Andamanese people

“ It should also be added that the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands have obviously progressed far beyond the condition in which we find the inland tribes of Malacca, the Veddahs of Ceylon, or the Negritos of the Philippines. They practise the art of making pottery—an art never found among peoples who are properly called primitive; they have a social organization, with chiefs. These phenomena all characterize a fairly advanced culture. When, therefore, we are concerned with the beliefs of peoples who are really primitive, the Andamanese must be left out of consideration. ”

“ Man, who knows their language, has lived with them for eleven years, and presided over our benevolent efforts 'to reclaim them from their savage state,' the Andamanese turn out to be quite embarrassingly rich in the higher elements of faith. They have not only a profoundly philosophical religion, but an excessively absurd mythology, like the Australian blacks, the Greeks, and other peoples. If, on the whole, the student of the Andamanese despairs of the possibility of an ethnological theory of religion, he is hardly to be blamed. ”

“ Their reputation for hideousness, like their poisoned arrows and cannibalism, has long been a fallacy, which, although widely popular, should now be exploded.
The average heights of Andamanese men and women, computed from a large series of measurements, are found to be 4 feet 103⁄4 inches and 4 feet 71⁄4 inches respectively, and their figures which are proportionately built, are very symmetrical and graceful. Although not to be described as muscular, they are of good development, the men being agile, yet sturdy, with broad chests and square shoulders. ”

“ The population is not susceptible of accurate computation, but probably it has always been small. The estimated total at a census taken in 1901 was only 2000. Though all descended from one stock, there are twelve distinct tribes of the Andamanese, each with its own clearly-defined locality, its own distinct variety of the one fundamental language and to a certain extent its own separate habits. Every tribe is divided into septs fairly well defined. ”

“ When hard pressed and escape seems impossible, they will climb trees and stretch rattan ropes from branch to branch where these are too wide apart to be reached at a bound, and along such frail aërial bridges women and all will pass with their cooking-pots and other effects, with their babies also at the breast, and the little ones clinging to their mother's heels. For like the Andamanese they love their women-folk and children, and in this way rescue them from the Malay raiders and slavers. But unless the British raj soon intervenes their fate is sealed. ”

“ In the school that at one time existed at Port Blair for the Andamanese, it was found, that, as with all savages, the children, when educated were as proficient up to a certain age as the children of civilised peoples, but that point reached, they possessed no capacity for imbibing further knowledge.
As the natives gain by education in intelligence and tractability, they become fat and indolent, while their morals undergo much deterioration through contact with the convicts. ”

“ The houses alone were typical of the change of race: those of the Negro peoples—the stock to which the Andamanese belong—are built directly on the ground, while here, among a group of (practically) the Malayan race, the dwellings were universally raised on piles. [15]
We landed next morning by wading through the surf, for the sea, though smooth off-shore, was breaking on the beach.
The shores of the bay rose precipitously from a beach of sand to an average height of 30 feet, and showed plainly the island formation of grey clay, sandstone, and overlying beds of upheaved coral. ”

“ The pull used may be anything between 50 and 60 lbs., and though in the jungle, with their silent step and quality of remaining unseen, the Andamanese are dangerous as enemies, in the open they would be less formidable, for it is doubtful whether their arrows will carry more than a hundred yards, and certainly their shooting, as we ourselves saw, possessed little accuracy at more than a quarter of that distance. ”

“ Although Man does not explicitly state that the Andamanese have no slaves, his elaborate account of their social life sufficiently [124] proves that they are unacquainted with slavery. Social status is dependent on relationship, on skill in hunting, fishing etc., and on a reputation for generosity and hospitality. ”

“ Perhaps no other two thousand people on earth—for that is about the number of Andaman islanders—have been honoured with a greater amount of speculation in regard to their origin. Some ethnologists assign to them an African origin, and account for their presence upon the Andaman Islands by a singular story: that a Portuguese ship laden with African slaves, and proceeding to the Indian colonies, was wrecked in the Bay of Bengal, and, of course, off the coast of the Andamans: that the crew were murdered by the slaves ”

“ The lowest type with which we are familiar is the Andamanese, and the wilder sort of these will hardly bear comparison with even the degraded Australian or African Bosjesman, and approximate in debasement to the Fuegians.
The Andamanese are small in stature—the men averaging about five feet, the women less. They are very dark, I may say black, but here the resemblance to the Negro ceases. They have not the thick lips and flat nose, nor the peculiar heel of the Negro. In habit they are in small degree above the brutes, architecture and agriculture being unknown. ”

“ In childhood the Andamanese are possessed of a bright intelligence, which, however, soon reaches its climax, and the adult may be compared in this respect with the civilised child of ten or twelve. He has never had any sort of agriculture, nor until the English taught him the use of dogs did he ever domesticate any kind of animal or bird, nor did he teach himself to turn turtle or to use hook and line in fishing. ”

“ The Andamanese, or Andamans, are of a jet-black colour. Their stature rarely exceeds four and a half to five feet. Their head is large, and sunken between the shoulders; their hair woolly; most of them are disfigured by protuberant stomach and meagre lower limbs. They go about in an absolute nudeness, for we cannot regard as any species of clothing the coat of clay or yellow ochre which they plaster over their bodies to protect them against the stings of insects; the red ochre which the earth supplies them they make use of to powder their hair and paint their face. ”

“ The acuteness of the senses is superior to ours among uncultured and half-civilised peoples. The Andamanese can discover certain fruits in the forests a long way off, being guided solely by the sense of smell. Taking as a unit the normal visual [Pg 111] acuteness calculated according to the formula of Snellen, we shall have the following figures for different populations:—1.1 for the Germans; 1.4 for the Russians; 1.6 for the Georgians; 2.7 for the Ossetes and Kalmuks; 3 for the Nubian Bejas; and 5 for the Indians of the Andes. ”

“ The Andamanese, although they wear as little clothing as possible, exhibit a delicacy that amounts to prudishness, the women of the tribes of South Andaman being so modest that they will not remove their small apron of leaves, or put anything in its place, in the presence of any person, even of their own sex.1279 Speaking of the Fijians, Wilkes asserts that,211 “though almost naked, these natives have a great idea of modesty, and consider it extremely indelicate to expose the whole person. ”

“ So far from the islands having been uninhabited at the time of Vasco de Gama’s voyage, their 370population of naked blacks with frizzled hair had been described six hundred years earlier, and the story, which sounded reasonable to people puzzled by the appearance of a black population in the Andaman islands, is of course repudiated by ethnologists aware of the wide distribution of the negroid Papuans, really so distinct from any race of African negroes. [500] Not long since, I met with a very perfect myth of this kind. ”

“ I will conclude, therefore, with his account of the Andaman islander—who, with the Australians, Esquimaux, and Fuegians, dispute the point of being considered the lowest of mankind. It is said of the Andamans, “that they have no idea of a Supreme Being, no religion, or any belief in a future state of existence” (p. 346) . It is, however, casually mentioned that, “after death, the corpse is buried in a sitting posture.” ”

“ The hair, when it is allowed to grow, is seen to be thick and bushy, and resembles that of the Papuans; and it is the opinion of many competent judges that the Andamaners are the aborigines of the Papuan race, who have never permitted contact with strangers, and have preserved their own individuality intact. ”

“ The Andamanese of all classes show great consideration for the very young, weak, aged, or helpless.1621 A white man gave liquor to a native man on the Chittagong hills. The latter insisted on giving some of it to the women first, but they required much urging before they would take it.1622 The Samoans have very polished manners. They had a court language.1623 The Betsileo on Madagascar have a careful etiquette about the houses of their chiefs, about proper conduct in those houses, and about the utensils there ”

“ The good spirits of the Andamanese, it appears, show themselves in a sparkling of the eyes, and a wrinkling of the surrounding skin, also in a drawing back of the corners of the mouth which remains partially open.160 It may be concluded that the facial movements and {228} other changes correspond broadly with what we have seen to be the characteristic expression in the case of the children of civilised races ”

“ The surface of Great Andaman is extremely irregular, and a central range of mountains runs from north to south, with an escarped face on the east, and a sloping declivity on the west, where marshy localities abound. ”

“ The more a religion consists in fear of a moral guardian of conduct, the less does it show itself, by sacrifice or rite, to the eyes of Captain Cook, of his Majesty's ship Endeavour. Mr. Spencer places the Andamanese on the same level as the Fuegians, 'so far as the scanty evidence may be trusted.' We have shown that (as known to Mr. Spencer in 1876) it may not be trusted at all; the Andamanese possessing a moral Supreme Being, though they are not, apparently, ancestor-worshippers. ”

“ Of late years "homes" have been established for the Andamanese consisting of large bamboo sheds, in which those who come in from the jungle put up, coming and going at will. They seem, however, to prefer the jungle, and the attempts made to cultivate their acquaintance do not appear to have, been crowned with success. ”

“ With the single exception of Tupai nicobarica, [219] all are types well known to [Pg 324] be closely associated with man throughout the Malayan region. Moreover, the period of time necessary to the development of the peculiarities of the native Andamanese would undoubtedly be ample to allow the formation of any of the species known from either group of islands, since in a biologic sense it has been vastly longer to the smaller, more rapidly breeding, animals than to man. ”

“ Strange to say, this mode of dealing with the Andaman islanders has been made repeatedly, and always with the same fruitless result. Whatever may have been the original cause that interrupted their intercourse with the rest of mankind, they seem determined that this intercourse shall never be renewed.
When plenty reigns among them, and there has been a good take of fish, they act like other starved wretches; and yield themselves up to feasting and gorging, till not a morsel remains. ”

“ In this little company there proved to be the three biggest men we saw among the Andamanese; in height, they stood 5 feet 43⁄4 inches, 5 feet 31⁄4 inches, and 5 feet 2 inches respectively. [10] Although possibly a little weak proportionately in the legs, where the skin covering the knee was so thickened and corrugated as to almost resemble callosities, the members of the party were well built and not ungraceful, but spoilt in most cases by a varying degree of distension of the abdomen: this state of things is caused by the immense amount of food they will, when possible, consume at a sitting ”

“ We comprise in the Andaman Family those Eastern blacks who possess the characteristics of the Negro race strongly marked. These nations are as yet but little known. The inhabitants of New Guinea, the aborigines of the Andaman Isles, in the bay of Bengal, the blacks of the Malacca peninsula, those dwelling in some of the mountains of Indo-China, the natives of Tasmania, and, finally, the indigenous population of Australia are included in this group. ”

“ The country where the Indians eat men is very bad and useless, and can never at any time be turned to account. But these Indians of Caribana have richly deserved death a thousand times over, for they are a very evil race, and have killed many of our Christians when we lost the ship. I would not make slaves of so bad a people, but would order them to be destroyed, both old and young, that no memory may remain of them. I speak now of Caribana and for twenty leagues inland, the people being evil, and the country sterile and worthless. ”

“ Among the Andamanese, while the men go into the jungle to hunt pigs, the women fetch drinking water and firewood, catch shell-fish, make fishing nets and baskets, spin thread, and cook the food ready for the return of the men. ”

“ The convict comes to the Andamans a creature who, by his life or his acts, has shown himself to be so unfitted for human society that he has been cast out of it for life, or for a long term of years. Received thus, he is first subjected for six months to a most severe discipline—hard, rigid, uncompromising. He is taught what it is like to be forced to bend his uncontrolled nature to the iron yoke of a régime, not of hard toil, but of soul-crushing monotony. ”