THE INTERPRETATION OF ANDAMANESE CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS: CEREMONIAL
The present chapter is devoted to an attempt to interpret some of the
beliefs and customs of the Andaman Islanders, as they have been
described in the earlier part of this work. By the interpretation of a
custom is meant the discovery, not of its origin, but of its meaning.
The system of beliefs and customs that exists to-day in the Andamans is
the result of a long process of evolution. To seek the origin of these
customs, as the word origin is here used, is to seek to know the
details of the historical process by which they have come into
existence. In the absence of all historical records, the most that we
could do would be to attempt to make a hypothetical reconstruction of
the past, which, in the present state of ethnological science, would be
of very doubtful utility [151].
It is otherwise with the meaning of these customs. Every custom and
belief of a primitive society plays some determinate part in the social
life of the community, just as every organ of a living body plays some
part in the general life of the organism. The mass of institutions,
customs and beliefs forms a single whole or system that determines the
life of the society, and the life of a society is not less real, or
less subject to natural laws, than the life of an organism. To continue
the analogy, the study of the meaning of savage customs is a sort of
social physiology, and is to be distinguished from the study of
origins, or changes of custom in just the same way that animal
physiology is distinguished from the biology that deals with the origin
of species, the causes of variation, and the general laws of evolution.
The problems that this chapter presents are therefore not historical
but psychological or sociological. We have to explain why it is that
the Andamanese think and act in certain ways. The explanation of each
single custom is provided by showing what is its relation to the other
customs of the Andamanese and to their general system of ideas and
sentiments.
Thus the subject of the present chapter is not in any way affected by
questions of the historical origin of the customs with which it deals,
but is concerned only with those customs as they exist at the present
day. Nor are we concerned with the comparison of the customs of the
Andamanese with those of other savage races. Such comparisons are not
only valueless for our purpose, but might be misleading. To draw any
valid conclusion from the comparison of two apparently similar customs
in two different societies, we must be sure that they are really
similar, and to do this we need to know the true meaning of each of
them considered by itself. The true comparative method consists of the
comparison, not of one isolated custom of one society with a similar
custom of another, but of the whole system of institutions, customs and
beliefs of one society with that of another. In a word, what we need to
compare is not institutions but social systems or types.
It is often urged that in ethnology description and interpretation
should be most carefully separated. So far as this means that the facts
observed by the ethnologist should be recorded free from all bias of
interpretation, the necessity cannot be too often or too strongly
urged. If, however, it is meant to imply that efforts at interpretation
are to be excluded from works of descriptive ethnology, there is much
to be said against such an opinion. In trying to interpret the
institutions of a primitive society the field ethnologist has a great
advantage over those who know the facts only at second hand. However
exact and detailed the description of a primitive people may be, there
remains much that cannot be put into such a description. Living, as he
must, in daily contact with the people he is studying, the field
ethnologist comes gradually to “understand” them, if we may use the
term. He acquires a series of multitudinous impressions, each slight
and often vague, that guide him in his dealings with them. The better
the observer the more accurate will be his general impression of the
mental peculiarities of the race. This general impression it is
impossible to analyse, and so to record and convey to others. Yet it
may be of the greatest service when it comes to interpreting the
beliefs and practices of a primitive society. If it does not give any
positive aid towards a correct interpretation, it at least prevents
errors into which it is only too easy for those to fall who have not
the same immediate knowledge of the people and their ways. Indeed it
may be urged, with some reason, that attempts to interpret the beliefs
of savages without any first-hand knowledge of the people whose beliefs
are in question, are at the best unsatisfactory and open to many
possibilities of error.
The present position of ethnological studies may well be regarded as
anomalous. Many of the observers engaged in recording the customs of
primitive people are very imperfectly acquainted with modern theories
of sociology. One result of this is that they often neglect to record
anything concerning matters that are of fundamental importance for the
theorist [152]. On the other hand those engaged in elaborating
hypotheses do not, as a rule, observe for themselves the facts to be
explained, but have to rely on what are in many cases imperfect
documents, being thus unwittingly led into errors that might have been
avoided. In this science, as in others, if progress is to be made, the
elaboration of hypotheses and the observation and classification of
facts must be carried on as interdependent parts of one process, and no
advantage, but rather great disadvantage, results from the false
division of labour whereby theorists and observers work independently
and without systematic cooperation. The most urgent need of ethnology
at the present time is a series of investigations of the kind here
attempted, in which the observation and the analysis and interpretation
of the institutions of some one primitive people are carried on
together by the ethnologist working in the field.
It is clear that such studies need to be based on a scientific and
carefully elaborated method. Unfortunately ethnologists are not yet
agreed as to the methods of their science. The question of method is
therefore, at the present time, of the greatest importance, and for
this reason I have tried, in the present chapter, to present the
argument in such a way that the various steps of the analysis shall be
immediately apparent, so that the reader may be able not only to judge
the value of the conclusions, but also to form a clear idea of the
psychological methods by which they are reached.
Any attempt to explain or interpret the particular beliefs and customs
of a savage people is necessarily based on some general psychological
hypothesis as to the real nature of the phenomena to be explained. The
sound rule of method is therefore to formulate clearly and explicitly
the working hypothesis on which the interpretation is based. It is only
in this way that its value can be properly tested.
The hypothesis that seems to be most usually adopted by English writers
on anthropology is that the beliefs of savage peoples are due to
attempts on the part of primitive man to explain to himself the
phenomena of life and nature. The student of human customs, examining
his own mind, finds that one of the motives most constantly present in
his consciousness is the desire to understand, to explain—in other
words what we call scientific curiosity. He concludes that this motive
is equally insistent in the mind of primitive man. Thus he supposes
that primitive man, wishing to explain the phenomena of death and of
sleep and dreams, framed a hypothesis that every man possesses a soul
or spiritual double [153]. The hypothesis, once formulated, is supposed
to have been accepted and believed because it satisfied this need of
comprehension. On this view the belief in a soul (animism) is exactly
similar in character to the scientific belief in atoms, let us say. The
same general hypothesis appears in the explanation of totemism as
having arisen as a theory invented by primitive man in order to explain
the phenomena of pregnancy and childbirth [154].
On this hypothesis the beliefs are primary, arising first merely as
beliefs and then acquiring the power to influence action and so giving
rise to all sorts of ceremonies and customs. Thus these customs are
only to be explained by showing that they depend on particular beliefs.
This hypothesis, which we may call the intellectualist hypothesis, has
never, so far as I am aware, been very clearly formulated or defended,
but it does seem to underlie many of the explanations of the customs of
primitive man to be found in works on ethnology.
A second hypothesis explains the beliefs of primitive man as being due
to emotions of surprise and terror [155], or of awe and wonder [156]
aroused by the contemplation of the phenomena of nature.
Both these hypotheses may be held together, one being used to explain
some primitive beliefs and the other to explain others [157].
Doubtless there are other psychological hypotheses underlying the many
attempts that have been made to explain the customs of primitive
peoples, but these two seem to be the most important and the most
widespread. They are mentioned here, not in order to criticise them,
but in order to contrast them with the hypothesis to be formulated in
the present chapter [158].
Stated as briefly as possible the working hypothesis here adopted is as
follows. (1) A society depends for its existence on the presence in the
minds of its members of a certain system of sentiments [159] by which
the conduct of the individual is regulated in conformity with the needs
of the society. (2) Every feature of the social system itself and every
event or object that in any way affects the well-being or the cohesion
of the society becomes an object of this system of sentiments. (3) In
human society the sentiments in question are not innate but are
developed in the individual by the action of the society upon him. (4)
The ceremonial customs of a society are a means by which the sentiments
in question are given collective expression on appropriate occasions.
(5) The ceremonial (i.e. collective) expression of any sentiment serves
both to maintain it at the requisite degree of intensity in the mind of
the individual and to transmit it from one generation to another.
Without such expression the sentiments involved could not exist.
Using the term “social function” to denote the effects of an
institution (custom or belief) in so far as they concern the society
and its solidarity or cohesion, the hypothesis of this chapter may be
more briefly resumed in the statement that the social function of the
ceremonial customs of the Andaman Islanders is to maintain and to
transmit from one generation to another the emotional dispositions on
which the society (as it is constituted) depends for its existence.
The present chapter contains an attempt to apply this hypothesis to the
ceremonial customs of the Andaman Islanders. An attempt will be made to
show that there is a correspondence between the customs and beliefs of
the Andamanese and a certain system of social sentiments, and that
there is also a correspondence between these sentiments and the manner
in which the society is constituted. It is an attempt to discover
necessary connections between the different characters of a society as
they exist in the present. No attempt will be made to discover or
imagine the historical process by which these customs have come into
existence.
For the clearer understanding of the argument it is necessary to draw
attention to a few rules of method that will be observed. (1) In
explaining any given custom it is necessary to take into account the
explanation given by the natives themselves. Although these
explanations are not of the same kind as the scientific explanations
that are the objects of our search yet they are of great importance as
data. Like the civilised man of Western Europe the savage of the
Andamans seeks to rationalise his behaviour; being impelled to certain
actions by mental dispositions of whose origin and real nature he is
unaware, he seeks to formulate reasons for his conduct, or even if he
does not so when left to himself he is compelled to when the enquiring
ethnologist attacks him with questions. Such a reason as is produced by
this process of rationalisation is rarely if ever identical with the
psychological cause of the action that it justifies, yet it will nearly
always help us in our search for the cause. At any rate the reason
given as explaining an action is so intimately connected with the
action itself that we cannot regard any hypothesis as to the meaning of
a custom as being satisfactory unless it explains not only the custom
but also the reasons that the natives give for following it. (2) The
assumption is made that when the same or a similar custom is practised
on different occasions it has the same or a similar meaning in all of
them. For example, there are different occasions on which a personal
name is avoided; it is assumed that there is something in common to all
these occasions and that the meaning of the custom is to be discovered
by ascertaining what that common element is. (3) It is assumed that
when different customs are practised together on one and the same
occasion there is a common element in the customs. This rule is the
inverse of the last. As an example may be mentioned the different
customs observed by mourners, which may be assumed to be all related to
one another. The discovery of what is common to them all will explain
the meaning of each. (4) I have avoided, as being misleading as well as
unnecessary, any comparison of Andamanese customs with similar customs
of other races. Only in one or two instances have I broken this rule,
and in those I believe I am justified by special considerations.
We can conveniently begin by considering the Andamanese marriage
ceremony, which is one of the simplest and most easily understood. The
main feature of it is that the bride and bridegroom are required
publicly to embrace each other. In the North Andaman the embrace is
made gradually, by stages as it were, each stage being more intimate
than the preceding. At first the two sit side by side, then their arms
are placed around each other, and finally the bridegroom is made to sit
on the bride’s lap [160].
Everywhere in human life the embrace is employed as an expression of
such feelings as love, affection, friendship, i.e. of feelings of
attachment between persons. There is no need to enquire into the
psycho-physical basis of this expression. It is probably intimately
related to the nursing of the infant by the mother, and is certainly
very closely connected with the development of the sex instinct. It is
sufficient for our purpose to satisfy ourselves that the embrace in all
its forms does always express feelings of one generic kind. Nor is it
necessary for us to consider the peculiar form of the Andamanese
embrace, in which one person sits down and extends his or her legs,
while the other person sits on the lap so formed and the two wrap their
arms round one another’s necks and shoulders.
The meaning of the marriage ceremony is readily seen. By marriage the
man and woman are brought into a special and intimate relation to one
another; they are, as we say, united. The social union is symbolised or
expressed by the physical union of the embrace. The ceremony brings
vividly to the minds of the young couple and also to those of the
spectators the consciousness that the two are entering upon a new
social relation of which the essential feature is the affection in
which they must hold one another.
The rite has two aspects according as we regard it from the standpoint
of the witnesses or from that of the couple themselves. The witnesses,
by their presence, give their sanction to the union that is thus
enacted before them. The man who conducts the ceremony is merely the
active representative of the community; in what he does and says he
acts as a deputy and not as a private individual. Thus the ceremony
serves to make it clear that the marriage is a matter which concerns
not only those who are entering into it, but the whole community, and
its occasional performance serves to keep alive this sentiment with
regard to marriage in general. The existence of the sentiment is shown
in the reprobation felt and often expressed at an irregular marriage,
in which the couple unite without a ceremony; such a union showing a
contemptuous or careless thrusting aside of an important social
principle.
For the witnesses, then, the ceremony serves to awaken to activity and
to express this sentiment; but it also serves as a recognition on their
part of the change of status of the marrying pair. It makes them
realise that henceforward the young couple must be treated no longer as
children but as responsible adults, and it is thus the occasion of a
change of sentiment towards those whose social position is being
changed. For in the society of the Andamans there is a very marked
division between married and unmarried persons in the way in which they
are regarded by others, and in respect of their place in the community.
The married couple are made to realise, in a different way and with a
much greater intensity of feeling, these same two things; first, that
their union in marriage is a matter that concerns the whole community,
and second, that they are entering a new condition, with new privileges
but also with new duties and obligations. For them, indeed, the
ceremony is a sort of ordeal from which they would only too gladly
escape, and which, by the powerful emotions it evokes in them very
vividly impresses upon them what their marriage means.
The wedding gifts that are bestowed upon the young couple are an
expression of the general good-will towards them. The giving of
presents is a common method of expressing friendship in the Andamans.
Thus when two friends meet after separation, the first thing they do
after having embraced and wept together, is to give one another
presents. In most instances the giving is reciprocal, and is therefore
really an exchange. If a present be given as a sign of good-will the
giver expects to receive a present of about equal value in return. The
reason for this is obvious; the one has expressed his good-will towards
the other, and if the feeling is reciprocated a return present must be
given in order to express it. So also it would be an insult to refuse a
present offered, for to do so would be equivalent to rejecting the
good-will it represents. At marriage the giving is one-sided, no return
being expected, for it is an expression not of personal friendship on
the part of the givers, but of the general social good-will and
approval. It is for this reason that it is the duty of everybody who is
present to make some gift to the newly-married pair.
In another simple ceremony, the peace-making ceremony of the North
Andaman [161], the meaning is again easily discovered; the symbolism of
the dance being indeed at once obvious to a witness, though perhaps not
quite so obvious from the description given. The dancers are divided
into two parties. The actions of the one party throughout are
expressions of their aggressive feelings towards the other. This is
clear enough in the shouting, the threatening gestures, and the way in
which each member of the “attacking” party gives a good shaking to each
member of the other party. On the other side what is expressed may be
described as complete passivity; the performers stand quite still
throughout the whole dance, taking care to show neither fear nor
resentment at the treatment to which they have to submit. Thus those of
the one side give collective expression to their collective anger,
which is thereby appeased. The others, by passively submitting to this,
humbling themselves before the just wrath of their enemies, expiate
their wrongs. Anger appeased dies down; wrongs expiated are forgiven
and forgotten; the enmity is at an end.
The screen of fibre against which the passive participants in the
ceremony stand has a peculiar symbolic meaning that will be explained
later in the chapter. The only other elements of the ceremony are the
weeping together, which will be dealt with very soon, and the exchange
of weapons, which is simply a special form of the rite of exchanging
presents as an expression of good-will. The special form is
particularly appropriate as it would seem to ensure at least some
months of friendship, for you cannot go out to fight a man with his
weapons while he has yours.
The purpose of the ceremony is clearly to produce a change in the
feelings of the two parties towards one another, feelings of enmity
being replaced through it by feelings of friendship and solidarity. It
depends for its effect on the fact that anger and similar aggressive
feelings may be appeased by being freely expressed. Its social function
is to restore the condition of solidarity between two local groups that
has been destroyed by some act of offence.
The marriage ceremony and the peace-making dance both afford examples
of the custom which the Andamanese have of weeping together under
certain circumstances. The principal occasions of this ceremonial
weeping are as follows: (1) when two friends or relatives meet after
having been for some time parted, they embrace each other and weep
together; (2) at the peace-making ceremony the two parties of former
enemies weep together, embracing each other; (3) at the end of the
period of mourning the friends of the mourners (who have not themselves
been mourning) weep with the latter; (4) after a death the relatives
and friends embrace the corpse and weep over it; (5) when the bones of
a dead man or woman are recovered from the grave they are wept over;
(6) on the occasion of a marriage the relatives of each weep over the
bride and bridegroom; (7) at various stages of the initiation
ceremonies the female relatives of a youth or girl weep over him or
her.
First of all it is necessary to note that not in any of the
above-mentioned instances is the weeping simply a spontaneous
expression of feeling. It is always a rite the proper performance of
which is demanded by custom. (As mentioned in an earlier chapter, the
Andamanese are able to sit down and shed tears at will.) Nor can we
explain the weeping as being an expression of sorrow. It is true that
some of the occasions are such as to produce sorrowful feelings (4 and
5, for example), but there are others on which there would seem to be
no reason for sorrow but rather for joy. The Andamanese do weep from
sorrow and spontaneously. A child cries when he is scolded or hurt; a
widow weeps thinking of her recently dead husband. Men rarely weep
spontaneously for any reason, though they shed tears abundantly when
taking part in the rite. The weeping on the occasions enumerated is
therefore not a spontaneous expression of individual emotion but is an
example of what I have called ceremonial customs. In certain
circumstances men and women are required by custom to embrace one
another and weep, and if they neglected to do so it would be an offence
condemned by all right-thinking persons.
According to the postulate of method laid down at the beginning of the
chapter we have to seek such an explanation of this custom as will
account for all the different occasions on which the rite is performed,
since we must assume that one and the same rite has the same meaning in
whatever circumstances it may take place. It must be noted, however,
that there are two varieties of the rite. In the first three instances
enumerated above the rite is reciprocal, i.e. two persons or two
distinct groups of persons weep together and embrace each other, both
parties to the rite being active. In the other four instances it is
one-sided; a person or group of persons weeps over another person (or
the relics of a person) who has only a passive part in the ceremony.
Any explanation, to be satisfactory, must take account of the
difference between these two varieties.
I would explain the rite as being an expression of that feeling of
attachment between persons which is of such importance in the almost
domestic life of the Andaman society. In other words the purpose of the
rite is to affirm the existence of a social bond between two or more
persons.
There are two elements in the ceremony, the embrace and the weeping. We
have already seen that the embrace is an expression, in the Andamans as
elsewhere, of the feeling of attachment, i.e. the feeling of which
love, friendship, affection are varieties. Turning to the second
element of the ceremony, we are accustomed to think of weeping as more
particularly an expression of sorrow. We are familiar, however, with
tears of joy, and I have myself observed tears that were the result
neither of joy nor of sorrow but of a sudden overwhelming feeling of
affection. I believe that we may describe weeping as being a means by
which the mind obtains relief from a condition of emotional tension,
and that it is because such conditions of tension are most common in
feelings of grief and pain that weeping comes to be associated with
painful feelings. It is impossible here to discuss this subject, and I
am therefore compelled to assume without proof this proposition on
which my explanation of the rite is based [162]. My own conclusion,
based on careful observation, is that in this rite the weeping is an
expression of what has been called the tender emotion [163]. Without
doubt, on some of the occasions of the rite, as when weeping over a
dead friend, the participants are suffering a painful emotion, but this
is evidently not so on all occasions. It is true, however, as I shall
show, that on every occasion of the rite there is a condition of
emotional tension due to the sudden calling into activity of the
sentiment of personal attachment.
When two friends or relatives meet after having been separated, the
social relation between them that has been interrupted is about to be
renewed. This social relation implies or depends upon the existence of
a specific bond of solidarity between them. The weeping rite (together
with the subsequent exchange of presents) is the affirmation of this
bond. The rite, which, it must be remembered, is obligatory, compels
the two participants to act as though they felt certain emotions, and
thereby does, to some extent, produce those emotions in them. When the
two friends meet their first feeling seems to be one of shyness mingled
with pleasure at seeing each other again. This is according to the
statements of the natives as well as my own observation. Now this
shyness (the Andamanese use the same word as they do for “shame”) is
itself a condition of emotional tension, which has to be relieved in
some way. The embrace awakens to full activity that feeling of
affection or friendship that has been dormant and which it is the
business of the rite to renew. The weeping gives relief to the
emotional tension just noted, and also reinforces the effect of the
embrace. This it does owing to the fact that a strong feeling of
personal attachment is always produced when two persons join together
in sharing and simultaneously expressing one and the same emotion
[164]. The little ceremony thus serves to dispel the initial feeling of
shyness and to reinstate the condition of intimacy and affection that
existed before the separation.
In the peace-making ceremony the purpose of the whole rite is to
abolish a condition of enmity and replace it by one of friendship. The
once friendly relations between the two groups have been interrupted by
a longer or shorter period of antagonism. We have seen that the effect
of the dance is to dispel the wrath of the one group by giving it free
expression. The weeping that follows is the renewal of the friendship.
The rite is here exactly parallel to that on the meeting of two
friends, except that not two individuals but two groups are concerned,
and that owing to the number of persons involved the emotional
condition is one of much greater intensity [165]. Here therefore also
we see that the rite is an affirmation of solidarity or social union,
in this instance between the groups, and that the rule is in its nature
such as to make the participants feel that they are bound to each other
by ties of friendship.
We now come to a more difficult example of the rite, that at the end of
mourning. It will be shown later in the chapter that during the period
of mourning the mourners are cut off from the ordinary life of the
community. By reason of the ties that still bind them to the dead
person they are placed, as it were, outside the society and the bonds
that unite them to their group are temporarily loosened. At the end of
the mourning period they re-enter the society and take up once more
their place in the social life. Their return to the community is the
occasion on which they and their friends weep together. In this
instance also, therefore, the rite may be explained as having for its
purpose the renewal of the social relations that have been interrupted.
This explanation will seem more convincing when we have considered in
detail the customs of mourning. If it be accepted, then it may be seen
that in the first three instances of the rite of weeping (those in
which the action is reciprocal) we have conditions in which social
relations that have been interrupted are about to be renewed, and the
rite serves as a ceremony of aggregation.
Let us now consider the second variety of the rite, and first of all
its meaning as part of the ceremony of marriage. By marriage the social
bonds that have to that time united the bride and bridegroom to their
respective relatives, particularly their female relatives such as
mother, mother’s sister, father’s sister and adopted mother, are
modified. The unmarried youth or girl is in a position of dependence
upon his or her older relatives, and by the marriage this dependence is
partly abolished. Whereas the principal duties of the bride were
formerly those towards her mother and older female relatives,
henceforth her chief duties in life will be towards her husband. The
position of the bridegroom is similar, and it must be noted that his
social relations with his male relatives are less affected by his
marriage than those with his female relatives. Yet, though the ties
that have bound the bride and bridegroom to their relatives are about
to be modified or partially destroyed by the new ties of marriage with
its new duties and rights they will still continue to exist in a
weakened and changed condition. The rite of weeping is the expression
of this. It serves to make real (by feeling), in those taking part in
it, the presence of the social ties that are being modified.
When the mother of the bride or bridegroom weeps at a marriage she
feels that her son or daughter is being taken from her care. She has
the sorrow of a partial separation and she consoles herself by
expressing in the rite her continued feeling of tenderness and
affection towards him in the new condition that he is entering upon.
For her the chief result of the rite is to make her feel that her child
is still an object of her affection, still bound to her by close ties,
in spite of the fact that he or she is being taken from her care.
Exactly the same explanation holds with regard to the weeping at the
initiation ceremonies. By these ceremonies the youth (or girl) is
gradually withdrawn from a condition of dependence on his mother and
older female relatives and is made an independent member of the
community. The initiation is a long process that is only completed by
marriage. At every stage of the lengthy ceremonies therefore, the
social ties that unite the initiate to these relatives are modified or
weakened, and the rite of weeping is the means by which the
significance of the change is impressed upon those taking part in it.
For the mother the weeping expresses her resignation at her necessary
loss, and acts as a consolation by making her feel that her son is
still hers, though now being withdrawn from her care. For the boy the
rite has a different meaning. He realises that he is no longer merely a
child, dependent upon his mother, but is now entering upon manhood. His
former feelings towards his mother must be modified. That he is being
separated from her is, for him, the most important aspect of the
matter, and therefore while she weeps he must give no sign of
tenderness in return but must sit passive and silent. So also in the
marriage ceremony, the rite serves to impress upon the young man and
woman that they are, by reason of the new ties that they are forming
with one another, severing their ties with their families.
When a person dies the social bonds that unite him to the survivors are
profoundly modified. They are not in an instant utterly destroyed, as
we shall see better when we deal with the funeral and mourning customs,
for the friends and relatives still feel towards the dead person that
affection in which they held him when alive, and this has now become a
source of deep grief. It is this affection still binding them to him
that they express in the rite of weeping over the corpse. Here rite and
natural expression of emotion coincide, but it must be noted that the
weeping is obligatory, a matter of duty. In this instance, then, the
rite is similar to that at marriage and initiation. The man is by death
cut off from the society to which he belonged, and from association
with his friends, but the latter still feel towards him that attachment
that bound them together while he lived, and it is this attachment that
they express when they embrace the lifeless corpse and weep over it.
There remains only one more instance of the rite to be considered. When
the period of mourning for a dead person is over and the bones are
recovered the modification in the relations between the dead and the
living, which begins at death, and is, as we shall see, carried out by
the mourning customs and ceremonies, is finally accomplished. The dead
person is now entirely cut off from the world of the living, save that
his bones are to be treasured as relics and amulets. The weeping over
the bones must be taken, I think, as a rite of aggregation whereby the
bones as representative of the dead person (all that is left of him)
are received back into the society henceforth to fill a special place
in the social life. It really constitutes a renewal of social relations
with the dead person, after a period during which all active social
relations have been interrupted owing to the danger in all contact
between the living and the dead. By the rite the affection that was
once felt towards the dead person is revived and is now directed to the
skeletal relics of the man or woman that once was their object. If this
explanation seem unsatisfactory, I would ask the reader to suspend his
judgment until the funeral customs of the Andamans have been discussed,
and then to return to this point.
The proffered explanation of the rite of weeping should now be plain. I
regard it as being the affirmation of a bond of social solidarity
between those taking part in it, and as producing in them a realisation
of that bond by arousing the sentiment of attachment. In some instances
the rite therefore serves to renew social relations when they have been
interrupted, and in such instances the rite is reciprocal. In others it
serves to show the continued existence of the social bond when it is
being weakened or modified, as by marriage, initiation or death. In all
instances we may say that the purpose of the rite is to bring about a
new state of the affective dispositions that regulate the conduct of
persons to one another, either by reviving sentiments that have lain
dormant, or producing a recognition of a change in the condition of
personal relations.
The study of these simple ceremonies has shown us several things of
importance. (1) In every instance the ceremony is the expression of an
affective state of mind shared by two or more persons. Thus the weeping
rite expresses feelings of solidarity, the exchange of presents
expresses good-will. (2) But the ceremonies are not spontaneous
expressions of feeling; they are all customary actions to which the
sentiment of obligation attaches, which it is the duty of persons to
perform on certain definite occasions. It is the duty of everyone in a
community to give presents at a wedding; it is the duty of relatives to
weep together when they meet. (3) In every instance the ceremony is to
be explained by reference to fundamental laws regulating the affective
life of human beings. It is not our business here to analyse these
phenomena but only to satisfy ourselves that they are real. That
weeping is an outlet for emotional excitement, that the free expression
of aggressive feelings causes them to die out instead of smouldering
on, that an embrace is an expression of feelings of attachment between
persons: these are the psychological generalisations upon which are
based the explanations given above of various ceremonies of the
Andamanese. (4) Finally, we have seen that each of the ceremonies
serves to renew or to modify in the minds of those taking part in it
some one or more of the social sentiments. The peace-making ceremony is
a method by which feelings of enmity are exchanged for feelings of
friendship. The marriage rite serves to arouse in the minds of the
marrying pair a sense of their obligations as married folk, and to
bring about in the minds of the witnesses a change of feeling towards
the young people such as should properly accompany their change of
social status. The weeping and exchange of presents when friends come
together is a means of renewing their feelings of attachment to one
another. The weeping at marriage, at initiation, and on the occasion of
a death is a reaction of defence or compensation when feelings of
solidarity are attacked by a partial breaking of the social ties that
bind persons to one another.
In the ceremonial life of the Andamans some part is played by dancing,
and it will be convenient to consider next the meaning and function of
the dance. It is necessary, however, to deal very briefly with this
subject and omit much that would have to be included in an exhaustive
study. Thus the ordinary Andaman dance may be looked upon as a form of
play; it also shows us the beginnings of the arts of dancing, music and
poetry; and therefore in any study pretending to completeness it would
be necessary to discuss the difficult problem of the relation between
art, play and ceremonial in social life, a subject of too wide a scope
to be handled in such an essay as this. For our present purpose we are
concerned with the dance only as a form of social ceremonial.
If an Andaman Islander is asked why he dances he gives an answer that
amounts to saying that he does so because he enjoys it. Dancing is
therefore in general a means of enjoyment. It is frequently a
rejoicing. The Andaman Islanders dance after a successful day of
hunting; they do not dance if their day has been one of disappointment.
Pleasurable mental excitement finds its natural expression in bodily
activity, as we see most plainly in young children and in some animals.
And in its turn mere muscular activity is itself a source of pleasure.
The individual shouts and jumps for joy; the society turns the jump
into a dance, the shout into a song.
The essential character of all dancing is that it is rhythmical, and it
is fairly evident that the primary function of this rhythmical nature
of the dance is to enable a number of persons to join in the same
actions and perform them as one body. In the Andamans at any rate it is
clear that the spectacular dance (such as the performance described on
page 164) is a late development out of the common dance. And it is
probable that the history of the dance is everywhere the same, that it
began as a common dance in which all present take some active part, and
from this first form (still surviving in our ball-room dances) arose
the spectacular dance in which one or more dancers perform before
spectators who take no part themselves.
In the Andamans the song is an accompaniment of the dance. The dancing
and singing and the marking of the rhythm by clapping and by stamping
on the sounding-board are all parts of the one common action in which
all join and which for convenience is here spoken of as the dance. It
is probable that here again the Andamanese practice shows us the
earliest stage in the development of the song, that song and music at
first had no independent existence but together with dancing formed one
activity. It is reasonable to suppose that the song first came into
general use in human society because it provides a means by which a
number of persons can utter the same series of sounds together and as
with one voice, this being made possible by the fixed rhythm and the
fixed pitch of the whole song and of each part of it (i.e. by melody).
Once the art of song was in existence its further development was
doubtless largely dependent upon the esthetic pleasure that it is able
to give. But in the Andamans the esthetic pleasure that the natives get
from their simple and monotonous songs seems to me of quite secondary
importance as compared with the value of the song as a joint social
activity.
The movements of the ordinary Great Andaman dance do not seem to me to
be in themselves expressive, or at any rate they are not obviously
mimetic like the movements of the dances of many primitive folk. Their
function seems to be to bring into activity as many of the muscles of
the body as possible. The bending of the body at the hips and of the
legs at the knees, with the slightly backward poise of the head and the
common position of the arms held in line with the shoulders with the
elbows crooked and the thumb and first finger of each hand clasping
those of the other, produce a condition of tension of a great number of
the muscles of the trunk and limbs. The attitude is one in which all
the main joints of the body are between complete flexion and complete
extension so that there is approximately an equal tension in the
opposing groups of flexor and extensor muscles. Thus the whole body of
the dancer is full of active forces balanced one against another,
resulting in a condition of flexibility and alertness without strain.
While the dance thus brings into play the whole muscular system of the
dancer it also requires the activity of the two chief senses, that of
sight to guide the dancer in his movements amongst the others and that
of hearing to enable him to keep time with the music. Thus the dancer
is in a condition in which all the bodily and mental activities are
harmoniously directed to one end.
Finally, in order to understand the function of the Andamanese dance it
must be noted that every adult member of the community takes some part
in it. All the able-bodied men join in the dance itself; all the women
join in the chorus. If anyone through ill-health or old age is unable
to take any active part, he or she is at least necessarily a spectator,
for the dance takes place in the centre of the village in the open
space towards which the huts usually face [166].
The Andamanese dance (with its accompanying song) may therefore be
described as an activity in which, by virtue of the effects of rhythm
and melody, all the members of a community are able harmoniously to
cooperate and act in unity; which requires on the part of the dancer a
continual condition of tension free from strain; and which produces in
those taking part in it a high degree of pleasure. We must now proceed
to examine very briefly the chief effects on the mental condition of
those taking part [167].
First let us consider some of the effects of rhythm. Any marked rhythm
exercises over those submitted to its influence a constraint, impelling
them to yield to it and to permit it to direct and regulate the
movements of the body and even those of the mind. If one does not yield
to this constraining influence it produces a state of restlessness that
may become markedly unpleasant. One who yields himself utterly to it,
as does the dancer when he joins in the dance, still continues to feel
the constraint, but so far from being unpleasant it now produces a
pleasure of a quite distinct quality. The first point for us to note
therefore is that through the effect of rhythm the dance affords an
experience of a constraint or force of a peculiar kind acting upon the
individual and inducing in him when he yields himself to it a pleasure
of self-surrender. The peculiarity of the force in question is that it
seems to act upon the individual both from without (since it is the
sight of his friends dancing and the sound of the singing and marking
time that occasions it), and also from within (since the impulse to
yield himself to the constraining rhythm comes from his own organism).
A second effect of the rhythm of the dance is due to the well-known
fact that a series of actions performed rhythmically produces very much
less fatigue than actions not rhythmical requiring the same expenditure
of muscular energy. So the dancer feels that in and through the dance
he obtains such an increase of his personal energy that he is able to
accomplish strenuous exertions with a minimum of fatigue. This effect
of rhythm is reinforced by the excitement produced by the rapid
movements of the dancers, the loud sounds of the song and clapping and
sounding-board, and intensified, as all collective states of emotion
are intensified, by reason of being collective; with the result that
the Andaman Islanders are able to continue their strenuous dancing
through many hours of the night [168].
There is yet a third most important effect of rhythm. Recent psychology
shows that what are called the esthetic emotions are largely dependent
upon motor images. We call a form beautiful when, through the movements
of the eye in following it, we feel it as movement, and as movement of
a particular kind which we can only describe at present by using such a
word as ‘harmonious.’ Similarly our esthetic appreciation of music
seems to be largely dependent on our feeling the music as movement, the
sounds appealing not to the ear only but to stored-up unconscious motor
memories. With regard to dancing, our pleasure in watching the
graceful, rhythmical and harmonious movements of the dancer is an
esthetic pleasure of similar nature to that obtained from the
contemplation of beautiful shapes or listening to music. But when the
individual is himself dancing it does not seem quite fitting to call
his pleasure esthetic. Yet the dance, even the simple dance of the
Andamans, does make, in the dancer himself, partly by the effect of
rhythm, partly by the effect of the harmonious and balanced tension of
the muscles, a direct appeal to that motor sense to which the
contemplation of beautiful forms and movements makes only an indirect
appeal. In other words the dancer actually feels within himself that
harmonious action of balanced and directed forces which, in the
contemplation of a beautiful form we feel as though it were in the
object at which we look. Hence such dancing as that of the Andaman
Islanders may be looked upon as an early step in the training of the
esthetic sense, and to recognize all that the dance means we must make
allowance for this fact that the mental state of the dancer is closely
related to the mental state that we call esthetic enjoyment.
Let us now consider the effects of the dance as a social or collective
activity. First, the dance affords an opportunity for the individual to
exhibit before others his skill and agility and so to gratify his
personal vanity. It is very easy to observe the action of this harmless
vanity in the dancers, and particularly in the man who takes the place
at the sounding-board and acts as soloist or leader of the chorus. The
dancer seeks to feel, and does feel, that he is the object of the
approbation and admiration of his friends. His self-regarding
sentiments are pleasantly stimulated, so that he becomes conscious, in
a state of self-satisfaction and elation, of his own personal value.
This stimulation of the self-regarding sentiment is an important factor
in the total effect produced by the dance.
Secondly, the dance, at the same time that it stimulates pleasantly the
self-regarding sentiment, also affects the sentiments of the dancer
towards his fellows. The pleasure that the dancer feels irradiates
itself over everything around him and he is filled with geniality and
good-will towards his companions. The sharing with others of an intense
pleasure, or rather the sharing in a collective expression of pleasure,
must ever incline us to such expansive feelings. It is certainly a
readily observable fact that in the Andamans the dance does produce a
condition of warm good-fellowship in those taking part in it. There is
no need to enquire more closely into the mental mechanisms by which
this is brought about.
The Andaman dance, then, is a complete activity of the whole community,
in which every able-bodied adult takes some part, and is also an
activity in which, so far as the dancer himself is concerned, the whole
personality is involved, by the innervation of all the muscles of the
body, by the concentration of attention required, and by its action on
the personal sentiments. In the dance the individual submits to the
action upon him of the community; he is constrained, by the immediate
effect of rhythm as well as by custom, to join in, and he is required
to conform in his own actions and movements to the needs of the common
activity. The surrender of the individual to this constraint or
obligation is not felt as painful, but on the contrary as highly
pleasurable. As the dancer loses himself in the dance, as he becomes
absorbed in the unified community, he reaches a state of elation in
which he feels himself filled with energy or force immensely beyond his
ordinary state, and so finds himself able to perform prodigies of
exertion. This state of intoxication, as it might almost be called, is
accompanied by a pleasant stimulation of the self-regarding sentiment,
so that the dancer comes to feel a great increase in his personal force
and value. And at the same time, finding himself in complete and
ecstatic harmony with all the fellow-members of his community,
experiences a great increase in his feelings of amity and attachment
towards them.
In this way the dance produces a condition in which the unity, harmony
and concord of the community are at a maximum, and in which they are
intensely felt by every member. It is to produce this condition, I
would maintain, that is the primary social function of the dance. The
well-being, or indeed the existence, of the society depends on the
unity and harmony that obtain in it, and the dance, by making that
unity intensely felt, is a means of maintaining it. For the dance
affords an opportunity for the direct action of the community upon the
individual, and we have seen that it exercises in the individual those
sentiments by which the social harmony is maintained.
It was formerly the custom, I was told, always to have a dance before
setting out to a fight. The reason for this should now be clear. When a
group engages in a fight with another it is to revenge some injury that
has been done to the whole group. The group is to act as a group and
not merely as a collection of individuals, and it is therefore
necessary that the group should be conscious of its unity and
solidarity. Now we have seen that the chief function of the dance is to
arouse in the mind of every individual a sense of the unity of the
social group of which he is a member, and its function before setting
out to a fight is therefore apparent. A secondary effect of the dance
before a fight is to intensify the collective anger against the hostile
group, and thereby and in other ways to produce a state of excitement
and elation which has an important influence on the fighting quality of
the Andaman warrior.
An important feature of the social life of the Andamans in former times
was the dance-meetings that were regularly held and at which two or
more local groups met together for a few days. Each local group lived
for the greater part of the year comparatively isolated from others.
What little solidarity there was between neighbouring groups therefore
tended to become weakened. Social relations between two groups were for
the most part only kept up by visits of individuals from one group to
another, but such visits did not constitute a relation between group
and group. The function of the dance-meetings was therefore to bring
the two groups into contact and renew the social relations between them
and in that way to maintain the solidarity between them. Those
meetings, apart from the provision of the necessary food, were entirely
devoted to the exchange of presents and to dancing, the two or more
parties of men and women joining together every night in a dance. We
have already seen that the exchange of presents is a means of
expressing solidarity or mutual good-will. It is now clear that the
dance serves to unite the two or more groups into one body, and to make
that unity felt by every individual, so creating for a few days a
condition of close solidarity. The effects of the meeting would
gradually wear out as months went by, and therefore it was necessary to
repeat the meeting at suitable intervals.
Thus it appears that not only the ordinary dance, but also the
war-dance, and the dance-meetings owe their place in the life of the
Andaman Islanders to the fact that dancing is a means of uniting
individuals into a harmonious whole and at the same time making them
actually and intensely experience their relation to that unity of which
they are the members. The special dances at initiation ceremonies and
on other occasions will be dealt with later in the chapter, on the
basis of the general explanation given above.
On the occasion of a dance, particularly if it be a dance of some
importance, such as a war-dance, or a dance of two groups together, the
dancers decorate themselves by putting on various ornaments and by
painting their bodies with red paint and white clay. The explanation of
the dance cannot therefore be regarded as complete till we have
considered the meaning of this personal adornment connected with it.
If the Andaman Islander be asked why he adorns himself for the dance,
his reply is invariably that he wishes to look well, to improve his
personal appearance. In other words his conscious motive is personal
vanity.
One of the features of the dance, and a not unimportant one, is that it
offers an opportunity for the gratification of personal vanity. The
dancer, painted, and hung over with ornaments, becomes pleasantly
conscious of himself, of his own skill and agility, and of his striking
or at least satisfactory appearance, and so he becomes also conscious
of his relation to others, of their admiration, actual or possible, and
of the approval and good-will that go with admiration. In brief, the
ornamented dancer is pleasantly conscious of his own personal value. We
may therefore say that the most important function of any such adorning
of the body is to express or mark the personal value of the decorated
individual.
This explanation only applies to certain bodily ornaments and to
certain ways of painting the body. It applies to the painting of white
clay, with or without red paint, that is adopted at dances and on other
ceremonial occasions. It applies to such personal ornaments as those
made of netting and Dentalium shell which constitute what may be called
the ceremonial costume of the Andamanese. It is of these that the
natives say that they use them in order to look well.
The occasions on which such personal decoration is used are strictly
defined by custom. In other words the society dictates to the
individual when and how he shall be permitted to express his own
personal value. It is obvious that personal vanity is of great
importance in directing the conduct of the individual in his dealings
with his fellows, and much more amongst a primitive people such as the
Andamanese than amongst ourselves, and it is therefore necessary that
the society should have some means of controlling the sentiment and
directing it towards social ends. We have seen that the dance is the
expression of the unity and harmony of the society, and by permitting
at the dance the free expression of personal vanity the society ensures
that the individual shall learn to feel, even if only subconsciously,
that his personal value depends upon the harmony between himself and
his fellows.
The bride and bridegroom are painted with white clay, and wear
ornaments of Dentalium shell on the day following their marriage. We
have seen that marriage involves a change of social status, and we may
say that it gives an increased social value to the married pair, the
social position of a married man or woman being of greater importance
and dignity than that of a bachelor or spinster. They are, after
marriage, the objects of higher regard on the part of their fellows
than they were before. It is therefore appropriate that the personal
value of the bride and bridegroom should be expressed so that both they
themselves and their fellows should have their attention drawn to it,
and this is clearly the function of the painting and ornaments.
After the completion of any of the more important of the initiation
ceremonies, such as the eating of turtle, the initiate is painted with
white clay and red paint and wears ornaments of Dentalium shell. This
is exactly parallel to the painting of the bride and bridegroom. The
initiate, by reason of the ceremony he has been through, has acquired
new dignity and importance, and by having fulfilled the requirements of
custom has deserved the approval of his fellows. The decoration of his
body after the ceremony is thus the expression of his increased social
value.
A corpse, before burial, is decorated in the same manner as the body of
a dancer. This, we may take it, is the means by which the surviving
relatives and friends express their regard for the dead, i.e. their
sense of his value. We need not suppose that they believe the dead man
to be conscious of what they are doing. It is to satisfy themselves
that they decorate the corpse, not to satisfy the spirit. When a man is
painted he feels that he has the regard and good-will of his fellows,
and those who see him, at any rate in the instance of a bridegroom or
initiate, realise that he has deserved their regard. So, to express
their regard for the dead man they paint the inanimate body. Hence it
is that the greater the esteem in which the dead man or woman is held,
the greater is the care bestowed on the last painting.
We may conclude therefore that the painting of the body with white clay
and the wearing of ornaments of Dentalium shell is a rite or ceremony
by which the value of the individual to the society is expressed on
appropriate occasions. We shall find confirmation of this later in the
chapter.
Before passing on to consider the meaning of other methods of
decorating the body there is one matter that is worthy of mention. It
is often assumed or stated that both personal ornament and dancing,
amongst uncivilised peoples, are connected with sexual emotion. It is,
of course, extremely difficult to disprove a statement of this sort. So
far as the Andamanese are concerned I was unable to find any trace
whatever of a definitely sexual element in either their dances or their
personal adornment. It may be recalled that both men and women wear
exactly the same ornaments on ceremonial occasions, and this is to some
extent evidence that such have no sexual value. It is possible that
some observers might see in the dance of the women (which is only
performed on rare occasions) a suggestion of something of a sexual
nature. I was unable to find that the natives themselves consider that
there is anything suggestive of sex in either the dance of the men or
that of the women. If it were true that the most important feature of
the dance was that it appealed in some way to sexual feelings it is
difficult to see how we are to explain the different occasions on which
dancing takes place, as before a fight, at the end of mourning, etc.,
whereas these are adequately accounted for by the hypothesis that the
dance is a method of expressing the unity and harmony of the society.
Similarly the explanation of personal ornament as being connected with
sexual feeling would fail to account for the occasions on which it is
regarded as obligatory. There is therefore, I believe, no special
connection between the dancing and personal ornament of the Andamanese
and sexual feeling. It would still be possible to hold that there is a
general connection of great importance between the affective
dispositions underlying these and other customs and the complex
affective disposition that we call the sex instinct. The nature of that
connection, important as it is, lies outside the scope of this work.
I remarked above that the explanation which I have given of the meaning
of personal ornament does not apply to all the objects that the Andaman
Islanders wear on their body, but only to certain of them. If an
Andaman Islander be asked why he paints himself with white clay, or why
he wears a belt or necklace of Dentalium shell he replies that he does
so in order to look well; but if he be asked why he wears a string of
human bones round his head or neck or waist, he gives quite a different
answer, to the effect that he does so in order to protect himself from
dangers of a special kind. According to circumstances he will say
either that he is wearing the bones to cure himself of illness, or else
that he wears them as a protection against spirits. Thus while some
things are worn on the body in order to improve the personal
appearance, and consequently, as explained above, to give the
individual a sense of his own value, others are worn because they are
believed to have a protective power, and thereby arouse in the person a
sense of security. Exactly the same sort of protective power is
attributed to things that cannot be worn on the body, such as fire, and
it will therefore be convenient to consider together all the things
that afford this kind of protection, whether they can be worn on the
body or not.
The interpretation here offered is that the customs connected with this
belief in the protective power of objects of various kinds are means by
which is expressed and thereby maintained at the necessary degree of
energy a very important social sentiment, which, for lack of a better
term, I shall call the sentiment of dependence. In such a primitive
society as that of the Andamans one of the most powerful means of
maintaining the cohesion of the society and of enforcing that
conformity to custom and tradition without which social life is
impossible, is the recognition by the individual that for his security
and well-being he depends entirely upon the society. Now for the
Andaman Islander the society is not sufficiently concrete and
particular to act as the object of such a sentiment, and he therefore
feels his dependence upon the society not directly but in a number of
indirect ways. The particular way with which we are now concerned is
that the individual experiences this feeling of dependence towards
every important possession of the society, towards every object which
for the society has constant and important uses.
The most prominent example of such an object is fire. It may be said to
be the one object on which the society most of all depends for its
well-being. It provides warmth on cold nights; it is the means whereby
they prepare their food, for they eat nothing raw save a few fruits; it
is a possession that has to be constantly guarded, for they have no
means of producing it, and must therefore take care to keep it always
alight; it is the first thing they think of carrying with them when
they go on a journey by land or sea; it is the centre around which the
social life moves, the family hearth being the centre of the family
life, while the communal cooking place is the centre round which the
men often gather after the day’s hunting is over. To the mind of the
Andaman Islander, therefore, the social life of which his own life is a
fragment, the social well-being which is the source of his own
happiness, depend upon the possession of fire, without which the
society could not exist. In this way it comes about that his dependence
on the society appears in his consciousness as a sense of dependence
upon fire and a belief that it possesses power to protect him from
dangers of all kinds.
The belief in the protective power of fire is very strong. A man would
never move even a few yards out of camp at night without a fire-stick.
More than any other object fire is believed to keep away the spirits
that cause disease and death. This belief, it is here maintained, is
one of the ways in which the individual is made to feel his dependence
upon the society.
Now this hypothesis is capable of being very strictly tested by the
facts, for if it is true we must expect to find that the same
protective power is attributed to every object on which the social life
depends. An examination of the Andamanese beliefs shows that this is
so, and thereby confirms the hypothesis.
In their daily life the Andamanese depend on the intrinsic qualities of
the materials they use for their bows and arrows and harpoons and other
hunting implements, and it can be shown that they do attribute to these
implements and to the materials from which they are made powers of
protection against evil. Moreover it is even possible to apply a
quantitative test and show that the more important the place a thing
occupies in the social life the greater is the degree of protective
power attributed to it. Finally I shall be able to show that as
different materials are used for special purposes so they are supposed
to have certain special powers of protection against certain sorts of
danger. Thus the hypothesis I have stated is capable of being as nearly
demonstrated as is possible in such psychological enquiries as the one
we are engaged in.
A man carrying his bow and arrows is supposed to be less likely to fall
a victim to the spirits than one who has no weapons with him. One way
of stopping a violent storm is to go into the sea (storms being
supposed to be due to the spirits of the sea) and swish the water about
with arrows. The natives sometimes wear a necklace formed of short
lengths of the bamboo shaft of a fish-arrow. All the examples of such
necklaces that I met with had been made from an old arrow. I asked a
native to make one for me, and although he could readily have made one
from bamboo that had never served as an arrow he did not do so, but
used the shaft of one of his arrows. Such a necklace may therefore be
described as an arrow in such a form that it can be worn round the neck
and thus carried continually without trouble. The protective power of
the bow is at first sight not quite so evident, but the material used
for the string is regarded as possessing protective power, and to this
I shall return shortly.
The best demonstration of the truth of the explanation offered is to be
found by considering the different vegetable fibres of which use is
made. The most important of these are the Anadendron paniculatum (used
for bow-strings and for fine string), the Hibiscus tiliaceus (used for
rope) and the Gnetum edule (used for string, and inferior to the
Anadendron). All these fibres are believed to possess power to keep
away dangers, but there is a sort of specialisation in their use.
The fibre of the Hibiscus is used mainly in the hunting of turtle and
big fish. Consequently the tree itself from which the fibre is obtained
is believed to possess the power of warding off all dangers connected
with turtle and the sea. There is a custom that turtle flesh may only
be cooked with wood of the Hibiscus, otherwise it will be uneatable. In
the turtle-eating ceremony the initiate who, as we shall see later, is
in a condition of danger by reason of having eaten turtle for the first
time after a period of abstention, is seated on Hibiscus leaves and
holds a bundle of the same leaves before him. At the same ceremony the
leaves of this tree are used in the dance, and the initiate is given a
skewer made from its wood with which to feed himself. If for any reason
the leaves of the Hibiscus are not obtainable when the ceremony is
performed those of the Myristica longifolia are used instead. Now this
is the tree from which the natives always make their canoe paddles,
which, like ropes of Hibiscus fibre, are used in hunting turtle. This
specialisation is therefore easy to understand; the natives habitually
make use of the Hibiscus and the Myristica in turtle-hunting; they use
the intrinsic qualities of these trees in their actual struggles with
turtle and large fish, and by means of these qualities they are able to
succeed in overcoming their prey; they therefore come to believe that
these trees possess special powers which not only enable them to
conquer the turtle itself but also are able to protect them from the
evil influences that they believe (for reasons to be explained later)
result from the eating of its flesh.
This explanation is readily verified by considering an exactly parallel
instance. In the pig-eating ceremony at initiation the leaves of the
Hibiscus or the Myristica are not used, and are regarded as valueless.
Paddles and ropes are of no use in hunting pigs. The leaves that are
used in this ceremony are those of the Tetranthera lancæfolia. It is
from this tree that are obtained the shafts of pig-arrows. Hence the
relation of the tree to the pig is exactly parallel to that of the
Hibiscus to turtle. It is by making use of the qualities of the wood
that they are able to destroy the pig and so they believe that its
leaves will enable them to destroy the dangers that result from the
eating of the animal.
The leaves of the Tetranthera are also used, however, in the ceremony
at a girl’s first menstruation, and I cannot pass over this without an
explanation. It is to be found in the fact that pig-arrows are used in
fighting, so that the tree comes to have a special relation to the
shedding of blood. Plumes of shredded Tetranthera wood (made from an
old arrow-shaft) must be worn by a homicide during the period of
“purification” as a protection against the dangers that are believed to
threaten him because he has shed blood. The same plumes were formerly
always carried in a dance preceding a fight, and at such times the
natives used to rub their bows with the shredded wood in order to
ensure success in battle. Thus it is clear that there is a special
connection between this tree and the shedding of blood, due to the fact
that pig-arrows, of which the shafts are made from it, are used in
fighting as well as for killing pigs and other animals. It is probable
that this is the explanation of the use of the leaves during the
ceremony at a girl’s first menstruation.
These examples afford a crucial test of the hypothesis here maintained.
Not only is the protective power of these substances explicable by the
fact that they are things on which the society depends in its daily
life, but the special uses of each of them as amulets are only
explicable when we consider the different uses to which they are put as
materials.
The fibre of the Anadendron paniculatum is used for making thread,
bow-strings, the cords of pig-arrows, and for binding the heads and
barbs of harpoons and arrows. It has therefore no special relation to
either pig or turtle. There is a belief, however, that the plant does
possess special protective powers that make it efficacious against
certain dangers coming from the sea. A piece of the plant tied round
the neck or worn in the belt of a swimmer is believed to protect him
from sharks and other dangerous fish. A piece of it crushed and placed
in the sea is said to have stopped a violent storm on one occasion.
Thus the Anadendron seems to possess a special power which makes it a
source of protection against dangers from the sea. The same is true of
the Gnetum edule, though, as this fibre is less valued than that of the
Anadendron, it is not supposed to be so powerful in its effects. In
regard to the specialisation in the use of these two plants as amulets
it seems likely that it is due to a notion of opposition between the
things of the forest and the things of the sea. The Andamanese live in
a double environment; the jungle-dwellers live entirely in the forest
and have dealings with forest things; they develop knowledge and powers
that make them better woodsmen than the coast-dwellers. The latter live
by the sea and are chiefly occupied with things of the sea, being
skilled in the occupations of fishing and canoeing. There is thus a
contrast or opposition between the life of the forest and the life of
the shore that runs through all the social life, and I believe that it
is this opposition which explains the belief that the Anadendron and
the Gnetum, which are essentially forest things, are possessed of a
quality that makes them contrary or opposed to all things of the sea.
Personal ornaments are made from the fibres that have been mentioned
(Hibiscus, Anadendron, Gnetum), and we are justified, I think, in
regarding such ornaments as being to some extent amulets. I purchased
from a man in the Little Andaman a charm that was hanging round his
neck, which he seemed to value highly. I imagined that it might contain
a human bone, but when I had unwound the ornamental thread with which
it was bound and opened out the covering of bark I found inside the
parcel only a carefully folded length of rope made from Hibiscus fibre.
There is one fibre from which the natives of the Great Andaman make
themselves ornaments, which they do not regularly use in any other way,
namely that of the Ficus laccifera. We may perhaps regard this as a
genuine and demonstrable example of a survival in custom. The natives
of the Little Andaman, who, until their recent contact with those of
the Great Andaman, did not know the use of the Anadendron, use the
fibre of the Ficus for their bow-strings. We are justified in assuming,
I believe, that the natives of the Great Andaman made a similar use of
the same fibre before they had learnt to use the Anadendron. In those
days much of the power that is now attributed to the Anadendron,
because of its service as the material for bow-strings, must then have
been attributed to the Ficus. When the substitution of the superior
Anadendron fibre came about, the belief in the efficacy of the Ficus
did not disappear, although the ground of the belief (if we may call it
so) had ceased to exist. If this be so, then the present use of the
Ficus fibre as an amulet is an example of survival. It may be noted
that the qualities of the Ficus are supposed to be similar to those of
the Anadendron. Thus while one medicine-man stopped a storm with
Anadendron, another did the same thing on another occasion with Ficus.
The above examples are sufficient to justify the generalisation that
the Andamanese attribute protective power to all those substances on
the strength and other qualities of which they rely in order to obtain
their food or overcome their enemies. There are one or two other
positive instances that have not been mentioned. Bees’-wax, which is
used for waxing thread and bow-strings, is believed to have power to
keep spirits away and to cure sickness. Cane, which is used by the
natives for many different purposes, seems also to have its use as an
amulet, for belts and other personal ornaments are made of pieces of
cane attached to a length of rope.
Negative instances are more difficult to discover. When I was in the
Andamans I had not formulated the explanation that is offered here, and
I therefore did not make any search for negative instances that might
have afforded a means of testing the value of the hypothesis. I have no
satisfactory evidence that protective power is attributed to iron, or
to the shells that were formerly used, as iron now is, for the heads
and barbs of arrows, but it is quite possible that I may have
overlooked evidence that was really there. I do not think that any
particular protective properties are attributed to such things as the
materials from which baskets are made and the clay that is used for
pottery. These things, however, may be regarded as luxuries rather than
necessities; they are not of the same immediate service to the society
in its fundamental activity (that of providing food) as are weapons and
the materials used in them.
There are still two important kinds of amulets that remain to be
considered. First, protective power is attributed to the bones of
animals, which are made into personal ornaments; these cannot be dealt
with until we have considered some of the beliefs relating to food.
Secondly, a very high degree of protective power is attributed to human
bones, but the discussion of this belief must wait till we have
discovered the meaning of the funeral customs of the Andamanese.
To conclude the present argument, it would seem that the function of
the belief in the protective power of such things as fire and the
materials from which weapons are made is to maintain in the mind of the
individual the feeling of his dependence upon the society; but viewed
from another aspect the beliefs in question may be regarded as
expressing the social value of the things to which they relate. This
term—social value—will be used repeatedly in the later part of this
chapter, and it is therefore necessary to give an exact definition. By
the social value of anything I mean the way in which that thing affects
or is capable of affecting the social life. Value may be either
positive or negative, positive value being possessed by any thing that
contributes to the well-being of the society, negative value by
anything that can adversely affect that well-being.
The social value of a thing (such as fire) is a matter of immediate
experience to every member of the society, but the individual does not
of necessity consciously and directly realise that value. He is made to
realise it indirectly through the belief, impressed upon him by
tradition, that the thing in question affords protection against
danger. A belief or sentiment which finds regular outlet in action is a
very different thing from a belief which rarely or never influences
conduct. Thus, though the Andaman Islander might have a vague
realisation of the value of Hibiscus, for example, that would be
something very different from the result on the mind of the individual
of the regular use of the leaves of that tree in initiation ceremonies
as a protection against unseen dangers. So that the protective uses of
such things are really rites or ceremonies by means of which the
individual is made to realise (1) his own dependence on the society and
its possessions, and (2) the social value of the things in question.
I have had to postpone to the later parts of the chapter the
consideration of some of the objects possessing protective power, but I
venture to state here three propositions some part of the evidence for
which has already been examined, and which will be sufficiently
demonstrated, I hope, before the end of the chapter. They are as
follows: (1) any object that contributes to the well-being of the
society is believed to afford protection against evil; (2) the degree
of protective power it is believed to possess depends on the importance
of the services it actually renders to the society; (3) the kind of
special protection it is supposed to afford is often related to the
kind of special service that it does actually render.
We were led to the consideration of the protective power of objects
through an attempt to understand the meaning of the methods of
ornamenting the body in the Andamans. We have seen that some ornaments
are worn in order to express the personal value of the individual,
while others are worn for the sake of the protection they are believed
to afford. We have also seen that one method of painting the body (with
white clay) is a means of expressing the personal value of the painted
individual. We will next consider the use of the clay called odu. This
clay is painted on the body of a mourner and is the outward sign of
mourning; it is used at certain stages of the initiation ceremonies; it
is also regularly used for painting the body with the designs known as
e̱ra-puli. According to the rule of method laid down at the beginning of
the chapter we must seek some common explanation of these different
uses of the same substance.
We may consider, first of all, the patterns (e̱ra-puli) that are made
with this clay on the body and face after eating certain foods such as
pork and turtle.
Mr Man gives two explanations of the use of these paintings of clay.
During the hot season, he says, the natives “endeavour to lessen the
discomfort caused by the heat by smearing their bodies with a
white-wash of common white clay and water.” He adds: “it has long been
erroneously believed that they have recourse to this expedient in order
to allay the inconvenience which they would otherwise suffer from the
bites of mosquitoes and other jungle pests; but the true reason for the
practice is, I am well assured, that which I have given above [169].”
In another place he says: “After eating pork or turtle they are in the
habit of smearing og over their bodies with their fingers, in the
belief that it affects their breath, and that evil spirits will be
unable to detect, and therefore will not be attracted to, them by the
savoury smell of the food of which they have partaken. Again, when
heated by travelling or by hunting or dancing, they have recourse to
the same wash, but in these cases it is applied thinly [170].”
There are here two explanations of fundamentally different character.
First the Andamanese practice of painting their bodies with clay is
explained as having a purely utilitarian purpose, being intended to
cool them when they are heated. In the second statement the explanation
given is that the custom is intended to protect them from danger.
My own observations do not altogether agree with the statements of Mr
Man. I found that the natives painted themselves just as much in the
cold season as in the hot season. The principal, if not the sole,
occasion on which the clay is used is after or immediately before a
meal, and therefore generally in the late afternoon or evening when the
heat of the day is past. I do not feel so satisfied as Mr Man appears
to be, that the clay really has the effect of keeping a person cool,
particularly when it is remembered that the painting may consist of a
few lines each as broad as a finger. Moreover, Mr Man’s explanation
does not afford any reason for the fact that the clay is always applied
in some sort of pattern. If it were merely to keep himself cool, we
should expect to see a man cover himself all over with a plain coating
evenly spread over the body. Such an even coating is never used, in the
Great Andaman tribes, except by persons mourning for the dead, and is
the essential mark of a mourner.
It is easy to explain how Mr Man has fallen into an error in this
matter. On many occasions, when I questioned the natives as to their
reason for painting themselves with clay I received the answer, “When
we have eaten pork or turtle or dugong, we become ot-kimil and so we
take clay and paint ourselves.” Now the word ot-kimil in the Aka-J̌eru
language is the word that the natives use to express what we mean by
the word “hot.” But while “hot” may always be translated by ot-kimil or
er-kimil, the latter word cannot always be adequately rendered in
English by the word “hot.” Mr Man seems to have supposed that when an
Andaman Islander says “hot” he means by the word only what we mean,
whereas he really means a great deal more.
Let us examine briefly the word in question. In the languages of the
North Andaman the stem is -kimil. With the prefix ot- or er- it is used
to mean “hot” as in T’ot-kimil-bom, “I am hot,” or Ino ot-kimil bi or
Ino er-kimil bi, “The water is hot.” Used by itself the stem kimil is
the name of the latter part of the rainy season, when the weather is
not hot but cool. A youth or girl who is passing through the initiation
ceremonies is said to be aka-kimil, and is addressed or spoken of as
Kimil, instead of by his or her proper name. The turtle-eating ceremony
is called čokbi-kimil, or čokbi-ǰo or kimil-ǰo, čokbi meaning “turtle”
and ǰo meaning “eating.” The word “hot” is used by the natives in
several unusual ways when they are talking their own language or
Hindustani. Thus a stormy or rough sea is said to be “hot,” and one
native in describing to me (in Hindustani) the cessation of a cyclone
said “the sea became cold.” A person who is ill is said to be hot, and
getting well is expressed by the phrase “getting cool.”
In the Aka-Bea language the word “hot” is translated by Mr Portman by
the stem uya. The stem kimil appears in the form gumul in only some of
the uses it has in the Northern languages. Gumul is the name of the
latter part of the rainy season. A youth passing through the initiation
ceremonies is said to be aka-gumul and is addressed or spoken of as
Guma. The turtle-eating ceremony is called gumul-le-ke, le-ke meaning
“eating.” The word thus means “the gumul eating” and is the literal
equivalent of the kimil-ǰo of the North.
The uses of the word kimil may be summarised as follows:
(1) to mean “hot” in the sense of the English word;
(2) in connection with illness;
(3) in speaking of stormy weather;
(4) as the name of the latter part of the rainy season;
(5) to denote the condition of a youth or girl who is passing through
or has recently passed through the initiation ceremonies, and to denote
the ceremonies themselves;
(6) to denote a condition in a person consequent on eating certain
foods, and perhaps sometimes due to other causes, to remedy or obviate
which the natives make use of clay painted in patterns on their bodies.
It is probable, then, that when a native says that after eating food he
is ot-kimil and therefore paints himself with clay he does not mean
simply that he is hot. This will be still more evident when we consider
the second explanation of the custom that is given by the natives. Many
of those whom I questioned stated that after eating dugong, pork,
turtle, etc., the body emits an odour, that this odour may attract the
spirits of the jungle or the sea, and that to obviate this they paint
themselves with clay. This agrees exactly with what Mr Man says in the
second passage quoted above. It is confirmed by other customs. I was
told that a man who has eaten dugong will not leave the camp until some
time after the dugong meat is all finished, for fear that the spirits
may smell him and do him harm. It is to be noted in passing that
painting the body with clay does not by any means remove the odour that
does actually characterise a native after he has been eating fat meat
of any kind. We must be careful, in this instance also, not to assume
that an Andaman Islander means by “smell” exactly what we mean by it
and nothing more. It will be shown later in the chapter that the
Andamanese identify the smell of an object with its active magical
principle. One example may be given here to show this. The origin of
rheumatism in the legs is explained by the natives as being the result
of the common practice of preparing the fibre of the Anadendron
paniculatum by scraping it on the thigh. During this process, they say,
the “smell” of the plant enters the thigh and is the cause of rheumatic
or sciatic pains.
The natives give yet a third statement of their reasons for using clay.
On many occasions I asked them what would happen if they ate pork or
turtle and did not paint themselves. In every case I received the reply
that any man who did such a thing would almost certainly be ill.
When a number of persons give three different reasons for one and the
same action, and are equally sincere throughout, it is to be presumed
that the three different statements are so many different ways of
saying one and the same thing. We may therefore conclude that the
Andaman Islanders believe that there is a peculiar power in foods (or
in some foods) which makes it dangerous to eat them. This danger may be
expressed by saying that the person who has eaten food will, unless he
takes certain precautions, be liable to be ill. Now sickness is
believed to be caused by the spirits of the jungle and the sea, and
therefore an alternative or equivalent statement of the same belief is
that after a person has eaten food he is in danger from the spirits. We
may therefore conclude that the word ot-kimil, when it is used to
describe the condition of a person who has eaten food, denotes simply
this condition of danger, and nothing more. For this we shall find
ample confirmation later on. Subject to such later confirmation I will
here state what has been maintained, which is (1) that the e̱ra-puli
patterns are to be explained as being protective, (2) that the eating
of food is regarded as dangerous, and (3) that this danger is
associated in the minds of the natives with sickness and with the
spirits. It will be convenient to leave the first of these three
propositions for later discussion and take up the second, seeking to
find the meaning of this belief in the dangerous properties of food.
Not all foods are equally dangerous. I was able to establish roughly a
sort of scale. The most dangerous foods are dugong; the fish called
komar; some of the snakes; the internal fat such as the kidney-fat or
the intestinal fat of pig, turtle, monitor lizard and Paradoxurus; the
liver of sharks, sting-rays and Plotosus; and honey. Next in order come
the flesh of pigs, turtle, monitor lizard and Paradoxurus and of the
fishes mentioned above; also the eggs of turtle. To these should
perhaps be added the edible grubs and some vegetable foods such as the
yams and the Artocarpus fruit and seed. Lowest in the scale, that is,
least dangerous, are molluscs and the commoner sorts of fish and
vegetable foods.
The principles underlying this grading of foods are two. Those foods
that are difficult or dangerous to procure are considered more
dangerous than others. Thus all the fishes that are thought most
dangerous to eat are actually dangerous, such as the sharks, the
sting-rays, the armed Plotosus, and the fish komar that has a powerful
spike on its head with which it can inflict a dangerous wound. Secondly
the foods that are most prized are regarded as being more dangerous
than those that are less prized. The internal fat of animals is
regarded as a great delicacy and therefore occupies a high place in the
scale. It is this also that explains the position of honey and of the
edible grubs. The dugong, which is of all foods the most difficult and
dangerous to procure, and is at the same time more highly prized than
any other, is regarded as more dangerous to eat than any other.
It is this difference in the danger attributed to different foods that
gives the clue to the explanation of the beliefs relating to them. The
hypothesis I wish to put forward is that the custom of painting the
body after eating food is an expression of the social value of food.
In a simple community such as that of the Andaman Islands, in which the
necessary food has to be provided from day to day, food occupies a
predominant position, and is the chief source of those variations or
oscillations between conditions of euphoria and dysphoria that
constitute the emotional life of the society. Food is obtainable only
by the expenditure of effort, and the effort is a communal one. The
obtaining of food is the principal social activity and it is an
activity in which every able-bodied member of the community is required
by custom to join. A man’s first duty to the society may be defined as
the duty of providing food for himself and others, and no one is looked
on with more contempt than one who is lazy or careless in this respect.
On the contrary the man who stands highest in the esteem of others is
the skilful hunter who is generous in distributing to others the food
he obtains. The food provides the community with its chief joys and
sorrows. When food is scarce the whole community suffers. The men spend
all their time in hunting but are disappointed. They have to fall back
upon foods that are little relished, such as the commoner kinds of
molluscs. On the contrary when there is plenty of food the whole
society rejoices together. Every one has as much as he or she can eat.
Hunting and fishing become pleasant sports instead of arduous labour.
Viewing the matter from its relation to the feelings of the individual
we may say that it is particularly in connection with food that he is
made to feel that he is a member of the community, sharing with others
their joys and sorrows, taking part in a common activity, often
dependent upon others for the satisfaction of his hunger, and obliged
by custom to share with those others what he himself obtains. Thus food
is, for the Andaman Islander, the one object above all others that
serves to awaken in him day after day the feeling of his relation to
his fellows. It is also the source of a very large proportion of his
joys and sorrows, his excitements and disappointments. Thus it is that
when the natives wish to amuse each other it is by tales of hunting
that they do so, and a large proportion of their songs relate to the
getting of food.
It is thus clear that food becomes an important secondary object of the
fundamental affective dispositions that regulate the emotional attitude
of the individual to the society to which he belongs. It is connected
very closely with the feeling of moral obligation; the most valued
moral qualities in the Andaman Islands are energy in providing food and
generosity in distributing it; among the worst faults are laziness in
hunting and meanness in giving to others. Similarly food is closely
associated with the feeling of dependence. During childhood,
particularly, the individual has to depend on others for his food; even
later in life the food that a man eats is more often provided by others
than by himself; he depends on the community even for his daily
nourishment.
Different foods have different social values. Thus a dugong provides a
large supply of a highly-prized delicacy, but on the other hand can
only be obtained by strenuous and dangerous efforts of skilful hunters.
At the other end of the scale the social value of shell-fish is very
little. They are not relished and are only eaten when there is nothing
better, while the labour of obtaining them is simply one of drudgery
requiring little skill.
Finally it must be pointed out that the value of food is both positive
and negative. It is the source of conditions of social euphoria when it
is plentiful; while it is equally the source of social dysphoria when
it is lacking. In other words, on different occasions it is the source
of both pleasurable and painful states of the fundamental social
sentiments.
All these experiences connected with food organise themselves around
the notion that foods, or the animals that are used for food, are
things to be treated carefully, with respect, or, in other words, with
ritual precautions. The sense of the social value of food reveals
itself as a belief that food may be a source of danger unless it is
approached with circumspection, and this belief, translated into
action, gives rise to the rite of painting the body after eating. This
does not mean that when the Andaman Islander eats turtle he is actually
in a state of fear; he feels that he would have reason to be afraid if
it were not that the society has provided him with a means of avoiding
the dangers of turtle eating. What he does feel, then, as I have tried
to show, is not a fear of food but a sense of the value of food.
This interpretation will, I hope, be amply justified later, and the
psychological processes assumed by it will be further illustrated. One
point needs to be emphasised here, namely that the suggested
interpretation affords, as no other would seem to do, an explanation of
the fact that some foods are believed to be more dangerous than others,
and that while it is obligatory to paint the body after eating the more
dangerous foods, it is not necessary to do so after eating those that
are less dangerous. If the rite is simply the expression of the social
value of foods, it will follow that different food substances, having
different social values, must be subject to differences in ritual
treatment.
There are a few other customs connected with food, recorded in an
earlier chapter, which show that in general food is regarded as
something that may only be approached with ritual precautions. A turtle
must be killed with its head towards the open sea, and must be cut up
in one particular way, otherwise the meat would be “bad.” A pig must
also be cut up in a particular way, and must be stuffed with certain
leaves before it is roasted. A man will not eat certain foods when he
is away from his own country, as he is afraid that to do so might make
him ill. (This corresponds to the belief that there is less chance of
illness in one’s own country than away from it, and that the spirits of
a strange place are more dangerous than those that haunt the jungles
and the waters of a man’s own home.) All these customs, I believe, are
so many different expressions of the social value of food.
I have maintained earlier in the chapter that the sense of the social
value of such things as fire and the materials used for weapons
translates itself into the belief that these things afford protection
against danger. This would seem, at first sight, to be contradicted by
the explanation that I have just given of the belief in the danger of
food. The apparent contradiction must be faced and resolved before we
can proceed further.
First, it can be shown that the various things that are regarded as
affording protection when used according to custom, are also believed
to be dangerous, just in the same way that food is dangerous. One
example of this will suffice. The fibre of the Anadendron paniculatum,
which is used for bow-strings and other purposes, has been shown to
possess a power which gives it efficacy against dangers of the sea such
as sharks. This same power, however, may have injurious effects if the
plant is handled without proper precautions. Thus, if a piece of the
green creeper, or a person who has recently been handling it, should be
in a canoe, it would be impossible to capture turtle from that canoe,
as they would be driven away by the “smell” of the plant. If a piece of
the creeper were burnt in the fire there would be a great storm,
according to one statement, or all the turtle would be driven away from
the vicinity, according to another. The handling of the plant in the
preparation of the fibre, by scraping it on the thigh, is believed to
be the cause of rheumatism. Turtle meat that might by accident come in
contact with the plant would be dangerous and would therefore not be
eaten. These different beliefs show us that while this plant possesses
powers that make it of service to the society, both directly as a
material for weapons, and indirectly as a magical protection against
evil, it is also dangerous, i.e. it will produce undesirable effects
unless treated with the proper ritual precautions.
Now just as materials such as the Anadendron are dangerous but may yet
be used protectively, so it can be shown that the things used for food
are also capable of affording protection against evil. It may be
recalled that an important element of the treatment of sickness is by
the use of special foods. Yams, honey, the fat of turtle and dugong and
other foods are believed to possess curative properties. The flesh of
the flying-fox is used as a remedy for rheumatism. But the clearest
evidence is provided by the custom of wearing ornaments made of the
bones of animals that have been eaten. These ornaments are believed to
possess protective powers of the same kind as those attributed to human
bones, but they are considered to be more particularly of value to the
hunter when he is in the forest or on the sea. They are made chiefly
from the bones of those animals that are believed to be most dangerous
to eat. These animals are difficult and often dangerous to capture or
kill. When obtained they become very important sources of well-being to
the society. The Andamanese express their sense of the social value of
these animals in the belief that it is necessary to adopt certain
measures of ritual precaution in dealing with them. When these due
precautions are taken, however, then the society is able to make use of
the flesh to serve its own ends. So, when an animal has been eaten, and
has thus been made to serve as a source of advantage, of strength, the
bones, which are the permanent remains of the feast, acquire a symbolic
value as evidence of past social well-being, and omens of future
security. They are a visible proof of the ability of the society to
protect itself and its members from the dangers that are believed to
threaten the human being in the most important activity of his life,
the obtaining and eating of food.
Formerly the Andamanese preserved the skulls of all large animals such
as pigs, turtle and dugong. At the present day they no longer preserve
the skulls of pigs, giving as their reason that owing to the dogs
obtained from Europeans they now have little difficulty in killing
pigs; but they still preserve the skulls of dugongs, and a fair
proportion of the skulls of turtle. The J̌a̤rawa still seem to preserve
with great care the skulls of all the pigs they kill, going to the
pains of enclosing each one in a case of basket-work. These skulls, we
must conclude, are more than mere trophies of the chase. As visible
proofs of the ability of the society in the past to overcome the
hostile powers of nature, they form, as it were, the guarantee of a
similar ability in the future, and I believe that their preservation is
regarded as a means of ensuring success in hunting as well as
protection for the hunters. The turtle skulls that are often suspended
under the forward platform of a canoe, are, I believe, intended both to
protect the occupants of the canoe from the dangers of the sea and to
help them to obtain a good catch.
The Andamanese belief in the power of the bones of animals to protect
them from danger and to bring them luck, is therefore very similar to
their belief in the protective power of the materials used for weapons
and implements. The consideration of the apparent contradiction
mentioned above has led us to a more exact statement of the real
beliefs in these matters. They believe, we may say, that all the things
from the jungle and the sea of which they make use as food or as
materials, are dangerous unless approached with proper ritual
precautions, but when so approached they become sources of strength and
well-being and also of protection from unseen dangers.
To return to the main argument, which was concerned with the meaning of
the patterns of clay painted on the body after eating the more
dangerous foods, it would seem that this action is really a rite or
ceremony, of the same general character as other ceremonial customs of
the Andamans. It is an action required by custom, the performance of
which on appropriate occasions serves to keep alive in the mind of the
individual a certain system of sentiments necessary for the regulation
of conduct in conformity to the needs of the society. By it the
individual is made to feel (or to act as though he felt) that his life
is one of continually repeated dangers from which he can only be
preserved by conforming to the customs of the society as they have been
handed down by tradition. He is made to feel that the eating of food is
not merely the satisfaction of an animal appetite, but an act of
communion, that the food itself is something “sacred” (if we may use
that word in the sense of the original Latin “sacer”). It serves also,
like any other rite in which all join, to make the individual feel the
solidarity and unity of the community; all share in the common repast
and the common danger, and each man sees on his neighbour the clay with
which he himself is daubed.
Of course it is probable that the Andamanese custom of painting the
body after eating, like our own grace before and after meat, with which
it is parallel, tends to become a formality accompanied by little real
feeling, but it can be shown, I believe, that such customs do possess a
real value—a real psychological function—in keeping alive ideas and
sentiments that will on occasion play an important part in influencing
conduct.
We have not yet completed the study of the Andamanese beliefs about
food. To do so we must examine the initiation ceremonies. I hope to
show that these ceremonies are the means by which the society
powerfully impresses upon the initiate the sense of the social value of
food, and keeps the same sense alive in the minds of the spectators of
the ceremony.
The position in the social life occupied by a child is different from
that of an adult; the child is dependent upon and closely united to his
parents, and is not an independent member of the community. To this
difference in social position there corresponds a difference in the
attitude of a person towards a child and towards an adult, and also a
difference in the attitude of a child and that of an adult towards the
society. As the child grows up a change takes place in his position in
the social life, and this must be accompanied by a change in the
emotional dispositions of the child himself in so far as these regulate
his attitude towards the society, and by a change in the attitude
towards the child of the other members of the group. The initiation
ceremonies are the means by which these changes are brought about, and
by which, therefore, the child is made an independent member of the
society.
The ceremonies have two aspects according as we regard them from the
point of view of the society or from that of the initiate. For the
society they are to be described as the recognition of the change of
status of the initiate, just as the marriage ceremony is the social
recognition of the change of status by marriage. For the initiate they
constitute a sort of moral or social education.
To fit a child for his proper place in the community he needs to be
educated. Part of the process consists of learning how to hunt, how to
make bows and arrows, and so on. This necessary knowledge he acquires
gradually by imitation of his elders, in which he is guided and
encouraged by them. But in addition to this he has to acquire those
sentiments or emotional dispositions which regulate the conduct of
members of the society and constitute morality. Part of this education
in morality, this education of the sentiments, takes place gradually as
the child grows up, less by any actual instruction than by processes of
imitation and suggestion; but in this connection an extremely important
part is played by the initiation ceremonies. That the long series of
abstentions and ceremonies does have a very powerful emotional effect
on the youth or girl may be readily observed by an eye-witness; that
their permanent effect is to create in his or her mind a number of
sentiments that previously existed not at all or only in an undeveloped
condition will be shown in the course of the present argument.
Since in the life of the Andamans by far the most important social
activity is the getting of food, and it is in connection with food that
the social sentiments are most frequently called into action, it is
therefore appropriate that it should be through his relation to food
that the child should be taught his relation to the society, and thus
have those sentiments implanted in him or brought to the necessary
degree of strength. During his infancy the child is almost entirely
unrestrained and acts with great comparative freedom. He does not
realise, in any adequate manner, that the food with which he is freely
provided (for children are the last to suffer hunger) is only obtained
by skill and effort, nor does he realise that he will one day be
required to labour to supply food for others. There follows a period of
restraint, during which the growing boy or girl has to give up eating
certain relished foods, and has to pass through a number of ceremonies,
some of them painful, and all solemn and awe-inspiring. These
restraints on the action of the individual are not imposed by one
person, but by the whole society backed by the whole force of
tradition. Through a series of years, just at what is, for
physiological reasons, the most impressionable age, the individual
learns to subordinate his own desires to the requirements of the
society or of custom, as explained to him by his elders. He is thus
impressed, in a forcible manner, with the importance of the moral law,
and at the same time he is impressed with a sense of the social value
of food. The ceremonies thus afford a moral education adapted to the
requirements of life as it is lived in the Andamans. It would need a
very lengthy analysis to show all the effects of the ceremonies on the
emotional life of those who undergo them, and for the purpose of this
chapter such an analysis is unnecessary. It will suffice merely to
mention a few of the more important. As stated above, the ceremonies
teach the boy or girl self-control or self-restraint, and they do so in
relation to one of the two fundamental human instincts,—hunger. The
cutting of the boy’s back in the North Andaman gives a still sharper
lesson in self-control in the endurance of pain. Secondly the
ceremonies teach the initiate, for the first time in life, to view life
and its duties and obligations seriously. The various ceremonies are
all very solemn affairs for the initiate. Again, the growing boy or
girl is made to feel very strongly the importance of conforming to the
customs of the community to which he belongs, thus having implanted in
his mind what is certainly one of the most powerful of the sentiments
that regulate conduct in the Andamans. In this connection there may
also be mentioned the respect for elders which is a most important
element in the regulation of social life in all savage communities, and
which is strongly impressed on the initiate throughout the ceremonies.
And yet again, the ceremonies awaken and develop in the adolescent that
fear of unseen danger which, as we shall see later, has a very
important place in the mental life of the Andamanese and an important
function in their moral life. Finally, the whole series of abstentions
and ceremonies serves to develop in the mind of every new member of the
society that sense of the social value of foods with which our argument
has been concerned, which may be briefly described as being a
realisation that food is a possession of the society, that not only the
power to obtain food, but also the power to use it without danger is
something that the individual owes to the society, and that the
bestowal upon him of this power involves the acceptance on his part of
corresponding obligations.
We may say, to look at the matter under another aspect, that the
initiation ceremonies teach the youth or girl to realise what is
implied in being a member of the society by putting him or her during
the period of adolescence in an exceptional position, and, as it were,
outside the society. The youth is no longer a child and may not act as
a child; but he is not yet an adult and may not act as adults do. He
feels himself cut off, as it were, from the ordinary life of the group,
having as yet no share in it. As a child he was not yet aware of what
it means to be a member of a society, but now, by means of the
ceremonies, his attention is directed to the society and its life, by
his being placed in a position of isolation outside it. He begins to
look forward to the time when he will take his proper place as an
adult, and his share in the common life of the camp. At each step of
the ceremonies he feels that he is brought a little closer, until at
last he can feel himself a man amongst men. Thus he is brought to a
consciousness of all that it must mean to him to be a member of the
community; he is taught the significance and value of social communion.