied a small clearing in the forest close to the
sea-shore at a place called Mo̱i-lepto in the country of the Akar-Bale
tribe. A spring or soak close to the village provided the fresh water.
The site is a favourite one as it is well sheltered, and is within
convenient distance of good fishing and turtle hunting grounds. It was
formerly one of the chief camping places of the local group known as
the Boroin wa (Hill people).
The village was composed of eight huts, ranged round a central open
space, and all of them facing inwards towards the centre. This open
space is kept clear and clean for dancing, and is simply the village
dancing ground. Each of the single huts was occupied by a family group,
consisting of a man and his wife with their children and dependants.
One hut was occupied by an old widower and a bachelor.
The way the huts are built can be seen in the photographs. In the
simplest form the hut consists of a sloping roof made of palm-leaves,
erected on four posts, two taller ones at the front and two short ones
at the back. A hut of this kind is shown in Plate VII. If more shelter
is required a second roof is added in such a way that the top of one
overhangs the top of the other. In some cases a third roof may be added
on one side. In Plates VI and VII two mats of palm-leaf are shown in
the course of construction, lying on the ground.
Huts such as these, in which the leaves are first made into a mat which
is then attached to the rafters, will last for some time. Even if the
village be deserted for several weeks, at any rate in the dry weather,
very little work will be needed to make it habitable again when the
occupants return to it.
A second kind of camp was made when the natives did not intend to stay
more than two to three months. Such camps were erected by the forest
folk during the dry season, or at any time when they were compelled to
leave their chief camp through the death there of one of their number.
Such a temporary camp is always put up in the form of a village, and
never as a communal hut. The huts are similar to those already
described, but are made more carelessly. The thatching leaves, instead
of being made into mats, are simply tied in bundles on to the rafters.
A hut of this kind will last quite well for three months or so and it
can be built very rapidly at any place where there is a sufficient
supply of thatching leaves. At the present day the natives rarely build
a permanent camp for themselves, but are contented with temporary camps
of the kind here described.
A third kind of camp remains to be briefly mentioned, which we may call
the hunting camp. A hunting party (which may include women as well as
men) spending a few days away from one of the main camps will erect for
themselves a few huts or shelters consisting of nothing more than a
simple lean-to of leaves.
Caves or rock shelters suitable for human occupation are almost unknown
in the Andamans. In the Archipelago there are one or two small rock
shelters that are occasionally used by a hunting party away from home
for a night. I was told by the natives that on one of the islands off
the west coast of the North Andaman there is a rock shelter of a fair
size that was formerly used as one of their chief camps.
The following figure will give an idea of the Andamanese village and
its arrangement. In hunting camps which are intended only to be
occupied for a few days or a few weeks, this arrangement is not
observed, but the huts or shelters are placed so as to give shelter
from the prevailing wind with no particular regard to the respective
position of the different units.
The constitution of the local group is illustrated by the arrangement
of the village. The whole village consists of a number of separate
huts, each hut occupied by a family. A family consists of a man and his
wife and such of their children own or adopted as are not of an age to
be independent. Besides the families each group necessarily contains a
small number of unmarried men and widowers and some unmarried girls and
widows. The unmarried men and widowers without children occupy a
separate hut (or huts) which we may speak of as the bachelors’ hut. Mr
Man states that the spinsters (i.e., the unmarried women who are of
marriageable age) and widows occupy a hut of their own similarly to the
bachelors [25]. In the camps that I visited I did not find any such
spinsters’ hut. What unmarried females there were, I found attached to
one or other of the families of the village, each one living in the hut
of some married relative, generally the parent or foster-parent.
All the huts face inwards towards an open space which is the dancing
ground of the village, and, except in exposed situations, are generally
entirely open in front. At some convenient spot on one side of the
dancing ground is to be found the communal cooking place of the
village. This is generally close to the bachelors’ hut, as it is the
bachelors who attend to such cooking as is carried on there. Besides
the public cooking place each family has its own fireplace in its own
hut, on which a fire is kept continually alight. In the village two or
more families may build their huts adjoining one another in such a way
that they become for all practical purposes one hut, of which each
family retains its own special portion. Two brothers will thus often
make a sort of common household.
The communal hut, in the way in which it is arranged, and even in the
way in which it is built, is really a village with all the huts drawn
together so that each one is joined to the one next to it and the roofs
meet in the middle. In the centre of the hut there is an open space
corresponding to the dancing ground of the village. It is even used as
a dancing ground, though for this purpose it is somewhat small. It is
the public part of the hut. Around this are arranged the different
families, each occupying its own special portion of the hut, which is
marked off by means of short lengths of wood laid on the floor. The
public cooking place is sometimes inside the hut, and there is the
space marked off for the unmarried men. The advantage of the communal
hut is that it affords a better protection from the weather; its
disadvantage is that it leaves almost no room for dancing.
Thus it may be seen that the arrangement of the camp shows very plainly
the constitution of a local group, consisting as it does of a few
families. Each group seems to have contained, on an average, about ten
families, with a few unmarried males and females.
The Andaman Islanders depend for their subsistence entirely on the
natural products of the sea and the forest. From the sea they obtain
dugong, turtle (both green and hawksbill), an enormous variety of
different sorts of fish, crustaceans (crabs, crayfish and prawns) and
molluscs. Fish and crabs are also to be found in the salt-water creeks
which in many places penetrate inland for some miles. From the forest
they obtain the flesh of the wild pig, wild honey, and a large number
of vegetable foods—roots, fruits, and seeds.
The life of the forest folk is more simple and uniform than that of the
coast people and we may therefore consider it first. During the rainy
season, which lasts from the middle of May to the end of September, the
local group lives at its headquarters camp, which, as we have seen,
formerly often took the form of a communal hut. During this season
animal food is plentiful, as the jungle animals are in good condition;
on the other hand there is not much vegetable food to be obtained. The
following brief account will give an idea of how the day is spent in
such a camp at that time of year. Some time after sunrise the camp
begins to be astir. The various members of the community make a meal of
any food that may have been saved from the day before. The men start
off for the day’s hunting. At the present time dogs are used for
pig-hunting. These dogs were obtained in the first instance from the
Settlement of Port Blair, and their use in pig-hunting was learnt from
the Burmese convicts. Nowadays every married man has at least one dog
[26]. Before the dogs were obtained, hunting was a pursuit requiring a
great deal more skill than it does at present. A hunting party consists
of from two to five men. Each man carries his bow and two or three pig
arrows, and one of the party carries a smouldering fire-brand. They
make their way through the jungle until they find the fresh tracks of a
pig, or follow up some of the usual pig runs until they come upon the
animal feeding. In former days much skill was required to creep
noiselessly through the jungle until they were sufficiently near either
to discharge an arrow, or, if the jungle were more open, to rush in
upon the animal shouting and shoot it before it could escape. At the
present day it is the dogs that scent out the pig and bring it to bay,
when the natives shoot it with their arrows.
When a pig has been killed it may be tied up and carried to the camp on
the shoulders of one of the hunters, or a fire may be lighted then and
there and the pig eviscerated and roasted. A cut is made in the abdomen
and the viscera removed. The cavity is filled with leaves, the joints
of the legs are half severed and the carcase is placed on the fire and
turned over and shifted until every part is evenly roasted. It is then
removed from the fire, the burnt skin is scraped clean and the meat is
cut up. Meanwhile the intestines or some of the internal organs are
cooked and eaten by the hunters. The meat is tied up in leaves and is
carried to the camp. If the pig be carried home whole the process of
roasting it and cutting it up is performed in exactly the same way at
the public cooking place of the camp, the meat being distributed only
after it has been thus partially cooked.
If the hunting party should come across a civet cat (Paradoxurus) or a
monitor lizard they would endeavour to kill it [27], but the main
object of every hunting party is to obtain pork. Snakes and even rats
are killed and eaten. Birds, though plentiful in the islands, are not
often obtained, for the density of the jungle and the height of the
trees in which the birds conceal themselves, make it very difficult for
the natives to shoot them with their bows and arrows. A man does not
care to risk the loss of his arrow in a chance shot at a bird. The
Andamanese do not trap either birds or animals, though some of the
birds, particularly the rail, might be very easily caught in traps.
As the hunting party traverses the forest they may come across roots or
fruits or seeds, or wild honey, and these are collected and carried
home. In the rainy season only small combs of black honey are to be
found [28], and these are generally consumed by the hunters on the
spot.
The provision of the vegetable food of the community is the work of the
women, who must also supply the camp with firewood and water. While the
men are away hunting the women, attended by the children, cut and carry
the firewood, and either remain in the camp making baskets or nets or
other objects, or else go into the forest to look for fruits and seeds.
Thus by midday the camp may be quite deserted, save perhaps for one or
two old men and women, and a few of the children.
In the afternoon the women return with what food they have obtained and
then the men come in with their provision. The camp, unless the hunters
have been unsuccessful, is then busy with the preparation of the
evening meal, which is the chief meal of the day. If a pig has been
brought home whole it is cooked at the public cooking place and is then
cut up. The meat is distributed amongst the members of the community
and the woman of each family then proceeds to cook the family meal. The
pork, after it has been roasted and cut up, is further cooked by being
boiled. The family meal is prepared at the fire that each family has in
its hut. The meal is a family one, partaken by a man and his wife and
children. The bachelors cook and eat their own meal, and the unmarried
women also eat by themselves.
After the meal is over, darkness having by this time fallen, the men
may spend an hour or two in dancing to the accompaniment of a song sung
by one of them with the help of a chorus of women. In that case they
would probably eat another meal after the dance was over. Another
favourite amusement for the evening is what may be called “yarning.” A
man sits down with a few listeners and tells them, with few words, and
with many dramatic gestures, how he killed a pig. The same man may go
on with tale after tale, till, by the time he finishes he has killed
twenty or thirty pigs. Finally the whole camp retires to rest and
nothing is to be seen but the dim light of the little fires burning in
each hut or in each of the family quarters.
On a day when there is plenty of food left from the day before, or on a
day of stormy weather even when food is not too plentiful, the men may
remain in camp instead of going hunting. They busy themselves with
making weapons and implements, such as bows, arrows, adzes, etc.
On occasions when game is not very plentiful a party of hunters may
stay away from the camp for a few days, not returning till they have
been successful in obtaining a fair supply of food. The women and
children and old men, with perhaps a few of the able bodied men also,
remain at home and provide for themselves as well as they can, the
women devoting their time to collecting what vegetable foods are in
season.
At the end of the rainy season there comes a brief period of unsettled
weather, called by the natives of the North Andaman Kimil, and by those
of the South, Gumul. During this season some of the vegetable foods
begin to be available, though not in any quantities. At this time of
the year the natives are able to obtain and feast upon what they regard
as great delicacies, the larvae of the cicada and of the great
capricornis beetle. The cool season, when fruits and roots are
plentiful, begins at the end of November. The forest dwellers leave
their main encampment during this season. Some of them go off to pay
visits to their friends of other local groups. Such visits may last two
or three months. Those who remain occupy temporary camps in convenient
places. The men join the women in looking for roots and fruits, and do
not spend so much of their time in hunting. Some of the men visit the
main camp at intervals of a few days to see that it is all right. As
the cool season gives way to the hot season (March to May) honey begins
to be plentiful. At that time hunting for pig is almost abandoned. The
pigs are in poor condition, and even when one is killed it is often
left in the jungle by the natives as not being good enough to eat. On
the other hand everyone is busy collecting honey. This is work in which
both men and women join, though it is the men who climb up the trees
and cut down the honeycomb. The natives have no means of keeping the
honey for more than a very short time, as it rapidly ferments. While it
is plentiful they almost live on it, supplementing it with roots and
fruits and with fish, if they are near a creek. Towards the end of the
hot season the fruit of the Artocarpus chaplasha, which is a favourite
food of the natives, becomes ripe. The men and women, at this time,
spend much of their time collecting the fruit. When it is collected the
fruit is broken open and each of the seeds is sucked to obtain the
juicy pulp or aril with which it is surrounded, and which has a very
pleasant taste. The seeds are then partly boiled and are buried in the
ground to remain there for a few weeks, when they will be dug up again
and cooked and eaten. Any natives who may have been away from home on a
visit, return before the Artocarpus comes into fruit in order to take
their share in collecting it and providing a supply of the seeds for
consumption in the rainy season. The natives then return to the
headquarters camp and make any necessary repairs to the hut in
preparation for the rainy season, which begins about the middle of May.
The coast-dwellers are not quite so much influenced by the seasons as
the forest-dwellers. They can fish and collect molluscs all the year
round. In the rainy season they divide their time between hunting pig
in the forest and fishing or turtle hunting. They do not need, however,
to remain at the same camp during the whole of the rainy season, but
after a month or two at one place can move to what they hope to find
better hunting grounds. During the cool and hot seasons they pay visits
to one another. In the fine weather the men often go off on
turtle-hunting expeditions for several days, leaving the women and
children and older men in the village, where they provide for
themselves with vegetable food and with fish and molluscs from the
reefs.
It is during the fine weather that there take place the meetings of two
or more local groups that are an important feature of the social life
of the Andaman Islanders. These meetings will be described later in the
present chapter.
Besides their food, which they must find from day to day, the natives
have need of nothing save their weapons and implements. Of these each
person makes his own, each man making his own bow, arrows, adze, etc.,
while the wife makes her baskets, nets and so on.
The economic life of the local group, though in effect it approaches to
a sort of communism, is yet based on the notion of private property.
Land is the only thing that is owned in common. The hunting grounds of
a local group belong to the whole group, and all the members have an
equal right to hunt over any part of it. There exists, however, a
certain private ownership of trees. A man of one of the local groups of
the coast may notice in the jungle a tree suitable for a canoe. He will
tell the others that he has noticed such a tree, describing it and its
whereabouts. Thenceforward that tree is regarded as his property, and
even if some years should elapse, and he has made no use of it, yet
another man would not cut it down without first asking the owner to
give him the tree. In a similar way certain men claim to possess
certain Artocarpus trees, though how the ownership in these cases had
arisen I was unable to determine. No one would pick the fruit off such
a tree without the permission of the owner, and having received
permission and gathered the fruit he would give some part of it to the
owner of the tree.
A pig belongs to the man whose arrow first strikes it, though if the
arrow merely glanced off and did not remain in the wound it would not
give any claim to ownership. A turtle or a dugong or big fish belongs
to the man who throws the harpoon with which it is taken. A honeycomb
belongs to the man who climbs the tree and cuts it down. The fish that
a man shoots belong to him, and to a woman belong the roots she digs
up, the seeds that she collects, the fish or prawns that she takes in
her net or the molluscs that she brings from the reefs. Any weapon that
a man makes belongs to him alone to do what he pleases with, and
anything that a woman makes is her own property. A man is not free to
dispose of the personal property of his wife without her permission.
In the village each family erects and keeps in repair its own hut, and
the wife provides the hut with the firewood and water needed. In the
case of a communal hut it would seem that this is really an example of
a possession common to the whole group. This is so, however, only in
appearance. The hut is built by all the different families, but each
family is regarded as owning a certain portion of the hut when it is
finished, and it is the family that keeps this part of the hut in
repair.
A canoe is cut by a number of men together. From the outset, however,
it is the property of one man, who selects the tree and superintends
the operation of cutting it into shape. He is always one of the older
men, and he enlists the services of the younger men to help him. When
finished the canoe is his property, and he can do with it what he
pleases, giving it away, if he wishes, and no one has any share of
ownership in a canoe on the ground that he helped to make it.
While all portable property is thus owned by individuals, the
Andamanese have customs which result in an approach to communism. One
of these is the custom of constantly exchanging presents with one
another. When two friends meet who have not seen each other for some
time, one of the first things they do is to exchange presents with one
another. Even in the ordinary everyday life of the village there is a
constant giving and receiving of presents. A younger man or woman may
give some article to an older one without expecting or receiving any
return, but between equals a person who gives a present always expects
that he will receive something of equal value in exchange. At the
meetings that take place between neighbouring local groups the exchange
of presents is of great importance. Each of the visitors brings with
him a number of articles that he distributes amongst the members of the
group that he visits. When the visitors depart they are loaded with
presents received from their hosts. It requires a good deal of tact on
the part of everyone concerned to avoid the unpleasantness that may
arise if a man thinks that he has not received things as valuable as he
has given, or if he fancies that he has not received quite the same
amount of attention as has been accorded to others.
It is considered a breach of good manners ever to refuse the request of
another. Thus if a man be asked by another to give him anything that he
may possess, he will immediately do so. If the two men are equals a
return of about the same value will have to be made. As between an
older married man and a bachelor or a young married man, however, the
younger would not make any request of such a nature, and if the older
man asked the younger for anything the latter would give it without
always expecting a return.
Almost every object that the Andamanese possess is thus constantly
changing hands. Even canoes may be given away, but it is more usual for
these to be lent by the owner to his friends.
It has been stated above that all food is private property and belongs
to the man or woman who has obtained it. Every one who has food is
expected, however, to give to those who have none. An older married man
will reserve for himself sufficient for his family, and will then give
the rest to his friends. A younger man is expected to give away the
best of what he gets to the older men. This is particularly the case
with the bachelors. Should a young unmarried man kill a pig he must be
content to see it distributed by one of the older men, all the best
parts going to the seniors, while he and his companions must be
satisfied with the inferior parts. The result of these customs is that
practically all the food obtained is evenly distributed through the
whole camp, the only inequality being that the younger men do not fare
so well as their elders. Generosity is esteemed by the Andaman
Islanders one of the highest of virtues and is unremittingly practised
by the majority of them.
Within the local group there is no such thing as a division of labour
save as between the two sexes. In the coastal groups every man is
expected to be able to hunt pig, to harpoon turtle and to catch fish,
and also to cut a canoe, to make bows and arrows and all the other
objects that are made by men. It happens that some men are more skilful
in certain pursuits than in others. A skilful turtle-hunter, for
example, may be an indifferent pig-hunter, and such a man will
naturally prefer to devote himself to the pursuit in which he appears
to most advantage.
The division of labour between the sexes is fairly clearly marked. A
man hunts and fishes, using the bow and arrow and the harpoon; he makes
his own bows and arrows, his adze and knife, cuts canoes and makes rope
for harpoon lines. A woman collects fruits and digs up roots with her
digging stick; she catches prawns and crabs and small fish with her
small fishing net; she provides the firewood and the water of the
family and does the cooking (i.e. the family cooking, but not the
common cooking, which is entirely done by men); she makes all such
objects as baskets, nets of thread, and personal ornaments either for
herself or her husband.
There is no organised government in an Andamanese village. The affairs
of the community are regulated entirely by the older men and women. The
younger members of the community are brought up to pay respect to their
elders and to submit to them in many ways. It has already been shown
how, in the distribution of food, the elders get the best share. When
it is a question of shifting camp to some better hunting ground the
opinion of the older men would weigh against that of the younger if
they disagreed. It must not be thought, however, that the older men are
tyrannical or selfish. I only once heard a young man complain of the
older men getting so much the best of everything. The respect for
seniority is kept alive partly by tradition and partly by the fact that
the older men have had a greater experience than the younger. It could
probably not be maintained if it regularly gave rise to any tyrannical
treatment of the younger by the elder.
The respect for seniors is shown in the existence of special terms of
address which men and women use when speaking to their elders. In the
languages of the North Andaman there are two such terms, Mai or Maia,
applied to men, with a meaning equivalent to “Sir,” and Mimi, applied
to women. These words may be used either alone or prefixed to the
personal name of the person addressed. A younger man speaking to an
older one whose name was Bora would address him either as Mai (Sir), or
as Maia Bora (Sir Bora).
In the tribes of the South Andaman there are exactly similar terms. In
the Aka-Bea tribe Maia or Maiola is used in addressing men and Čana or
Čanola in speaking to women. In Akar-Bale the equivalent terms are Da
and In. Besides these terms there is in these tribes another, Mam, Mama
or Mamola, which may be used in speaking to either men or women, and
which implies a higher degree of respect than Maia or Čana. In these
tribes also there is a special way of showing respect by adding the
suffix -la to the name of the person addressed, as Bia, Biala, Woičo,
Woičo-la, etc.
In the legends of the Andamanese these titles are nearly always
prefixed to the names of the legendary ancestors, as Maia J̌utpu and
Mimi Biliku in Aka-J̌eru, or Da Duku and In Bain in Akar-Bale. The moon
is similarly spoken of as Sir Moon (Maia Ogar in Aka-Bea) and the sun
as Lady Sun (Čana Bodo).
Besides the respect for seniority there is another important factor in
the regulation of the social life, namely the respect for certain
personal qualities. These qualities are skill in hunting and in
warfare, generosity and kindness, and freedom from bad temper. A man
possessing them inevitably acquires a position of influence in the
community. His opinion on any subject carries more weight than that of
another even older man. The younger men attach themselves to him, are
anxious to please him by giving him any presents that they can, or by
helping him in such work as cutting a canoe, and to join him in hunting
parties or turtle expeditions. In each local group there was usually to
be found one man who thus by his influence could control and direct
others. Amongst the chief men of several friendly local groups it would
generally happen that one of them, by reason of his personal qualities,
would attain to a position of higher rank than the others. Younger men
would be desirous of joining the local group to which he belonged. He
would find himself popular and respected at the annual meetings of the
different groups, and his influence would thus spread beyond the narrow
limits of his own small community.
There was no special word to denote such men and distinguish them from
others. In the languages of the North Andaman they were spoken of as
er-kuro = “big.”
Such men might perhaps be spoken of as “chiefs,” but the term is
somewhat misleading, as it makes us think of the organised
chieftainship of other savage races.
The above statement is not quite in agreement with what has been
written by Mr Man on the same subject, and what he says is therefore
reproduced here. “Their domestic policy may be described as a communism
modified by the authority, more or less nominal, of the chief. The head
chief of a tribe is called maia igla, and the elders, or sub-chiefs,
i.e. those in authority over each community, consisting of from 20 to
50 individuals, maiola. The head chief, who usually resides at a
permanent encampment, has authority over all the sub-chiefs, but his
power, like theirs, is very limited. It is exercised mainly in
organising meetings between the various communities belonging to his
tribe, and in exerting influence in all questions affecting the welfare
of his followers. It is the chief alone, as may be supposed, who
directs the movements of a party while on hunting and fishing
expeditions, or when migrating. It is usually through his intervention
that disputes are settled, but he possesses no power to punish or
enforce obedience to his wishes, it being left to all alike to take the
law into their own hands when aggrieved. The aryoto and eremtaga in
each tribe have their own head chief, who are independent the one of
the other. As might be assumed from the results of observations made of
other savage races, whose sole or chief occupation consists in hunting
or fishing, the power of the chiefs is very limited, and not
necessarily hereditary, though, in the event of a grown-up son being
left who was qualified for the post, he would, in most instances, be
selected to succeed his father in preference to any other individual of
equal efficiency. At the death of a chief there is no difficulty in
appointing a successor, there being always at least one who is
considered his deputy or right-hand man. As they are usually, on these
occasions, unanimous in their choice, no formal election takes place;
however, should any be found to dissent, the question is decided by the
wishes of the majority, it being always open to malcontents to transfer
their allegiance to another chief, since there is no such thing as
forced submission to the authority of one who is not a general
favourite. Social status being dependent not merely on the accident of
relationship, but on skill in hunting, fishing, etc., and on a
reputation for generosity and hospitality, the chiefs and elders are
almost invariably superior in every respect to the rest. They and their
wives are at liberty to enjoy immunity from the drudgery incidental to
their mode of life, all such acts being voluntarily performed for them
by the young unmarried persons living under their headship [29].”
Where Mr Man speaks of the “authority” of the chiefs it would be better
to speak of “influence.” Of authority the leading men have little or
none, but of influence they have a good deal. Should any one venture to
oppose a popular chief he would find the majority of the natives,
including many of his friends, siding against him. The words “chief”
and “authority” seem to imply some sort of organised rule and
procedure, and of this there is nothing in the Andamans. Mr Man also
implies that in each tribe there is always one recognized headman, but
in reality each tribe may possess two or three leading men in different
parts of the country, each with his own following. In any case a man’s
influence is largely confined to his own local group, for it is only at
the annual meetings that the men of other groups come in contact with
him.
The early officers of the Andamanese Homes (before the time of Mr Man)
established a system of chieftainship in the islands by selecting a few
of the more trustworthy and intelligent men, whom they dignified with
the title of raja, and who acted as the intermediaries between the
Officer in Charge of the Andamanese and the natives. This system has
been continued to the present day, and the natives have adopted the
title raja for these men, having themselves no word for a chief. Where
a man is selected who is already respected and esteemed by the natives
his influence is considerably increased through the position thus
assigned to him. The natives themselves do not recognize that he has
any authority over them, but if he be a man of generosity and tact, the
majority will always support him, and his advice in any matters of
moment will be readily followed.
Women may occupy a position of influence similar to that of the men.
The wife of a leading man generally exercises the same sort of
influence over the women as her husband does over the men. A woman,
however, would not exercise any influence over the men in matters
connected with hunting. They do have a good deal of influence in
connection with quarrels either of individuals or of local groups.
There are certain men, and possibly sometimes women, who have an
influence over their fellows owing to their being credited with the
possession of supernatural powers. These men, called in Aka-J̌eru
oko-ǰumu (literally “one who speaks from dreams”), will be described in
a later chapter. As they are believed to have command over the powers
that produce and cure sickness everyone tries to be on good terms with
them, avoiding giving them offence in any way, and seeking their favour
by presents of food or other things. It sometimes happens that a chief
(the leading man of a local group) is at the same time a medicine-man
or oko-ǰumu, but the two positions are entirely distinct and separate,
and a man may be a medicine-man who possesses none of the qualities
that are necessary for a head man.
There does not appear to have been in the Andamans any such thing as
the punishment of crime. We may distinguish two kinds of anti-social
actions which are regarded by the natives as being wrong. The first
kind are those actions which injure in some way a private individual.
The second are those, which, while they do not injure any particular
person, are yet regarded with disapproval by the society in general.
Amongst the anti-social actions of the first kind are murder, or
wounding, theft and adultery, and wilful damage of the property of
another.
No case of one Andamanese killing another has occurred in recent years.
Quarrels sometimes occur between two men of the same camp. A good deal
of hard swearing goes on, and sometimes one of the men will work
himself up to a high pitch of anger, in which he may seize his bow and
discharge an arrow near to the one who has offended him, or may vent
his ill-temper by destroying any property that he can lay his hands on,
including not only that of his enemy but also that of other persons and
even his own. At such a display of anger the women and children flee
into the jungle in terror, and if the angry man be at all a formidable
person the men occasionally do the same. It apparently requires more
courage than the natives usually possess to endeavour to allay such a
storm of anger. Yet I found that the slightest show of authority would
immediately bring such a scene to an end. A man of influence in his
village was probably generally equal to the task of keeping order and
preventing any serious damage from taking place. It was probably rare
for a man so far to give way to his anger as to kill his opponent.
Such murders did, however, occasionally take place [30]. The murderer
would, as a rule, leave the camp and hide himself in the jungle, where
he might be joined by such of his friends as were ready to take his
part. It was left to the relatives and friends of the dead man to exact
vengeance if they wished and if they could. If the murderer was a man
who was much feared it is probable that he would escape. In any case
the anger of the Andamanese is short-lived, and if for a few months he
could keep out of the way of those who might seek revenge, it is
probable that at the end of that time he would find their anger cooled.
A man who is liable to outbursts of violent anger is feared by his
fellows, and unless he has other counterbalancing qualities, he is
never likely to become popular. He is treated with outward respect, for
every one is afraid of offending him, but he never acquires the esteem
of others. There is a special nickname, Tarenǰek, in the North Andaman,
to denote such a man [31].
Quarrels were more likely to occur at the meetings of different local
groups that took place in the fine weather, and such quarrels might
occasionally end in the murder of some one. In such a case the quarrel
would be taken up by the group of the murdered man, and a feud would be
set up between them and the local group to which the murderer belonged.
Such was one of the common causes of origin of the petty warfare that
formerly existed in the Andamans, which will be referred to later in
the present chapter.
Cases of theft seem to have been rare. It was left to the aggrieved
person to take vengeance upon the thief, but if he killed him or
seriously wounded him he would have to expect the possible vengeance of
the relatives and friends. Adultery was regarded as a form of theft. I
gathered that a man had the right to punish his wife for
unfaithfulness, but if the punishment were too severe it would be an
occasion for a quarrel with her relatives. It was difficult for the
aggrieved husband to punish the man who had offended against him. If he
killed him he would lay himself open to the revenge of the relatives.
The most he could do was to vent his anger in violent words.
Women also occasionally quarrel with one another and swear forcibly at
one another, or even get so far as to destroy one another’s belongings,
or to fight with their fists or sticks. The men hesitate to interfere,
and the quarrel can only be stopped by some woman of influence.
The frequent occurrence of serious quarrels is prevented both by the
influence of the older men and by the fear that everyone has of the
possible vengeance of others should he in any way offend them.
There are a number of actions which, while they do not offend any
particular person, are regarded as being anti-social. One of these is
laziness. Every man is expected to take his proper share in providing
both himself and others with food. Should a man shirk this obligation,
nothing would be said to him, unless he were a young unmarried man, and
he would still be given food by others, but he would find himself
occupying a position of inferiority in the camp, and would entirely
lose the esteem of his fellows. Other qualities or actions that result
in a similar loss of esteem are marital unfaithfulness, lack of respect
to others and particularly to elders, meanness or niggardliness, and
bad temper. One man was mentioned to me as being a bad man because he
refused to take a wife after he had reached the age when it is
considered proper for a man to marry. In recent times at least one
young man has refused to undergo the privations connected with the
initiation ceremonies. This was of course a case of gross rebellion
against the customs of the tribe, but there was no way of punishing him
or of compelling him to conform, save by showing him that he was an
object of contempt and ridicule to others. Probably such a refusal to
conform to tribal customs could not have taken place before the British
occupation of the islands.
Another class of wrong actions consists in the breaking of ritual
prohibitions. There are, for example, as will be shown in a later
chapter, a number of actions which it is believed may cause bad
weather, such as burning bees’-wax or killing a cicada. There is,
however, no punishment that can be meted out to any one who does any of
these things. The punishment, if we may call it so, is a purely
supernatural one, and it strikes not only the offender but every one
else as well. In the legends of the Andamanese there are one or two
stories related of how one of the ancestors, being angry, deliberately
performed one of the forbidden actions and thus brought a storm that
destroyed many human beings [32]. There are other ritual prohibitions
the non-observance of which is supposed to bring its own punishment on
the offender, who, it is believed, will be ill.
The medicine-men (oko-ǰumu) are credited with the power to work evil
magic, and by its means to make other people ill, and even to kill
them. A man suspected of evil magic might be liable to the vengeance of
those who thought that they had been injured by him, but though the
practice was regarded as reprehensible it does not seem that the
society ever acted as a whole to punish a man suspected of it.
Children are reproved for improper behaviour, but they are never
punished. During their years of infancy they are much spoilt, not only
by their parents but by every one. During the period of adolescence
every boy and girl has to undergo a somewhat severe discipline, to be
described in a later chapter. This probation, if it may be so called,
is enforced by a unanimous public opinion. The discipline lasts until
the man or woman is married and a parent, or if childless as so many
now are, until he or she has settled down to a position of
responsibility.
Thus, though the Andaman Islanders had a well developed social
conscience, that is, a system of moral notions as to what is right and
wrong, there was no such thing as the punishment of a crime by the
society. If one person injured another it was left to the injured one
to seek vengeance if he wished and if he dared. There were probably
always some who would side with the criminal, their attachment to him
overcoming their disapproval of his actions. The only painful result of
anti-social actions was the loss of the esteem of others. This in
itself was a punishment that the Andamanese, with their great personal
vanity, would feel keenly, and it was in most instances sufficient to
prevent such actions. For the rest, good order depended largely on the
influence of the more prominent men and women.
We have so far considered only the general regulation of conduct in the
local group, without giving any attention to the more special
regulations dependent on relationships by blood and by marriage. In all
human societies there is a system of rights and duties regulating the
conduct towards one another of persons who are related either by
consanguinity or through marriage. In primitive societies these
particular rights and duties occupy a position of preponderating
importance, owing, no doubt, to the small number of persons with whom
any single person comes into effective social contact. When a large
proportion of the men and women with whom any person comes in contact
are related to him, it is clear that relationship must count for a good
deal in regulating the everyday life of the people.
Different societies have different systems of relationship. This means,
not only that they attach different duties to particular relations, but
also that they have different ways of reckoning the relationships
themselves. The vast majority of primitive peoples have some one or
other form of what is known to ethnologists as the “classificatory
system of relationship [33].” This system is intimately connected with
the existence of the social divisions known as “clans.” In the Andamans
there are no clans, and the system of relationship is fundamentally
different from all the classificatory systems.
To understand the Andamanese system it is necessary to examine the
terms by which they denote the different kinds of relationship which
are recognized [34]. In many societies having the classificatory system
of relationship the terms which are used to denote relationship are
also used as terms of address, just as we use the terms “Father” and
“Mother.” In the Andamans this is not so. There are special words that
are used as terms of address, but these do not imply any relationship
between the speaker and the person spoken to. In the North Andaman
those terms are Maia (= Sir) and Mimi (= Lady). These are used by
younger men and women in speaking to older persons. For the rest,
persons are addressed freely by their personal names. There are no
terms of address that imply any relationship of consanguinity between
the person speaking and the person whom he addresses. This is an
important feature of the Andamanese system, distinguishing it from the
systems of many other primitive societies.
The following is a list of terms used to denote relationship in the
North Andaman. There seems to be very little difference in this matter
between the four tribes of the North (Aka-Čari, Aka-Ko̱ra, Aka-Bo and
Aka-J̌eru).
aka-mai his father
aka-mimi his mother
ot-tire his child
ot-otoatue his older brother
ot-otoatue-čip his older sister
ot-arai-čulute his younger brother
ot-arai-čulute-čip his younger sister
ot-e-bui or e-bui his wife (her husband)
e-pota-čiu his father-in-law
e-pota-čip his mother-in-law
ot-otone his son-in-law.
Aka-mai and aka-mimi. The words for “father” and “mother” are derived
from the terms of address Maia and Mimi by the addition in each case of
the prefix aka-. By itself the term Maia is used by any man or woman in
speaking to a man older than himself or herself without implying any
relation between them beyond that of respective age. The addition of
the prefix aka- changes the word, giving it the meaning “the father of
somebody.” Thus Maia Bora means “Mr Bora” or “Sir Bora,” if we may so
translate it, but Bora aka-mai means “Bora’s father,” and aka-mai Bora
means “his or her father Bora.” The Aka-J̌eru equivalent for “my father”
is t’a-mai, the t’ being the personal pronoun “my,” after which the
prefix aka- is contracted to a-. Similarly “thy father” is ŋ’a-mai and
“their father” or “their fathers” is n’a-mai. The word aka-mimi is in
every respect exactly parallel to aka-mai. These two terms are only
used when it is necessary to refer to the actual father or mother of
anybody. For example, if a man be asked Ačiu ŋ’a-mai bi? (Who your
father is?), he will reply by giving the name of his own father.
The stem maia clearly relates to the social position of the father of a
family. A man who is a father, or while not having any children, is
married and occupies an equivalent social position to a father, is
addressed by the term which shows his social position, Maia. When I
call a man Maia, I do not imply that he is my father nor that he is
related to me at all, but only that he is a father. On the other hand,
the prefix aka- added to the stem makes a possessive form, so that
aka-mai means “his father” and t’a-mai means “my father.” The word mimi
is exactly parallel. By itself, the stem simply shows that the person
addressed is a mother, while aka-mimi means “his mother.”
Ot-tire. The word “child,” when there is no reference to the child of
some particular person, is translated e-tire, -tire being the stem and
e- the prefix [35]. With a change of prefix from e- to ot-, a
possessive form is made, so that ot-tire always means “his or her
child,” with reference to some particular person understood. Thus Bora
ot-tire would mean “the child of Bora,” while Bora e-tire or e-tire
Bora would mean “the child Bora.” The phrase t’ot-tire (my child) is
used by either a man or a woman to denote his or her child.