An
Andamanese belongs to a family, which belongs to a sept, which belongs a tribe,
which belongs to a group of tribes or divisions of the race. The first two of
these are recognized by the people. They are twelve tribes in three groups. They
are Northern or Yerewa group, Southern or Bojnji group and outer group or the
Onge Jaraa tribes. All the tribes inhabit in the Great Andaman, except the
Balwaa of the Archipelago, the Onge of the Little Andaman, and the Jarawa of the
North Sentinel and parts of the south Andaman and Rutland Islands. Each group
has certain salient characteristics like the form of the huts, bows and arrows,
and canoes, of ornamentation, female's clothing, hair dressing and utensils, of
tattooing and of language being common generally to the group.
The Nicobarese can be treated as one people whose affinities are towards the
Far Eastern and not towards the mainland races. Their own idea of themselves is
that they came from the Tenasserim coast, an idea borne out by Physical
structure, social habits, trend of civilization and language. They are of the
highest ethnological interest.
The tribal feeling is friendly within the tribe and hostile to every
stranger. The once custom that has served to make the various septs of a tribe
hang together is that of a very free adoption of each others children, only
those under six or seven usually living with their parents.
Hunting and
honey collection are men's job and the women and children collect roots and
tubers. There is a high degree of
individual freedom among the sexes and monogamy is the rule. Husband-wife and
parent-children relationships are based on mutual respect and deep affection.
Small local groups are constituted by a number of primary families with a
close sense of mutual social obligations. During heavy rains they share a common
beehive-shaped communal hut but in the warmer days a series of small huts
provide shelter. Leadership is acquired and maintained by qualities like
generosity, skill at hunting and other work and wisdom based on age and experience. They have a rich collection of myths and songs sung when dancing or at work.
The Andamanese are a standing puzzle to ethnologists. The various tribes form
one race of Negritos, speaking varieties of a single fundamental language.
Huts
The
central space in their habitat is the dancing ground. A hut is merely a thatch
about 1 metre (4 feet) long by slightly less than a metre (3 feet) wide sloping
from 20cm(8 inches) behind to 103cms (41/2 feet ) in
front, placed on four uprights and some crosspieces without walls. In
unsheltered spots and at the headquarters of septs large circular huts are built
with a good deal of ingenuity, having caves nearly touching the ground. These
may be as much as 4.5m (15 feet) high and 9.14m (30 feet) in diameter. For
hunting purposes mere thatched shelters are erected for protection from the wind
close to every hut is a very small platform for scruples food, about 18 inches
from the ground and within it at least one fire is carefully preserved. This is
the only thing that the Andamanese are really careful about for they do not know
how to produce fire though they show much skill in carrying smouldering logs by
land or sea so that they are not extinguished. Both men and women join hands in making huts.
In
the Little Andaman and among the Jarawas of the South Andaman, large permanent
huts for use in the wet season are built up of a solid materials to 9.14m (30
feet) in height and 18.28m (60 feet) in breadth, to hold the fires of seven to
eight hunting parties, with about eight persons to each breadth. The Jarawa
hunting camp is much the same as that of any other Andamanese and his great
communal hut is built on the same principle as the larger huts of the other
tribes.
Games
Andamanese
are childishly fond of games and have an indigenous blind-man's-buff, leapfrog
and hide-and-seek. Mock pig and turtle hunts, mock burials and ghost-hunts are
favourite sports-Matches in swinging, swimming, throwing, skimming (ducks and
drakes), shooting (archery) and wrestling are practised.
The
great amusement of the Andamanese is the formal evening or night dance which is
a curious monotonous performance accompanied by drumming the feet rhythmically
on a special rounding-board. The dance takes place every evening whenever there
are enough people for it and lasts for hours and even all night at special
meetings of the tribes or septs. Both sexes take allotted parts in it.
This and turtle hunting are the only things which will keep the Andamanese awake
all night long. There are five varieties of the dance among the tribes.
Tools
For hunting and fishing they use simple bows and
arrows, spears, harpoons and nets. They use dugout canoes for hunting and for transportation.
They Jarawas use rafts.
Food
The Andamanese are in the
food gathering stage and subsist on whatever nature provides them near their
environment. All their skills and culture are for optimum exploitation of the
naturally available food resources. Most of their time is spent in search of food.They have their own preferences about
eating. There is a semi-nomadic life and they move in bands within their
respective territories. Their food is of wild pig, honey, various roots, tubers,
turtle fish, molluses, seeds, roots, honey etc. The eating habits of the Great Andamanese have of late changed as a result of
close contact with the settlers. The Onge have now got used to tea and tobacco,
rice, flour etc. The people never starve, though they are habitually heavy
eaters. Food is always cooked and commonly eaten very hot. The Andamanese are
expert cooks and adepts at preparing delicacies from parts of animals and fish.
Occupation
All occupations and all industries arise out of the personal necessities of the people. They make their own bows and arrow, harpoons and spears, string and nets of string, baskets and mats, unglazed circular cooking pots, bamboo baskets and canoes hollowed out of tree-trunks. The ornamentation is crude but customary and conventional. Their implements are quartz flakes chipped off and natural stones never Celts. They are unadventurous seamen, poling and paddling canoes at considerable speed but they never go out of slight of land.
The social emotions are not generally expressed. The Andamanese have no words for ordinary salutations, greetings or for expressing thanks. On meeting they stare at each other for a long period in silence, which the younger breaks with a common place remark and then follows an eager telling of news which an Andamanese always delights in hearing. Relatives sit in each other's laps at meetings, huddled together, weeping loudly and demonstratively and this may last for hours. The Onges are less demonstrative and caress each other with their hands. At parting they take each other by the hand and blow on it exchanging sentences of conventional farewell.
An Andamanese will often part readily with ornaments to any one who asks for them. A very rude barter exists between tribes of the same group in regard to articles not locally obtained made of a special clay found only in certain parts of the islands. The barter is really a gift of one article, in exchange of another of corresponding value in return and disputes occur if it is not forth coming.
