In the Andamans and Nicobars Part 24

Both s.e.xes inherit, and property is generally divided equally among the heirs.

There is in Kar Nicobar a method of guarding property termed _takoia_, which at first is liable to be taken for a case of _tabu_ or _pomali_.

Posts and sticks, decorated with coloured rags and coconut husks, are erected near gardens, plantations, etc. They have no superst.i.tious significance whatever, and only act as a kind of notice of t.i.tle, warning all and sundry that the surroundings are private property.

Anyone discovered stealing the same is fined, _i.e._, the usual pigs are confiscated to feast the community.[170]

The village headman and his deputy are a recent inst.i.tution of the authorities to simplify the procedure of controlling the natives. The opinion of the village is generally taken on the question, and, if approved of, their nominees are invested with a certificate, a flag, and a suit of clothes, presented yearly.

The headmen can command no obedience, and enforce no laws; they work only by persuasion; and, with the more influential men, deliberate on vexed questions, and impose fines, which seem always paid. Such fines do not accrue to the benefit of the injured party, but of the community, who enjoy a feast as the result, in which the culprit himself takes part.

As the headman now stands, he is the successor of the village "captain"

or presiding elder, who had no other functions but to represent the community on the arrival of ships, and to regulate barter. His office and t.i.tle were inst.i.tuted by the natives when relations with European vessels became frequent, in order that they might have some representative to correspond to the commanding officer.

Before this epoch, everybody seems to have been on a footing of complete social equality, as, with the exceptions above-noted, is the case to-day.

Everyone, even children, is his own master; but persons who have been abroad, by virtue of their experience, are respected and have some authority, as also have the aged and wealthy. But there is no one who has power to exercise control over even a single village, save in the way of carrying out popular ideas.

A "primitive form of socialism exists. Chiefs are unknown. Certain individuals, by force of character ... have more influence than others ... but this influence seems to be at best but slight, and each person is obedient to himself alone, or to some unwritten code of public opinion"[171]--really the essence of the whole system.

The position of women is, and always has been, in no way inferior to that of the other s.e.x. They take their full share in the formation of public opinion, discuss publicly with the men matters of general interest to the village, and their opinions receive due attention before a decision is arrived at. In fact, they are consulted on every matter, and the henpecked husband is of no extraordinary rarity in the Nicobars.

In Kar Nicobar, where the villages are divided into groups of several houses, a woman occasionally succeeds her late husband as sub-chief, on account of the knowledge she may possess of the regulations in vogue, the property and customs of her neighbours.

Women take a fair share in the day's work. They do the cooking, and the whole family eats together; the men build the houses, canoes, etc.; both s.e.xes may be seen working in company in the plantations, fishing on the reefs, and paddling the canoes.

It is only the women in Chaura who manufacture pottery; but as the art is a monopoly, they must be looked on as rather privileged than otherwise.

In fine, there is no actual division of labour, but all a.s.sist in whatever has to be done, from their earliest years. Although scarcely any obedience seems due from children to their parents, most of the ordinary tasks of life are undertaken by young people of both s.e.xes, and much deference is paid to age, especially when it is combined with wealth.

The domestic animals of the Nicobarese are swine, cats, fowls, and dogs, the latter generally of the pariah variety; but now and again in the southern islands a mongrel chow is met with, a cross between the chow and some animal brought thither by the Chinese junks. All are the descendants of introduced species. They are fed on little else but coconut, and support life on this and the results of their own foraging.

Pigeons, parrots, and monkeys are occasionally to be seen in captivity, but the natives have not attempted to systematically utilise the megapode; all the laying-places near the villages are, however, known, and periodically overhauled for eggs.[172]

Weapons, in the strict sense of the word, do not exist now among the Nicobarese; they possess no shields, swords, clubs, or spears for warlike purposes only. The Burmese _dao_, their most common implement--obtained from the ship-traders--is used for everyday purposes and for house-building, agriculture, canoe-fitting, etc., while the spears and harpoons used for pig-killing, cattle-hunting, and fishing are nearly all constructed by attaching a suitable haft to the variously shaped heads which are made locally. A fishing spear of native make is of the many-p.r.o.nged wooden type (Mal., _s'rempang_) common throughout the East--a bunch of diverging barbed skewers spliced into a haft with lashings of cord or rattan.

The Shom Pe[.n] manufacture a javelin or dart, which is used indiscriminately for warfare or the chase as occasion may require; it is made of a single piece of heavy wood, and is possibly the same kind of implement as was in general use among the Nicobarese before the introduction of iron heads.[173]

Fifty and more years ago, the natives obtained numbers of muskets--of which they were much afraid--by barter with European traders; but recently the Indian Government has prohibited the possession of these weapons, and whenever any are discovered they are immediately confiscated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. Shom Pe[.n] Spear (Great Nicobar). 2 and 3, "_Hanoi cha_," Canoe Decorations for bow, stern, and outrigger (Kar Nicobar). 4, Turtle Spear. 5 and 6, Wooden Fishing Spears. 7, Ornamental Canoe Stern-piece, "_Misoka ap_" (Kar Nicobar). 8, 9, and 10, Iron Fishing Spears.]

In common with the other Malayan peoples, they do not seriously employ the bow and arrow. Crossbows are in use among them for shooting birds, but it is evident that such implements are not the invention of the natives. The stock is fashioned like a gun-b.u.t.t, and the arrow rests in a groove running along the top of the fore-end, and is kept in position by means of three half-hoop pegs of bra.s.s wire. The bow is perfectly round in section, tapering towards the ends, and the release is of the string and peg variety, hitching over the top of the trigger. The arrows, which are unfeathered and half the diameter of a lead pencil, have for point a sharpened nail attached by a wrapping of sheet-tin.

These bows have either been copied from the weapons of the early voyagers, or, more probably, have been introduced by the Burmese, amongst whom and the Karens there exists an article almost exactly similar.

Tools of European model are now common, and for fashioning canoes, houses, etc., imported axes, saws, adzes, planes, and spokeshaves are used, in addition to the _dao_.

The latter is never fitted with a handle, and from constant use of it thus, thick ridges of skin and corns form on the inside of the natives'

hands. It is found that the bare tang is very convenient for picking up coconuts; for retaining the weapon when up in the palm trees, by sticking it into the bark, thus leaving both hands free; for punching two holes in the opposite sides of a nut, through which the water may be extracted by suction; and for many other purposes.

The Nicobarese rarely use nets for fishing. Besides occasionally employing small casting nets purchased from traders,--the construction of which they never themselves attempt--they make and use a primitive net trap, which is baited and held a foot or two below the surface by the fisherman, who, on seeing a fish nibbling at the bait, promptly raises the trap, thereby catching the fish in the netting.

The fish are obtained either by hook and line (imported), or by spearing by day or at night with the aid of blazing torches of coconut leaf.

Open-meshed traps of rattan, of various sizes and shapes, with funnel-shaped mouth leading towards the interior, are in common use, and are sunk in the sea-bottom in suitable places. They also construct weirs of coconut leaves (_Tananga_--Kar Nicobar; _Kan-Shang_--Nankauri), by means of which large quant.i.ties of fish are generally caught. These are employed only during the dry season when the sea is fairly calm.

Finally, the narcotic property possessed by the seeds of _Barringtonia speciosa_[174] is made use of; for, in pools and confined waters, the addition of a small quant.i.ty of a paste, made of the mashed kernels, acts like "tuba," causing all the fish present to become insensible and rise to the surface, where they may be collected at leisure.

Turtle are common about the islands, and many skulls are to be met with in the houses of the natives, by whom they are used for the expulsion of demons. They are captured when floating on the sea by means of a harpoon with a skewer-shaped iron head, which, when fast in the sh.e.l.l, detaches from the shaft and remains connected by a short piece of cord only.

Large quant.i.ties of fish are often caught, when the weather is favourable, by means of the _kan-shang_, traps, etc., and, consequently, at times the natives live largely on fish. The staples of food throughout the year are coconuts and panda.n.u.s fruit, with bananas, yams, and occasionally other fruits and vegetables in small quant.i.ties. Fowls and pork can only be afforded now and then. Rice is used to a small extent, and is one of the articles for which the natives barter coconuts.

The fruit of the panda.n.u.s, which is an egg-shaped ma.s.s frequently attaining a diameter of 18 inches, consists of a cl.u.s.ter of fibrous drupes, the tops of which are sliced off as soon as gathered. Thus treated, it can be preserved for some weeks.

When preparing it for eating, these divisions are separated from the central core and placed in a pot over a layer of bamboos or a grating,[175] below which there is a little water; above them are laid yams, or whatever may be suitably cooked by that process, and the whole is then covered with leaves and steamed for some hours.[176]

The pulpy matter that it contains is then sc.r.a.ped out with a sh.e.l.l while the drupe is held on a heavy slab of wood, and then the bristly fibres with which the nutritious portion is intermixed are extracted from the latter by drawing threads of a sort of ba.s.s through the pasty ma.s.s resulting. Thus is obtained a smooth dough, of a yellowish colour and somewhat sweet taste, that has been likened in flavour to apple-marmalade. A portion of this (_kow-en_), with some grated coconut, and sometimes a piece of chicken or pork, const.i.tutes the usual meal.

This food is often made up into leaf-covered bundles, in which state it acquires a distinctive, though not unpleasant, odour, and can be kept a long time.

The fibrous drupe, after treatment as above, is commonly used as a foot-brush[177] at many of the islands, for which purpose it is kept near the top of the hut-ladder for those entering the hut.

The princ.i.p.al beverages are the water of the green unripe coconut, and toddy, made by fermenting the sap of the coco palm, which is regularly bled at the crown into bamboo receptacles. The toddy is largely manufactured, and as it is no more intoxicating than strong ale, much has to be consumed before drunkenness results. Ordinary water is scarcely ever taken, and its use is almost entirely restricted to cooking.

For the last few years the authorities at Port Blair have attempted to inculcate in the natives a liking for tea, the taste for which they have fostered by presenting the headmen with quant.i.ties of the leaf, in the hope that it will, if it become popular, somewhat minimise the prevalent consumption of toddy, which, when largely indulged in, cannot but have a bad effect on the general health of the people.

Toddy, however, does not stand alone as an intoxicant: nearly everywhere one comes across the black, square bottles in which gin is conveyed to all parts of the world: occasionally brandy is inquired for, but on all the islands there is a demand for rum, and this seems to have been the favourite drink since it was introduced to the natives by British captains bartering for coconuts in the early part of the last century.

At present, however, Chinese traders are the only smugglers, and the spirit they introduce, _samshu_, runs only occasional risk of confiscation, as the trade of the junks is for the most part in places seldom visited by the occasional patrolling steamer.

Tobacco is used by everyone--men, women, and children--both for chewing and smoking: the native cigarette is a very crude affair, composed of a small quant.i.ty of the weed and a large amount of a certain dried leaf.

The tobacco finding most favour is of Chinese and Javanese manufacture, and cigars are much appreciated.

Betel-chewing is universal, and the quid--which undoubtedly acts as a stimulant--consists of areca-nut, lime, and the sireh leaf only, without the addition of gambier. The teeth of the Nicobarese are both large and prominent, and the continuous use of betel and tobacco stains them a brown and black colour that is much admired.

In person, the natives, although generally clean, are less particular than tropical races as a rule: there are none of the fenced-in wells (_panchurans_, or bathing-screens) on the stream banks that one sees near all the villages of the Malays, but an occasional bath is taken by pouring the contents of a dozen coconut sh.e.l.ls over the body. Clothing gets a rinse in the sea at intervals by way of cleansing.

At the present time the everyday dress is of red cotton, but for the first half and more of the last century the fashion ran all in blue. On ordinary occasions men wear a long strip of cotton, generally red, pa.s.sing round the thighs and between the legs,[178] and women drape a fathom or two of cotton about the waist by twisting the ends together; but for other times there are cotton draperies, _sarongs_, Chinese coats and trousers, and also European garments, which, from top-hats to shirts, are in great demand.[179]

In the north a chaplet of areca palm spathe with loose ends (_ta-chokla_) is much worn, and the ear-lobes are pierced to retain short plugs of bamboo, half an inch in diameter, inlaid with silver and with silver pendants. From Kamorta southward the common head-dress is a similar chaplet of panda.n.u.s leaf (_shanoang_), or a coloured handkerchief or circlet of calico, and there is a plain ear-distender, one inch or more in diameter and three long, often shaped like a wedge: this is replaced on festive occasions by a large rosette of red and white cotton.

Other ornaments are bangles and anklets, made by twisting thick silver wire about the limb, and belts and necklaces made of rupees or smaller coins. Rings are worn, either of silver or sh.e.l.l.

Face and chest are sometimes covered with vermilion or saffron paint, but the natives do not employ any form of tattoo or scarification.

Hair is usually worn short by both s.e.xes, but there is a more or less distinctive style or fashion at all the islands. On the occasion of a sudden or violent death at a village all its inhabitants are required to shave their heads, and the women their eyebrows as well.[180]

Mourning for a relative is indicated in like manner as well as by other observances. With infants the head is often shaved for a time, and for the next few years the hair is kept short, in which way it is also worn by all ages and s.e.xes. Boys as a rule have their heads cropped.

Fairly long hair is worn by many, but in no case is it ever permitted to grow below the shoulders; at that point it is cut across horizontally, and then, when bushy, the hair presents much the appearance represented in a.s.syrian and Egyptian records.

The Nicobarese possess no musical instrument of their own invention, but very occasionally some individual attempts to produce, without much success, a copy of something he has seen in the hands of foreigners--a violin, guitar, etc.

Two instruments are, however, in use among them: one, a seven-holed flageolet, which is Burmese, and the other, the _danang_, borrowed from the Indian "sitar," has three frets, a string of cane, and two sound-holes.[181] "It is a hollowed bamboo, about 2-1/2 feet long and 3 inches in diameter, along the outside of which there is stretched from end to end a single string, made of the threads of a split rattan, and the place under the string is hollowed, to prevent it from touching.