Chapter I: The Social Organisation (3)

It is impossible, at the present time, to discover exactly how the Andamanese formerly regarded infidelity on the part of a wife or husband. In the Great Andaman there is great laxity in this matter at the present day. Quarrels sometimes arise when a husband discovers an intrigue between his wife and another man, but very often the husband seems to condone the adultery of his wife. Mr E. H. Man, writing on this subject, says that “conjugal fidelity till death is not the exception, but the rule,” and adds, “It is undoubtedly true that breaches of morality have occasionally taken place among a few of the married persons who have resided for any length of time at Port Blair, but this is only what might be expected from constant association with the Indian convict attendants at the various homes; justice, however, demands that in judging of their moral characteristics we should consider only those who have been uninfluenced by the vices or virtues of alien races [43].” At the present time conjugal infidelity is very common and is lightly regarded. It is almost certain that the establishment of the Penal Settlement amongst them has affected their morals in this particular, but there does not seem to be any very satisfactory evidence that their former morality was quite so strict as Mr Man would have us believe. One piece of evidence in this matter is that the spread of syphilis, when it was first introduced amongst them seems to have been very rapid, and yet this was before many of the tribes had been very seriously affected by the Settlement.

Besides the special sexual relation between a husband and wife there is a special economic relation, if we may speak of it as such. The two share one hut between them, or one portion of a communal hut. It is the duty of the wife to provide the fire-wood and the water for cooking and drinking, and to cook the meals at the family fire. It is the duty of the husband to provide flesh food for himself and for his wife, while it is her duty to provide and prepare vegetable food.

A marriage is not regarded as fully consummated until the birth of a child. Mr Man states that the survivor of a childless couple is not looked upon as the chief mourner. A father who has been away from home greets his wife first on his return and then greets his other relatives; but if no child has been born to him a husband first greets his blood-relatives (father, mother, brothers, etc.) and only after that does he visit his wife.

The only regulation of marriage is on the basis of relationship. Marriage is forbidden between near consanguinei. The exact rules, in this matter, if indeed there be any exact rules, are difficult to discover. It is quite clear that a man would not be permitted to marry his sister or half-sister, nor his father’s or mother’s sister, nor his brother’s or sister’s daughter. The question is more difficult when it comes to the matter of cousins. In 1908 I only found one pair of first cousins who were married to one another, this being in the Aka-Bo tribe. The husband and wife were the son and daughter of two brothers. Mr E. H. Man writes that “marriage is only permissible between those who are known to be not even distantly connected, except by wedlock, with each other; so inexorable indeed is this rule, that it extends and applies equally to such as are related merely by the custom of adoption.” He adds that marriage between first cousins is forbidden. I was not able to satisfy myself on this point, but it seemed to me that while such a marriage as that of first cousins was not actually regarded as wrong, and therefore forbidden, it was regarded as preferable that a man should marry a woman not so nearly related to him. No distinction is made between different kinds of cousin [44].

My observations did not confirm Mr Man’s statement that persons related by adoption are forbidden to marry. It is necessary, however, to distinguish two different kinds of adoption. When the parents of a child of less than six or seven years of age die, the child is adopted into some other family. We may call this “orphan adoption.” As will be explained later, there is another custom by which children of over seven or eight are adopted by a married couple belonging to a local group other than that of the parents, and live with them till they come of age. The parents of the child are still alive and they visit him or her at frequent intervals. No bar to marriage is set up by this kind of adoption. An adopted son may marry the daughter of his foster-parents. Indeed when children are betrothed it is the rule for the girl to be adopted by the boy’s parents, at any rate for a time. On the other hand it is quite possible that a child adopted when of tender years (as an orphan) would not be permitted to marry a child of his or her foster-parents. I was unable to satisfy myself on this point.

There seems to be a prejudice against a woman marrying a man younger than herself. Some of the women with whom I talked expressed strong contempt at the idea of marrying a man younger than themselves. Unfortunately, I neglected to obtain statistics as to the frequency with which such marriages occur, if they occur at all.

Beyond the prohibition of the marriage of near kin, I could not find any restriction on marriage. A man may marry a woman from his own local group or from another, from his own or from another tribe. That marriages between persons belonging to the same local group did occur in former times I was able to ascertain with certainty but I was not able to determine the proportion of such marriages to the whole number. It is probable that the majority of marriages, or at any rate a large proportion, were between persons belonging to different local groups.

Marriages are arranged by the older men and women. Children are sometimes betrothed by their parents while they are still infants. I found one such case in the North Andaman, and the betrothed couple, though they were yet small children, were spoken of as being “married.” Such betrothals are not very common at the present time.

When the parents of a youth who is of suitable age to be married perceive that he has formed an attachment with a girl, they take it upon them to arrange a marriage. The matter is first of all talked over between the young man and his parents. The man’s parents do not themselves speak to the girl’s parents of the matter, but request some one or more of their friends to do so. From the moment that the possibility of a marriage exists the man’s parents avoid speaking to the girl’s parents. Any communication between them is carried on through a third person. They send presents to each other, of food and other objects. The recipient of such a present hastens to make a return of equal value. If the marriage is arranged the parents on each side become related to one another by the relationship denoted in Akar-Bale by the word aka-yat. The duties implied by this relationship will be described later.

When a marriage has finally been arranged an evening is appointed for the ceremony. In the North Andaman this is as follows. The bride is seated on a mat at one end of the dancing ground, her relatives and friends sitting near her. Torches or heaps of resin are lighted near by, so that the ceremony may be seen by the on-lookers. The bridegroom is seated with his friends at the other end of the dancing ground. One of the older and more respected men addresses the bride, telling her that she must make a good wife, must provide for her husband such things as it is the duty of a wife to obtain or make, must see that he does not run after other women, and must herself remain faithful to him. He then addresses the bridegroom to the same effect, and taking him by the hand or arm, leads him to where the bride is seated and makes him sit down beside her. The relatives and friends weep loudly, and the young couple look very self-conscious and uncomfortable. The shyness of the young man is such that he often attempts to run away, but he is caught by his friends, who are prepared for such an attempt. After some minutes the officiating elder takes the arms of the bride and bridegroom and places them around each other’s necks. After a further interval he again approaches and makes the bridegroom sit on the bride’s lap [45]. They sit so for some minutes and the ceremony is over. The other members of the community generally have a dance on such an occasion, but in this the newly wedded pair do not join. A hut has already been prepared for them, and all their friends make them presents of useful objects with which to start housekeeping. They retire shyly to their new hut, while their friends continue dancing. The day after the ceremony the bride and bridegroom are decorated by their friends with white clay. For a few days the newly married couple are very shy of each other, hardly venturing to speak to or look at one another: but they soon settle down to their new position in the life of the community. During the early days of their marriage they are abundantly supplied with food by their friends. They are not addressed or spoken of by name, but if their names be A and B, the husband is called “the husband of B” while the wife is called “the wife of A.”

In the South Andaman the ceremony is much the same as in the North, the only difference being that the bridegroom is led to where the bride is sitting and is made to sit on her lap straightway, remaining there for a few minutes.

When a husband dies his widow may marry again if she wishes. As a rule I believe that it is not considered fitting that she should take another husband before the end of her mourning for her former one. Mr Man says “it is not considered decorous that any fresh alliance should be contracted until about a year had elapsed from the date of bereavement [46].” I knew of one case, however, of a woman with a young child who married again only a fortnight or so after her husband’s death.

Mr Man speaks of a custom “which all but compels a bachelor or widower to propose to the childless widow of his elder brother or cousin (if she be not past her prime), while she has no choice beyond remaining single or accepting him; should she have no younger brother-in-law (or cousin by marriage), however, she is free to wed whom she will. It should be added that marriage with a deceased wife’s younger sister is equally a matter of necessity on the part of a childless widower [47].”

I was not able to come across a case in which a man had actually married his elder brother’s widow in recent years. The natives whom I questioned confirmed Mr Man’s statement, which, moreover, was based on at least one instance known to him as having occurred. It may be noted that in his description of this instance Mr Man says that the woman married her husband’s “brother or cousin,” leaving us in doubt as to which of these two relatives it really was. There is an ambiguity in the use of the term “younger brother,” for the Andamanese have no word meaning simply “younger brother,” but only such terms as ot-arai-čulute and the equivalents in other languages, which apply to any younger person, whether actually a brother or cousin or not.

The recent changes in the social life of the Andamanese render it difficult to determine what was the former practice in matters of this sort, but I believe that the custom was this, that when a man of a local group died the older men selected one of the unmarried men and required him to marry the widow. They selected a man who was younger than the deceased, that is who was his ot-arai-čulute, and gave the preference to an unmarried younger brother if there were one, or to a relative of the deceased, such as a father’s brother’s son.

It may be noted that this custom may conflict with the other custom, previously mentioned, that a woman objects to marrying a man younger than herself. In the case mentioned by Mr Man a young man was compelled to marry a woman who was considerably his senior [48].

I believe that, in connection with, or underlying this custom there was an objection against a widow marrying a man who was older than her former husband (and who would therefore be his ot-otoatue). I regret that I cannot speak with certainty on these matters.

We may turn now to the duties to one another of parents and children. During their infancy the children are in the care of the mother. Children are, however, such favourites with the Andamanese that a child is played with and petted and nursed not only by his own father and mother but by everyone in the village. A woman with an unweaned child will often give suck to the children of other women. Babies are not weaned till they are three or four years old.

Before the children can walk, they are carried about by the mother, and sometimes by the father or other persons, in a bark sling (called čiba in Aka-J̌eru), which is shown in Plate XIV. After they can walk the children generally accompany their mothers in their expeditions near the camp for firewood or vegetables. When they are not with their mothers they amuse themselves with games in the village or on the beach. All the children of the coast villages learn to swim when they are very young, in fact almost as soon as they learn to walk, and many of their games are conducted in the water.

When a boy reaches the age of five or six his father makes him a toy bow and arrows, and sometimes a toy canoe. From this time the boy begins to learn the occupations of men and begins to pick up knowledge about the animals and trees and fishes of his country. The girl, accompanying her mother on her expeditions to gather roots and seeds, or to catch fish or pick up molluscs on the reefs, learns what it is necessary for women to know.

Until the age of about eight to ten a child lives with his parents, having a place in the family hut, and a share of the family meal. The children are treated with extreme kindness, and are never punished, and hardly ever scolded. Should the parents die the children are adopted by friends or relatives, and such adopted children are treated by the foster-parents in exactly the same way as their own children.

At the age of ten, or a little before, a change is often brought about in the life of a child, owing to the custom of adoption. Mr Man writes of this custom as follows:

“It is said to be of rare occurrence to find any child above six or seven years of age residing with its parents, and this because it is considered a compliment and also a mark of friendship for a married man, after paying a visit, to ask his hosts to allow him to adopt one of their children. The request is usually complied with, and thenceforth the child’s home is with his (or her) foster-father: though the parents in their turn adopt the children of other friends, they nevertheless pay continual visits to their own child, and occasionally ask permission (!) to take him (or her) away with them for a few days. A man is entirely at liberty to please himself in the number of children he adopts, but he must treat them with kindness and consideration, and in every respect as his own sons and daughters, and they, on their part, render him filial affection and obedience. It not unfrequently happens that in course of time permission to adopt a foster-child is sought by a friend of the soi-disant father, and is at once granted (unless any exceptional circumstance should render it personally inconvenient), without even the formality of a reference to the actual parents, who are merely informed of the change, in order that they may be enabled to pay their periodical visits [49].”

The above passage is quoted because Mr Man had better opportunities of observation in this matter than myself. At the present day there are not many children in the Andamans, and this is an obstacle in the way of this custom of adoption. From my own observation, however, I should put the age at which it is customary for children to be adopted at higher than six or seven. I found children of about seven or eight still living with their own parents. The usual age of adoption seemed to me to be from nine or ten years upwards.

A man and his wife adopt in this way children belonging to a local group other than their own. The adopted child lives with his or her foster-parents, having a place in their hut and a share of their meals. From about the age of ten children of both sexes begin to be of service to their parents or foster-parents in many ways. The foster-parents treat their adopted children in exactly the same way that they would treat their own children, and the children on the other hand show the same regard and affection to their foster-parents that they do to their own parents, and assist them in every way that they can. Their own parents come to visit them at regular intervals.

The period of childhood is brought to an end at about the age of puberty by certain ceremonies to be described in the next chapter. After the beginning of these ceremonies a boy ceases to live in the hut of his parents or his foster-parents, and must live with the young unmarried men and widowers in what has been called the bachelors’ hut. From this time until he marries, his services are constantly required by his parents or by his foster-parents, and he is expected to obey them and help them in any way he can. It is only after his marriage that he becomes relatively independent and free to please himself in his own actions, and even then he is required to provide his parents or his foster-parents with food, and to serve them in any way they may need.

A girl, during the period between the beginning of the initiation ceremonies and her marriage, continues, at any rate, in some cases, and in these days, to live with her parents or with foster-parents. Mr Man states that the unmarried women and girls occupy a spinsters’ hut similar to the bachelors’ hut. It is possible that this was the former custom. I found instances of an unmarried girl occupying a place in the hut of a married couple who made use of her services and controlled her conduct, regarding her in the light of a foster-daughter. On one occasion I found two unmarried girls occupying a separate hut adjoining that of a married couple, who looked after the girls who occupied it.

The position of an unmarried girl is very similar to that of an unmarried youth. She is required to help her elders, in particular either her parents or her foster-parents, i.e. the married couple under whose care she is for the time being.

After marriage a son continues to help his parents, providing them with food and seeing that they are comfortable. If either a man or a woman lives in a local group other than that of his or her parents, he or she pays frequent visits to them.

From the time that a youth or girl ceases to belong to the family household, his or her duties to the parents are really only the same in kind as the duties that every young man and woman owes to all the older men and women. Though there is no difference in kind, yet a man or woman is expected to show more affection and respect for his or her own parents than to other persons of the same social standing.

The only other relationship, besides that of husband and wife and that of parents and children, which exists inside the family, is that between children of the same parents. The conduct of brothers to one another depends on their respective ages. The younger is expected to give way to the elder, while the latter protects and looks after the former. The relation of sisters to one another is similar.

The duties of a man and woman to his or her relatives, other than those to parents, brothers and sisters, and even to some extent the duties to these near relatives, are not distinguishable in kind from the duties he or she owes to other persons who are not relatives. Thus a young married man owes certain duties to all the older married men of about the age of his father. These duties are the same in kind as those towards his own father and his foster-father, the only difference being that he must defer more to his own father than to other men, and must be more constant in his attentions to him. I could not discover any way in which a man distinguished, in his dealings with them, his father’s brother from his mother’s brother. They are both of them older men whom he must respect and to whom he must make presents of food. Similarly a father’s sister is not distinguished, so far as I could discover, from a mother’s sister. A man treats both of them in much the same way that he treats his own mother, or any other woman of the same age. There is only a slight difference in connection with parents-in-law. A man would not be so familiar with his parents-in-law as he would with his parents or their brothers or sisters, and treats them with more deference and respect. This is borne out by the Akar-Bale custom of applying to a father-in-law or mother-in-law the same term of address (Mama) that is used in speaking to grandparents and others to whom it is required to show particular deference.

In the same way there is very little difference between the way a man conducts himself towards his elder brother and his conduct towards any other man of the same age. Brothers are often close comrades, putting their huts next to one another in the same village, joining together whenever possible in hunting or fishing expeditions, and so on; but a man may have a comrade who is not his brother, whom he will treat in exactly the same way.

The general attitude of a married man to other married men somewhat younger than himself is very much that towards a younger brother. As between men and women one special duty appears in this connection. A married man may not and will not have any close dealings with the wife of a man younger than himself. It is not considered fitting that he should speak to her. If he wished to have any communication with her, he would do so through some third person. It would be regarded as a wrong thing to do if he were ever to touch her. The only explanation that the natives give of this custom is by saying that a man feels “shy” or “ashamed” towards his younger brother’s or friend’s wife. The custom is exactly the same with respect to the wife of any younger man, whether a brother, a cousin, or a stranger.

This custom depends on the distinction between older and younger. A man may be on terms of familiarity with the wife of a man older than himself, whom he would treat much as he would an elder sister.

There is one special relationship which has peculiar duties attaching to it, and this is the relationship between the father and mother of a man on the one hand and the father and mother of the man’s wife on the other. In the Akar-Bale language such persons are said to be aka-yat to one another. A man or a woman will not have any immediate dealings with a person who is his aka-yat. He will not speak to him, and if they should meet or be sitting near to one another they would avoid looking at each other. On the other hand a man is constantly sending presents to his aka-yat. The natives say that two persons in this relation feel “shy” or “ashamed.” (There is only one word in Andamanese for these two English words, ot-ǰete in Aka-J̌eru.) The shyness begins at the moment when a marriage between their respective children is first discussed as a possibility, and lasts apparently till death.

As throwing a little light on this peculiar relation it may be mentioned that a similar relation exists between two men who have been through either the turtle-eating ceremony or the pig-eating ceremony (to be described in the next chapter) on the same occasion. Two such men will avoid any contact with one another, not speaking to nor looking at each other when they chance to meet, but on the other hand they will be constantly giving each other presents of all kinds, sending them through some third person.

The main features of the relationship system of the Andaman Islanders may be briefly summed up. The duties that one person owes to another are determined much less by their relation to one another by consanguinity and marriage, than by their respective ages and social status. Even within the family, which nevertheless is of importance, the duty of a child to a parent is very little different from his duty to any other person of the same age. There is very little of any special customs relating to conduct towards different kinds of relatives. Corresponding to this we find very few terms to denote relationships and a considerable development of the terms which denote age and social status. Thus a man’s duties to his elder brother are much the same as those towards the other men of the same age, and we find that there is no word for “elder brother” but only a term by which a man distinguishes all the men of his own generation older than himself from those who are younger. Similarly there are no duties that a man owes to his father’s brother or to his mother’s brother which he does not also owe, in perhaps a less degree, to other men of the same age, and there is no term by which he can distinguish his father’s brother from those others.

If this account of the system of relationship be accurate it will be seen that the Andamanese society contrasts very strongly, in this matter, with other primitive societies [50].

It remains for us only to examine the social relations between the different local groups. Two neighbouring groups, whether of the same tribe or of different tribes, might be either friendly towards one another or unfriendly. Friendly relations were kept alive by several of the customs of the Andamanese, by the intermarriage of members of different groups, by the adoption of children from one group to another, and by the fact that a man of one group might take up his residence more or less permanently with another (particularly when he married a woman of that group, or was adopted when a boy by one of the men belonging to it). All these customs served to bind some persons in the one group to persons in the other, and thus prevent the two groups from becoming entirely unfriendly to one another.

When two neighbouring local groups were friendly to one another communication between them was kept up by visitors from one group to another, and by occasional meetings of the whole of the two groups.

Either a single person or a family might at any time pay a visit to another camp, staying a few days or weeks or even longer. A man would, however, only go visiting when he was sure of a welcome. Such visits were most frequent in the fine months of the year (December to May). As a husband and wife in many instances belonged to different local groups they would, if living with the man’s parents, pay a visit every year to the parents or other relatives of the wife. The parents of a child that had been adopted by a member of another local group would make a point of visiting the child when they could. Visitors to a camp would always take with them presents to be given to their hosts. A visitor was hospitably entertained, being given the best of the food, and joined his hosts in their hunting and fishing expeditions. The duty of hospitality is one upon which the Andamanese lay stress.

The meetings of two or more local groups were organised from time to time by the more prominent men. The time and place of the meeting would be fixed and invitations sent out to the neighbours. The visitors, men, women and children, would arrive at the appointed time, and would be accommodated as well as possible by the hosts. During the first few hours, as the natives themselves told me, everyone would feel a little shy and perhaps frightened, and it would take some time for this feeling to wear off. The visitors would bring with them various objects, such as bows, arrows, adzes, baskets, nets, red paint, white clay, and so on. These were given by the visitors to their hosts, and other presents were received in return. Although the natives themselves regarded the objects thus given as being presents, yet when a man gave a present to another he expected that he would receive something of equal value in return, and would be very angry if the return present did not come up to his expectations. A man would sometimes mention, when giving his present, that he would like some particular object in exchange, but this was the exception and not the rule, and the process cannot be spoken of as barter. In certain cases it undoubtedly served a useful economic purpose. Thus if a local group had no red ochre or white clay in their own country they could obtain these commodities by exchange with others who had. In the case of a meeting between forest and coast dwellers, the former could obtain such things as shells, red paint made with turtle fat, and other objects with which they could not provide themselves in any other way. It was in this way also that the iron obtained from a wreck on one part of the coast would be spread over a large area. For the most part, however, as each local group, and indeed each family, was able to provide itself with everything that it needed in the way of weapons and utensils, the exchange of presents did not serve the same purpose as trade and barter in more developed communities.

The purpose that it did serve was a moral one. The object of the exchange was to produce a friendly feeling between the two persons concerned, and unless it did this it failed of its purpose. It gave great scope for the exercise of tact and courtesy. No one was free to refuse a present that was offered to him. Each man and woman tried to out-do the others in generosity. There was a sort of amiable rivalry as to who could give away the greatest number of valuable presents.

The visitors remained with their hosts for a few days. The time was spent in hunting, feasting and dancing, and in the exchange of presents above described. The hosts made every effort to provide the camp with plenty of good things. The guests took their share in the hunting and fishing expeditions. Every evening was spent in singing and dancing. Some of the men were sure to have composed new songs for such an occasion.

Such meetings as these were sometimes the means of bringing to an end past quarrels between the local groups, but occasionally they were the cause of new quarrels. The hosts, or some of them, might think that they had been shabbily treated in the matter of presents, or the guests might complain that they were not well enough entertained. It often needed a man of strong influence to maintain harmony in the camp. Angry words might lead to the rapid breaking up of a meeting, and even result in a feud between the two groups.

Quarrels between individuals, as we have seen, were often taken up by friends on each side. This was particularly the case when the two opponents belonged to different local groups. Before the days of the settlement of the islands there often arose in this way petty quarrels between neighbouring local groups. In some instances there appear to have been feuds of long standing; in others there was a quarrel, a fight or two, and the enemies made peace with one another, until a fresh cause of disagreement should arise.

It does not seem that there was ever such a thing as a stand-up fight between two parties. The whole art of fighting was to come upon your enemies by surprise, kill one or two of them and then retreat. A local group that had some grievance against another would decide to make an attack. They might seek and obtain the aid of friends from other local groups. The men who were to take part in the expedition would paint themselves and put on various ornaments and join in a dance [51]. They would then set out, either by land or by sea, in the direction of the encampment they meant to attack. Their weapons consisted of bows and arrows, and they carried no shields or other defensive weapons. They would not venture to attack the enemy’s camp unless they were certain of taking it by surprise. For this reason such attacks were generally made either in the evening when the camp would be busy with the preparation of the evening meal, or at early dawn, when every one would be asleep. The attacking party would rush the camp and shoot as many men as they could. If they met with any serious resistance or lost one of their own number they would immediately retire. Those attacked, if they were really taken by surprise, were generally compelled to save themselves by flight. Though the aim of the attacking party was to kill the men, it often happened that women or children were killed. The whole fight would last only a few minutes, ending either with the retirement of the attackers before resistance, or the flight of those attacked into the jungle. A wounded enemy would be killed if found.

Such attacks and counter-attacks might be continued for some years, thus establishing a feud between two neighbouring local groups. More usually, however, after one or two such fights peace would be made. In the tribes of the North Andaman there was a special peace-making ceremony, that will be described in the next chapter. All peace negotiations were conducted through the women. One or two of the women of the one group would be sent to interview the women of the other group to see if they were willing to forget the past and make friends. It seems that it was largely the rancour of the women over their slain relatives that kept the feud alive, the men of the two parties being willing to make friends much more readily than the women.

An example of a long-continued feud, which, to all appearance, has been in existence for several centuries, is that between the Aka-Bea and the J̌a̤rawa of the South Andaman. The J̌a̤rawa have the advantage over the Aka-Bea that their camps are situated in the dense forest and are difficult to find, while the camps of the Aka-Bea are mostly along the sea-coast. At the present day the J̌a̤rawa take some precautions against being surprised in their camp by a hostile party. The camp is often placed on the top of a hill and the trees in the neighbourhood are cut down so that they have a good view. The paths leading to the camp are also cleared and made wider than is usual in a native path. At times it would seem that they keep sentries on the look-out.

The Aka-Bea and the J̌a̤rawa were inveterate enemies. Whenever two parties of them met by any chance, or came in the neighbourhood of one another, the larger party would attack the other. When the Settlement of Port Blair was established, friendly relations were set up with the Aka-Bea, and since that time the hostility of the J̌a̤rawa has been directed not only against the friendly Andamanese (Aka-Bea, etc.) but also against the inhabitants of the Settlement [52].

Such a thing as fighting on a large scale seems to have been unknown amongst the Andamanese. In the early days of the Penal Settlement of Port Blair, the natives of the South Andaman combined in large numbers to make an attack on the Settlement, but this seems to have been an unusual course of action in order to meet what was to them an altogether unusual contingency, their territory having been invaded by a large force of foreigners. Their only fights amongst themselves seem to have been the brief and far from bloody skirmishes described above, where only a handful of warriors were engaged on each side and rarely more than one or two were killed. Of such a thing as a war in which the whole of one tribe joined to fight with another tribe I could not find any evidence in what the natives were able to tell me of their former customs.

As showing within what narrow limits the different local groups held communication with one another, it may be mentioned that till the year 1875 the Aka-Bea natives of Port Blair did not know of the existence of the Aka-Ko̱l tribe, less than fifty miles distant, nor of any of the tribes further north. As a general rule it may be said that no man knew anything of any of the natives living more than twenty miles from his own part of the country.