Chapter XXIX: Part II: , pp. 283–406.) On the other hand, the paucity of mammalian

fauna is such as to lead to the conclusion that the islands were isolated at a period when the mammals now typical of the mainland did not exist there. (See Miller, “Mammals of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,” Proc. National Museum, U.S.A. Vol. XXIV).

[6] There is no evidence of the former existence of Negritos in the Nicobars, but on the other hand, there is equally no direct evidence of their former presence in Lower Burma.

[7] On the accompanying map of south-eastern Asia the regions now occupied by the Negritos are shown by the shading.

[8] Anciennes Relations des Indes et de la Chine; De Deux Voyageurs Mahometans, qui y allerent dans le neuvième siècle; Traduites d’Arabe (par M. l’Abbé Renaudot). Paris, MDCCXVIII, pp. 5 and 6.

[9] Takakasu’s Edition of I-tsing, pp. xxviii seq.

[10] The Travels of Marco Polo, Edited by John Masefield, Everyman’s Library, 1908, p. 347.

[11] Extracts of Master Caesar Frederike: his Eighteene Yeeres’ Indian Observations, Purchas: his Pilgrimes, London, 1625; Vol. II, p. 1710. In spite of the repeated descriptions of the Andamanese by early writers as ferocious cannibals, there is good reason to think that they have not deserved quite so evil a reputation. If they had ever been cannibals they had certainly abandoned the custom by the time the islands were occupied in 1858. It is improbable that such inveterate man-eaters, as they are supposed to have been, would have entirely altered their ways in the course of a century or two. The legend probably had its origin in the fact that the Andamanese attacked all strangers who landed on their coasts, and (in the North Andaman, at any rate) often disposed of the bodies of slain enemies by cutting them in pieces and burning them on a fire.

[12] The account is that of a visit to the Andamans in 1771 by John Ritchie, published in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XXX, 1901, pp. 232 seq. Two natives came off to the ship in a canoe, and Ritchie writes: “I gave them some nails and bits of old iron which pleased them much; and about three in the afternoon, they went into the canoe, and tried hard to pull the chain plates from the vessel’s side. They went astern when this would not do, and dragged strongly and long at the rudder chains; but these were too well fixed; and at last, they went towards the shore at an easy rate, looking at their nails, and singing all the way.”

[13] In 1906 some Little Andaman visitors to Rutland Island captured a Jarawa of that part. They told me that though he spoke differently from them, they could understand him fairly well.

[14] Portman, M. V., A History of Our Relations with the Andamanese, Calcutta, 1899.

[15] This estimate is based on what the Andamanese were able to tell me of the conditions under which they formerly lived. Of course such an estimate can only be of small value. I think it is more probable that I have underestimated the former population than that I have overestimated it.

[16] Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group of Tribes, p. 27.

[17] Page 18 above.

[18] A few small areas were not occupied at all, for example the greater part of Saddle Peak in the North Andaman, which is covered with dense jungle and is supposed by the natives to be the haunt of large and deadly snakes and of evil spirits.

[19] Mouat, F. J., Adventures and Researches among the Andaman Islanders, London, 1863, p. 313.

[20] Loc. cit. p. 300.

[21] Journ. Anthrop. Inst. Vol. XII, pp. 107 and 108.

[22] Portman, Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group of Tribes, p. 23.

[23] The photograph is reproduced in Le Tour du Monde, 1895, p. 447.

[24] See Journ. Anthrop. Inst. Vol. XII, p. 71.

[25] Man, op. cit. p. 108.

[26] In the North Andaman the times before the Settlement are spoken of as the time when there were no dogs, Bibi poiye = “Dog not.”

[27] They are only eaten in the rainy season.

[28] There are two kinds of wild bee in the Andamans. A small species makes black honeycombs in hollow trees, and these may be found at any time of the year. A larger species of bee builds white combs suspended from the underside of branches in tall trees. Such combs are found in abundance only in the hot season, and not at all in the middle of the rainy season.

[29] Man, in Journ. Anthrop. Inst. Vol. XII, p. 108.

[30] The natives of the North Andaman were able to tell me of a few cases of murder which had occurred within the memory of those still living.

Mr Portman in his History of Our Relations with the Andamanese records a certain number of murders which occurred while he was in charge of the Andamanese. One man, who had been imprisoned at Port Blair for murder, committed another soon after his release and was hanged. Since that date there has been no case of murder among the Great Andaman tribes. This is perhaps in part due to the punishment with which they are now threatened by the Government, but another cause is probably the breakdown of the old social organisation which has in this respect rather improved their morals than the opposite.

[31] The nickname is applied, however, not only to those who deserve it by their character, but also to others; for instance, one man was called Tarenǰek because his maternal uncle was a man of violent temper.

[32] See below, Chap. IV.

[33] The classificatory system of relationship was first studied and named by Lewis H. Morgan, in Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, Washington, Smithsonian Institution, 1871. The subject is also discussed in the same author’s Ancient Society. Although there has been a good deal of attention paid to the systems of relationship of savage tribes since the time of Morgan, there is no general work on the subject that supersedes these two books.

[34] The terms used in any society to denote relationships are of interest to the ethnologist as an important means to the discovery of the relationship system (i.e. the system of juridical and moral institutions) existing in the same society. Without a thorough knowledge of the terms in use and their exact meanings it is impossible to discover the rights and duties of relatives one to another. It is, however, sometimes forgotten that the study of terms of relationship is not an end in itself but a means to a more important study.

[35] In the Andamanese languages a large number of words are formed from a stem and a prefix. E-, ot-, aka-, ara-, ab- etc. are prefixes of this kind. The function of the prefixes is (1) to show that the object denoted by the word is in a dependent relation to some other object understood, as for instance that it is part of that other object, and (2) to modify the reference of the stem, as for instance while e-tire means the offspring of an animal or an human being, era-tire means the offspring of a tree or plant (the young shoots). For a description of these prefixes the reader may be referred to the work of Mr Portman, Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group of Tribes.

[36] Dege bula and dege pal mean “my husband” and “my wife” respectively.

[37] Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group of Tribes.

[38] Man, op. cit. p. 421. The dia, or the d’ before a prefix, in the words of this list is the pronoun “my.”

[39] Portman, Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group of Tribes, p. 255.

[40] Op. cit. p. 100.

[41] The natives commonly applied the term to me, in the form Mam-jula.

[42] The systems of relationship of savage peoples are often very difficult to study, even with a thorough mastery of the native language. My account of the Andamanese system is not perhaps complete and is therefore open to error. Since the above account was written I have had the opportunity of studying in Australia several examples of “classificatory” systems of relationship, and can now say very definitely that such a system presents an extreme contrast to the system of the Andamans. My failure fully to comprehend the Andamanese system was partly due to the difficulties of the language, in which I did not have time to become expert, and partly to the nature of the Andamanese terms, of which it is by no means easy to discover the meaning, even with careful observation.

[43] Man, op. cit. p. 135. He speaks of the wives as “models of constancy.”

[44] I collected a number of genealogies from the natives, but unfortunately my own inexperience in the use of the genealogical method, and my consequent inability to surmount the difficulties with which I met, made this branch of my investigations a failure.

[45] When a husband and wife greet one another the man sits on the lap of the wife.

[46] Man, op. cit. p. 139.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Man, op. cit. p. 139.

[49] Man, op. cit. p. 125.

[50] It would not be safe, however, to base any arguments of importance to sociology on the above description of the Andamanese system of relationship alone. Although I tried to learn all that I could on the subject, it is quite certain that I did not learn all that was to be learnt, and it is possible that further enquiry might have shown that I was mistaken in some of my observations. The difficulty of being really sure on these matters is due (1) to the fact that the breaking-up of the old local organisation has produced many changes in their customs, and (2) to the difficulty of questioning the natives on matters connected with relationships when they have no words in their language to denote any but the simplest relationships.

[51] The dance is described in the next chapter.

[52] In the years 1872 to 1902 inclusive the Jarawa made eight attacks on camps of the friendly Andamanese in different places, in which two of the friendly Andamanese men and one girl were killed and three men and one boy were wounded. There were also one or two casual meetings between Jarawa and friendly Andamanese. One of the friendlies was surprised and killed while turtle hunting in 1894. During the same years the Jarawa made on different occasions about twenty attacks on parties of convicts or on separate individuals, killing altogether 27 convicts and two police constables, and wounding six other convicts. In these skirmishes and in the expeditions to which they gave rise three Jarawa were killed and seven wounded on various occasions, and several times Jarawa men, women or children were captured and afterwards released. A number of convicts have at different times run away from the Settlement and as some of those were never after heard of they may be supposed to have been killed by the Jarawa. For an official record of dealings with the Jarawa see the “Census Report” 1901, pp. 68–90.

[53] I could not obtain any definite legend about these stones, but one informant said that when Biliku got angry and destroyed the world (see later, Chap. IV) the children all became stones at this place.

[54] This is the plant (not identified) of which the leaves were, till recent times, worn by the women of the North Andaman to cover the pudenda. In the South Andaman the leaves of the Mimusops littoralis are in use for this purpose, and the Northern tribes have recently given up their own custom and adopted that of the South.

[55] Unfortunately I was not able to see this ceremony performed, and my information is therefore derived from the statements of the natives.

[56] There is no secrecy about any of the proceedings; the whole ceremony is performed in the village and may be witnessed by anybody.

[57] In the Southern tribes large stones are placed on the youth’s thighs.

[58] In these days the natives are very fond of tea, which they obtain from the Andamanese Homes; during the ceremony described above the youth or girl is not permitted to drink tea.

[59] I believe that the dance is intended to imitate the movement of a turtle as it swims through the water.

[60] The meaning of the word kimil (or gumul) will be discussed in a later chapter.

[61] This plant is selected because it is associated with honey-gathering; its bitter sap, being extremely obnoxious to bees, is smeared over their persons when taking a comb, and enables them to escape scot free with their prize. (Note by Mr Man.)

[62] This is believed to be the Ophiophagus elaps. (Note by Mr Man.)

[63] Man, op. cit. p. 133.

[64] Man, loc. cit. p. 143.

[65] Man, op. cit. p. 354. Mr Man adds in a note that “it is believed that Puluga would punish severely any person who might be guilty of eating his yat-tub, either by causing his skin to peel off (wainyake) or by turning his hair white and flaying him alive.” On Puluga see later, Chaps. III and IV.

[66] Turtle are captured alive by means of harpoons, and may be kept alive several days before they are killed and eaten.

[67] Mr M. V. Portman gives a list of personal names in use in the South Andaman in his Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group of Tribes, p. 70. The derivations of many of the names as there given, are, however, of doubtful accuracy.

[68] Portman, Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group of Tribes, pp. 166–188.

[69] A similar custom is found in many savage tribes. Thus in many parts of Australia the aborigines call white men by the same name that they apply to the spirits of the dead.

[70] Man, op. cit. pp. 158, 159.

[71] Portman, Notes on the Languages, etc. p. 183.

[72] Man, op. cit. p. 152.

[73] Ibid. p. 160.

[74] Man, op. cit. p. 160.

[75] Ibid. p. 161.

[76] Portman, Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman, p. 328.

[77] Portman, Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman, p. 314.

[78] Man, op. cit. pp. 153, 154.

[79] Man, op. cit. p. 165.

[80] Ibid. p. 153.

[81] Man, op. cit. p. 157.

[82] Man, op. cit. p. 112.

[83] Man, op. cit. p. 159.

[84] Ibid. p. 158.

[85] Man, op. cit. p. 153.

[86] Man, op. cit. p. 159.

[87] Man, op. cit. p. 161.

[88] I could not obtain any information about the word that Mr Man gives as chaitan. Some men of the South Andaman whom I questioned did not seem to recognize the word, except as their way of pronouncing the Urdu word shaitan = devil.

[89] In the “Census Report” 1901, p. 62, Sir Richard Temple writes, “The Andamanese have an idea that the ‘soul’ will go under the earth by an aerial bridge after death, but there is no heaven nor hell nor any idea of a corporeal resurrection in a religious sense.”

[90] It may be noted that in the Andamanese languages there is no future tense of the verb, and it is often very difficult to know whether a speaker is referring to the present or to the future. Further, although there is a past tense, a native often uses the present tense in a narrative relating to the past, so that a statement relating to the past and one relating to the future may have exactly the same grammatical form. Mr Ellis, writing in the Journal of the Philological Society (1882) from information supplied by Mr Man, gives a verbal suffix -ngabo denoting the future in the Aka-Bea language. Mr Portman points out that this is an error. (Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman, p. 88.)

[91] Man, op. cit. p. 96.

[92] Man, op. cit. p. 83.

[93] In preparing the fibre, the skin or bark of the young shoots of the plant is torn off in strips and these are placed on the thigh and scraped with a Cyrena shell.

[94] Man, op. cit. pp. 153 and 172.

[95] Portman, Notes on the Languages, etc. p. 97.

[96] The legend will be given later.

[97] Man, op. cit. p. 169.

[98] The suffix -la is added to personal names and to terms of address in order to express respect.

[99] The name seems to mean “alone.”

[100] The giant bamboo does not grow in the Andamans, but pieces of it are often drifted ashore, having come from the coast of Burma. The natives pick up these drift-wood bamboos and make buckets of them. It is possible that the bamboo from which the first man was born was just such a piece drifted up from the sea. Unfortunately I neglected to enquire on this point when taking down the legend.

[101] The meaning of the name is “the cave of Tarai”; I believe that this is the name of a spot in the Aka-J̌eru country.

[102] The meaning of the name was not discovered.

[103] The lizard was caught in some way by his genital organs, but I was unable to understand the story completely.

[104] This is the small platform of sticks placed near or above the fire, on which the natives keep their food, and on which they often place objects that they desire to dry.

[105] Notes on the Languages, etc. p. 227.

[106] When an old man of the A-Pučikwar tribe was giving me the information repeated above, an Andamanese man was with us who had been brought up as a Christian and had some knowledge of the doctrines of that faith. He explained to me that Tomo is the equivalent of the Christian God. This man belonged to the Akar-Bale tribe.

[107] These names are common personal names among the aborigines of the present day. Mr Portman derives Nyali from nam-da, the name of a tree, and Irap from pira-da meaning “scattered,” but these derivations are far from being authenticated. (Portman, Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group of Tribes, p. 70.)

[108] The place called Irap is at the north end of Havelock Island.

[109] Man, op. cit. p. 164.

[110] Until the settlement of Europeans on the islands the Andamanese had no knowledge of any means of producing fire. It is necessary to remember this to understand some of their legends which relate how in the time of the ancestors the fire was very nearly lost in a heavy storm.

[111] I understood that Lirtit, by the loss of his wings and tail, became a man.

[112] Portman, loc. cit.

[113] Mo̱m is a title indicating respect, and Mirit is the imperial pigeon.

[114] Portman, loc. cit.

[115] Ibid.

[116] Portman, loc. cit.

[117] Man, op. cit. p. 164.

[118] Ibid.

[119] Man, op. cit. p. 167.

[120] Dik was one of the ancestors. He was a giant and was so big that he could go into the deepest water and never needed a canoe. He used to shoot dugong and porpoise with his bow and arrow. (The natives shoot small fish with a bow and arrows, but large fish and dugong and porpoise they take with harpoons.)

[121] Karami is the name of a bird that was not identified.

[122] Kočurag-boa is the Akar-Bale name for a huge legendary animal.

[123] When a man has killed another, either in a personal or a tribal quarrel, he has to observe several customs of which one is to keep himself painted with red paint for several weeks.

[124] Man, op. cit. p. 171.

[125] Man, op. cit. pp. 167–169.

[126] Notes on the Languages, etc. p. 27.

[127] Man, op. cit. p. 166.

[128] Ibid.

[129] Man, op. cit. p. 169.

[130] This is the name of some creature that I did not identify, perhaps a kind of spider.

[131] An Andaman Islander will often, when walking along the shore, shoot his arrows before him, either aiming at some object, or trying to send each one as far as possible. I have never seen them do this in the jungle, for they might easily lose the arrows.

[132] The Andamanese classify resin as a “stone” although they know its vegetable origin.

[133] Man, op. cit. p. 172.

[134] Kalwadi is a small crab, yaramurud is the crow pheasant (Centropus andamanensis), and toau is the hawksbill turtle.

[135] Knives are generally carried slipped into a string that is tied round the neck, the knife, with a skewer of sharpened wood that is attached to it, hanging at the back of the neck, where it is easily accessible and not likely to get lost.

[136] I could obtain no explanation of the phrase, or word, to̱ kit. My informant only said “That is the way the spirits talk.”

[137] Man, op. cit. p. 165.

[138] The sneezing (the word is translated literally) is a sort of whistling noise that the wild pigs make when they suspect danger.

[139] The Andamanese always disembowel a pig and sever the joints of its legs before they place it on a fire.

[140] Man, op. cit. p. 170.

[141] Page 214.

[142] Man, op. cit. p. 170.

[143] In taking a honeycomb the natives often drive away the bees with fire or smoke.

[144] In climbing a tall tree the Andamanese choose a stout cane or other creeper depending from one of the branches of the tree, and climb up it.

[145] The natives express their joy at a success in hunting by shouting.

[146] Man, op. cit. p. 173.

[147] The narrator said “resin.” The Dipterocarpus tree does not produce resin, but a sort of oil. The marks on the two fishes owe their origin to this incident.

[148] Man, op. cit. p. 173.

[149] Man, op. cit. p. 169.

[150] Vide supra, p. 142.

[151] The making of such hypothetical reconstructions of the past has been regarded by a number of writers as the principal if not the sole task of ethnology. My own view is that such studies can never be of any great scientific value. Although, within narrow limits, particularly when the method is applied to the facts of language and material culture, it is possible to reach conclusions of some degree of probability, yet by their very nature all such hypotheses are incapable of verification. Moreover, the purpose of scientific studies is to discover general laws, and hypotheses as to events in the past of which we have and can have no certain knowledge will not provide suitable material from which to draw generalisations.

[152] It may be worth while to mention that the interpretation of Andamanese customs given in this chapter was not worked out until after I had left the islands. Had it been otherwise I should have made careful enquiries into subjects which, as it was, escaped my notice.

[153] Tylor, Primitive Culture, I, 387.

[154] Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, IV.

[155] Max Müller, Physical Religion, p. 119.

[156] Marett, Threshold of Religion.

[157] McDougall, Introduction to Social Psychology, Chap. XIII, seems to combine the two hypotheses.

[158] For a criticism of the hypotheses of animism and naturism as explanations of primitive religion see Durkheim, Les Formes Élémentaires de la Vie Religieuse, Book I, chapters 2 and 3.

[159] Sentiment,—an organised system of emotional tendencies centred about some object.

[160] See p. 73 above.

[161] Page 134.

[162] In a few words the psycho-physical theory here assumed is that weeping is a substitute for motor activity when the kinetic system of the body (motor centres, thyroid, suprarenals, etc.) is stimulated but no effective action in direct response to the stimulus is possible at the moment. When a sentiment is stimulated and action to which it might lead is frustrated, the resultant emotional state is usually painful, and hence weeping is commonly associated with painful states.

[163] McDougall, Social Psychology.

[164] Active sympathy, the habitual sharing of joyful and painful emotions, is of the utmost importance in the formation of sentiments of personal attachment.

[165] It is a commonplace of psychology that a collective emotion, i.e. one felt and expressed at the same moment by a number of persons, is felt much more intensely than an unshared emotion of the same kind.

[166] It will be shown later in the chapter that when individuals are excluded from participation in the dance it is because they are in a condition of partial exclusion from the common life.

[167] The psychology of dancing offers a wide field for study that has as yet, so far as I know, been barely touched. The following brief notes are therefore necessarily incomplete and somewhat unsatisfactory.

[168] I have known a dance to be continued for seven or eight hours, each dancer taking only short periods of rest; and it must be remembered that the Andamanese dance is more strenuous than our ball-room dances.

[169] Man, op. cit. p. 76.

[170] Man, op. cit. p. 333.

[171] In a number of tribes of Western Australia I found an exactly similar custom. It was formerly the rule that after the death of a near relative the mourner must abstain from eating kangaroo, that being the largest game animal. Since the establishment of sheep stations in their country, with the consequent great decrease in numbers of the kangaroo, it has come about that the animal which now provides their most important supply of meat is the sheep, and the modern rule is that a mourner must not eat mutton.

[172] Page 171.

[173] The brakes formed by the cane (bido) from the leaves of which the ko̱ro fibre is obtained seem to be regarded as lurking places of the spirits. The natives often speak of the Bido-teč-lau (Calamus leaf spirits).

[174] Page 216.

[175] The psychological function of individual anger is to restore to their normal condition the wounded self-regarding sentiments. The function of collective anger is similarly to restore the collective sentiments on which the solidarity of the society depends.

[176] I once drew a few grotesque figures for the amusement of some Andamanese children, and they at once pronounced them to be “spirits.”

[177] The Andamanese beliefs about storms and the weather generally will be dealt with in the next chapter.

[178] See above, p. 119.

[179] See p. 227.

[180] I am unfortunately obliged to leave a big gap in this chapter and in the book, owing to my inability to discuss the Andamanese notions about sex. The natives of the Great Andaman at the present time show an unusual prudery in their conversation and dealings with white men, but there is good reason to suspect that this is due to the influence of officers who have been in charge of the Andaman Home in former years. At the present time all the men except a few of the oldest in remote parts are very careful never to appear before a white man without some covering although formerly they wore nothing. In their conversation in the presence of a white man they are careful to avoid reference to sexual matters. The men of the Little Andaman who have not come under the influence of the Andamanese Homes, still go naked and unashamed, and indulge in obscene gestures and jokes. At the time I was in the Andamans I failed to realise the very great importance of a thorough knowledge of the notions of a primitive people on matters of sex in any attempt to understand their customs, and therefore failed to make the necessary enquiries.

[181] In order to carry the analysis further it would be necessary to consider in detail the whole question of the relation of art and ceremonial, and that of the social function of art which is involved in it, and also to deal with the notion of “value” as it appears in primitive societies. The material from the Andaman Islands is not suitable for the discussion of these problems.

[182] The exposition of this important thesis can only be given here in the most abbreviated form. The thesis itself, as applied to primitive ritual in general, owes its origin to Professor Émile Durkheim, and has been expounded by him (more particularly in his work Les Formes élémentaires de la Vie religieuse) and by Messieurs H. Hubert and M. Mauss.

[183] Primus in orbe deos fecit timor.

[184] Page 214.

[185] We have seen, in the last chapter, that any condition of the individual in which he is withdrawn from active participation in the common life is regarded as one of danger from magico-religious forces antagonistic to the society.

[186] It will be shown later in the chapter that some part of the respect paid to the cicada is due to its connection not with the day and night but with the seasons of the year.

[187] Page 215.

[188] Page 221.

[189] Page 294.

[190] Page 215.

[191] Page 213.

[192] Pages 207 and 204.

[193] Page 207.

[194] Ibid.

[195] Page 204.

[196] Page 203.

[197] Page 207.

[198] Page 202.

[199] Page 206.

[200] Ibid.

[201] Page 207.

[202] Page 208.

[203] The same threefold division of the world is seen in the beliefs about the three kinds of spirits, those of the forest, those of the sea, and the Morua who, while spoken of as spirits of the sky, are often thought of as living in the tops of the tall trees.

[204] Page 218.

[205] It is worth while to recall here the belief that if a man goes into the water after eating civet-cat he will not be able to swim.

[206] Page 208.

[207] Ibid.

[208] Page 209.

[209] Page 206.

[210] Page 207.

[211] It appears also in geographical names. Puluga-l’ar-mugu, meaning ‘the Puluga front’ is the name of a part of the Archipelago facing the N.E. and means ‘the side facing Puluga.’

[212] Although it is generally believed that storms (or more exactly, violent storms or cyclones) are the results of the anger of Biliku, yet there is a conflicting belief that storms are made by the spirits, particularly the spirits of the sea.

[213] Page 154.

[214] The application of the name biliku to the spider is clearly a minor motive, and probably a late accretion. The name of the N.E. monsoon is the same in all the divisions of the Andamans about which we have information, with dialectic differences only. In the Little Andaman the form of the name is Öluga, and the same name is given to the monitor lizard. Presumably, therefore, there was originally one name throughout the Andamans for the N.E. monsoon (Öluga, Puluga, Bilik, Bilika, Biliku) and later this name was applied to the spider in the North Andaman and to the monitor lizard in the Little Andaman. It may be noted that the name of the monitor lizard varies from one language to another in the Great Andaman.

[215] It is to be noted that these tabus connected with Biliku are not absolute prohibitions; they are beliefs that if certain things are done Biliku will be angry (i.e., there may be storms); if you do these things you must risk the danger. It is exactly the same with the roasting of pork.

[216] See, for instance, the Aka-J̌eru legend on pages 197–198, the Aka-Kede on page 200 and that from the Akar-Bale tribe on pages 200–201, and also the legends on pages 207, 208.

[217] In a paper in Folk-lore, vol. xx, 1909, I put forward the hypothesis that probably at one time all the tribes of the Andamans regarded Biliku (Puluga) as female, and Tarai (Daria) as male. I am still inclined to think that there is some evidence for this, but a discussion of what the Andamanese beliefs may have been in the past is entirely outside the scope of this chapter and is therefore omitted.

[218] The stem be seems to be connected with the idea of cutting.

[219] In dealing with the account given by Mr Man of the Andaman mythology it is necessary to remember that he was undoubtedly influenced by a very strong desire to show that the beliefs of the Andamanese about Puluga were really fundamentally the same as the beliefs of the Christian about his God. It may be taken as certain that he did not consciously allow this wish to affect his record of the Andaman beliefs, but it is very improbable that it did not unconsciously have a great deal of influence both on Mr Man and on his informants.

[220] To complete the discussion of this part of the subject it would be necessary to deal with many points in the legends of the real meaning of which I do not feel satisfied. I have, for instance, given no explanation of the position of Pe̱rǰido in the Biliku-Tarai myth, although this is probably an important matter. Nor have I traced to its source the connection of Biliku (with her net, and her hole, or cave, in which she shuts herself up to sleep and from which she comes out to bring rain and storm) with the spider. Besides Tomo, Biliku has yet another competitor for the position of control over the fine weather of the hot season, namely the snake, or-čubi (wara-ǰobo), which is regarded as being in some way the guardian of honey and of fine weather. There are legends that show the connection of this snake with honey (page 227) and the same connection is shown in the honey-eating ceremony (page 105). According to Mr Man, when the natives of the South Andaman see a dark cloud approaching and they do not wish it to rain they threaten Puluga that they will call up the wara-ǰobo to bite him. The snake, like other snakes, is only to be seen during the hot weather of the honey season. It may be remembered that it is from this snake that the pattern used in decorating the body with white clay is named.

[221] In the last chapter it was shown that the attribution of magical force to such things as foods and human bones is simply the means by which the social values of these things are represented and recognized. Similarly here the magical powers of the ancestors are simply the representation of their social value, i.e. of the social value of tradition.

[222] In Central Australia it is believed that if a boy who has not been initiated eats large lizards he will develop an abnormal and diseased craving for sexual intercourse. (Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 471.) A friend who has observed the monitor lizard in Australia tells me that the animal fully deserves its reputation.

[223] Page 217.

[224] Page 218.

[225] Page 218.

[226] See Introduction, p. 12.

[227] The information here given as to the Semang is derived from two works, Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, vol. 1, quoted as Skeat, and Rudolf Martin, Die Inlandstämme der Malayischen Halbinsel, 1905, quoted as Martin.

[228] The information about the Philippine Negritos is derived from Reed, Negritos of Zambales, Manila, 1904, quoted as Reed, and A. B. Meyer, Die Philippinen, II, Die Negritos, Dresden, 1893, quoted as Meyer.

[229] See p. 34.

[230] See Census Report, 1901.

[231] Supplement to the Andaman and Nicobar Gazette, January 2, 1904.

[232] Skeat, p. 172.

[233] Skeat, p. 174.

[234] Skeat, p. 176, and plate. See also Annandale, Fasciculi Malayensis, Anthropology, Part I, Plate IV.

[235] Skeat, p. 174.

[236] Skeat, p. 177.

[237] Reed, Plate xxxviii.

[238] Meyer, Plate x.

[239] Skeat, p. 341.

[240] Skeat, p. 270.

[241] Skeat, p. 280.

[242] Skeat, p. 205.

[243] Skeat, p. 205.

[244] Reed, p. 44.

[245] Reed, p. 44.

[246] Reed, p. 47.

[247] Reed, p. 47.

[248] Reed, p. 48.

[249] For information about the two specimens at Cambridge I am indebted to the kindness of Mr J. W. Layard.

[250] According to Skeat the end with the longer point is the lower end of the bow (Skeat, p. 273), but Martin (p. 785) describes a bow of this type and states that the longer point is the upper end.

[251] Meyer, pp. 13–17 and Plates VI–VIII.

[252] Meyer, Plates VI and VIII.

[253] Skeat, p. 274.

[254] Lapicque, “Ethnographie des Iles Andaman,” Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, 1894, p. 370.

[255] Skeat, p. 383.

[256] Man, op. cit. p. 77.

[257] Man, Journ. Anthr. Inst. XII, p. 367, note 4.

[258] Man, op. cit. p. 397.

[259] Supplement to the Andaman and Nicobar Gazette, January 2, 1904.

[260] Published in Vol. ii of the journal Anthropos, 1907.

[261] Although I had acquired some knowledge of phonetics before I went to the Andamans, as a necessary part of the preliminary training of an ethnologist, yet it was not really sufficient to enable me to deal in a thoroughly scientific manner with the problems of Andamanese phonetics, and my further studies of the subject give me reason to believe that my phonetic analysis of the Andaman languages was not as thorough as it might have been.