In the Andamans and Nicobars Part 27

The account commences with the starting of the ship _Bristol_ from Madras on August 8, 1778, on its way to Siam.

"_August 31, 1778._--At 9 o'clock, land was discovered from the mast.

The sails were set and the course directed straight towards the land. A quarter of an hour later, we could distinguish the land from the fore deck; it rose before us like smoke, and seemed to be high and hilly.

"As we approached the land, we could from time to time distinguish some white, sparkling spots, especially close to the summit of the mountain; we took them to be chalk stone, but as we came nearer, we saw that they were a peculiar kind of fields interspersed with green.

"Our captain knew this country very well: it was the first of the Nequebar[198] islands, which is called 'Kare Nequebar.' He therefore ordered the ship to be steered towards its north-eastern coast, in such manner as not to come too near a stony bank stretching far into the sea.

The more we approached the land, the more agreeable it seemed to the eye, on account of the pleasant change of wood with green fields, and trees standing in thin rows between them. There was such perpetual change of scenery, that it was almost impossible to believe this island to be inhabited by uncivilized people. One field was specially conspicuous. It reached in a slope down to the sea, and there was bordered by a row of thinly planted trees, the waves beating against it with great violence; in all other parts the sea was bordered by thick trees like by a wall. After this we pa.s.sed another side of the island pretty closely, this coast not being dangerous at all, and at the same time we came behind the wind. The ship cast anchor a quarter of a German mile from the sh.o.r.e, the water being fifteen fathoms deep. It was then 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

"The country seemed to be level and flat for about one German mile, and was thickly overgrown with trees down to the seash.o.r.e. There were some semicircular openings hewn out, in which one could perceive several houses with thatched roofs.

"We had scarcely cast anchor, when some of the natives of Necquebar came in their canoes; they arrived rowing in silence. Their canoes were long, narrow, and pointed; they were hewn out of trees, the best of them having a thin staff, about 1-1/2 man's height, right in front, at the end of which was fastened a little flag, by means of diametrical pieces of wood; the flag, however, was not movable, and stood out straight in front. There were two bamboos tied to the top of the canoe, about 1 foot apart from each other,[199] and at one side there was a kind of wing fastened to the same, for the purpose of preventing the canoe from being overset.

"This wing was made of two bamboo sticks as long as the eighth part of the whole length of the boat, and to these were tied two other bamboo sticks, which stood out at the two ends; they were twice as long as the width of the boat, and at the end of these cross sticks another bamboo was fastened, running parallel with the boat, and standing out as much at the front part, as long as the pointed end of the canoe. The smaller boats all had this arrangement, only they had no staff for the flag.

There were more than eight men rowing the big boats. Their oars were lancet-shaped as far as the middle, and had a protruding sharp-cornered point. They were thin and smooth, about 6 inches wide, the handle was round and short, their whole length being about 4 feet; they were made of a sort of brownish red wood.

"Those of the natives that came on board were mostly young, except their captain, who was rather old; he had received a name from a European captain, who frequently came hither, viz., Makintosh.

"Their figure is very much like that of the Malays; they had round heads thickly covered with short coa.r.s.e hair, a large forehead, round small brown eyes, a flat nose, thick lips and large faces, big teeth red with betel, and thin black beards; they were of a light brown colour. Their shoulders were large, and they seemed to be muscular, their veins were more prominent than is commonly the case with the black, their calves were very much developed, but they were all only of medium stature.

Their clothing consisted of a piece of coa.r.s.e blue linen, about three fingers wide, which was wound several times round the lower part of their body and taken up between the legs; some of them wore old straw hats. At first sight the expression of their face seemed to be wild, but one soon lost that impression; they showed few signs of any pa.s.sion, smiled in drawing their lips up on one side, and when they felt offended they walked away without any sign of anger. The princ.i.p.al articles they brought with them were coconuts. Some of them had little square boxes, the biggest of them being one foot long; they were made from the sheaths of the young leaves of the chamoerops,[200] and they contained many varieties of amber[201] for sale. There were some pieces of one or two drachms weight, and they were wrapped in leaves, among them one kind very much resembling benzoin but not having the same odour. As much as I could make out from the interpreter, this piece, like all the other pieces, had been thrown on sh.o.r.e by the sea; it seemed to have been burnt at one end.[202] The payment for these articles was mostly made in tobacco or blue linen. My curiosity and longing to see the country were very great, but the time pa.s.sed with necessary arrangements in reference to the ship and also in talking to the natives of Nacquebar. At last, at 4 o'clock the captain ordered the boat to be put out, and I set out for the sh.o.r.e, feeling very glad and happy. But on nearing the land we perceived a strong breaking of the waves against the sh.o.r.e. We chose a little bay, which seemed to have sandy banks, because it was guarded on both sides by high cliffs. A big wave seized the boat and threw it with great violence against the sh.o.r.e; a second bigger wave followed, which filled the boat, broke one of the oars, and some parts of the boat itself, besides terrifying us greatly. I did not want to wait for the third wave to come, but jumped down into the water, which reached up to my waist, in order to escape a greater danger, and all I had taken with me was soaked.

"The sh.o.r.e was rather steep in the beginning, and there were many little bays, covered with a whitish-yellow sand. The above-mentioned stone cliffs consisted of grey coa.r.s.e chalkstone. Here and there big pieces of different kinds of corals had been thrown up by the sea, among them one kind which had the appearance of many knife-blades grown together. I do not remember having seen any of this kind before. Higher up on the sh.o.r.e there were innumerable varieties of blue, black, red, brown, and white corals, among them also the so-called 'red organ.' I also found a peculiar kind of very coa.r.s.e sponge, and many kinds of sh.e.l.ls were thrown up very high; many of them had been thrown into the woods for some little distance. The whole sh.o.r.e was not of a man's height, and it almost immediately sloped down again towards the wood....

"... As it grew dark I went to one of the hamlets where about twenty houses, most of them with pointed thatched roofs, stood on piles. The princ.i.p.al houses, three in number, were placed in the middle, but each separate from the other. They were built on piles about 10 to 12 inches thick, and more than a man's height. Some of them had 24 to 30 of these piles; they were bamboo, and one side was open, where a bench hung by ropes, large enough to allow two people to sit upon, and so low, that their feet when sitting would touch the ground. The roof of the real dwelling-house was in some cases angularly pointed, in others rounder; very few showed a long ridge. The access was gained by means of a narrow well-made bamboo ladder, through a square hole, which was wide enough to afford admission for a full-grown man; the floor consisted of broad sawn planks of unequal length supported by the cross beams; these beams in their turn resting on the above-mentioned piles. The big houses were divided into storeys, the lower one being as high as two men, the upper one was lower and more like a barn.

"Round about on the princ.i.p.al rafters, there were some bamboo sticks hardly as thick as the thumb fastened across. This looked very nice; but there were no windows at all, nor any to replace them, but the light came only through the holes serving them for door, therefore it was very dark. All their household implements were standing round about, mostly tied to the bamboo; that which could not be kept in this manner had been put into small boxes, which were one foot long, half a foot wide, and hardly half a foot high, and were provided with lids, which were made, as I have already said before, from the part.i.tions sheaths of the young chamoerops leaves. These little boxes had been tied to a bamboo, which was fastened right across the room, and was therefore at some distance from the roof.

"There was great cleanliness as regards the floor, and the air also was very pure, not the faintest disagreeable odour could be detected. The upper storey consisted only of bamboo sticks, they were thin, not tied together, and resting on the cross beams; they had turned somewhat brown through the smoke of the lamps, but I could not see that they kept any provisions there, and on the whole they do not collect many provisions.

I saw some piles erected near some of the houses, they were more than man's height, two cross piles were fastened to them, and here they stewed some yam roots in the open air. They had no gardens, their houses and also their outhouses stood among _Carica papaya_. Their weapons consisted of small lances somewhat shaped like pikes, which were made of smooth round sticks about as thick as a finger and three yards long.[203] I saw some of them return with these kind of weapons. They had been in the wood to fetch provisions for one or two days. I did not see any fishing implements.

"There were two ships there, one of them an English three-master, the second one lying further south with two masts, it was a French ship.

They were both loading coconuts, which they bought here very cheaply in order to take them to Pegu, and to sell them there with great profit.

"Their women have almost the same appearance as their men, being strong and muscular, but most of them had their hair shorn off. Their clothing consisted of a blue cloth wound round their loins, or they wore an ap.r.o.n made of leaves, which was cut in strips hardly one line wide, and reached down to the knees; they were plaited together at the top and hung round their bodies in layers almost two inches thick. These strips seemed to have been taken from the bora.s.si or chamoerops. Some grown-up girls I saw here as well, their hair was cut off below the ear and hung loosely round their head.

"However many people I saw here of different s.e.x, I did not come across any whom I could have termed old. The only exception was a woman, apparently about fifty years old. The shortness of my stay here prevented me to make further researches and inquiries, which besides would have been very difficult considering the language and utter simplicity of the natives. As far as I could observe they were very vague in their ideas as regards years, months, weeks, days, and hours.

"Near one of the large houses I saw some piles; they were about ten inches thick, square, and two and a half feet high. At the upper end they had two holes, meeting in the middle like a cross; through them were plaited many coloured ribbons both of linen and of cloth, presenting the appearance of streamers; at their end there was a stick about as high as a man, at the end of this a piece of white linen was fastened of about two inches wide, looking like a flag; all this was surrounded by a sort of conical figure of the sheaths of the chamoerops, so that only in front a little piece of the streamers was to be seen. I made inquiries as to these things, and they told me they were monuments for the dead, and that lately three persons had died in this house. I saw some more of the same kind of stakes which were already old, but there was not one near every house.

"I saw some persons of both s.e.xes wearing green fringes, and I inquired why they were in this manner distinguished from the others; as much as I could learn from my interpreter these were those who had held their feast of love. This is always celebrated in the woods, never anywhere else, and as a sign of this joy they wore these fringes; they were really made from long pisang[204] leaves split through the middle and fringed crossways. They are first worn round their neck, then across their shoulders, and at last round their loins.

"My attention was attracted by a continual murmuring; I inquired into its cause. It was the singing of some women, who wanted to cure another of her headache. This afforded me at the same time the opportunity of seeing the interior of their houses. I was admitted and allowed to mount, and I found the invalid sitting on her feet, some of the women lying near her, and four standing before her; one of them held something in her hand, which was supposed to be some article for fumigating; I could, however, neither see nor smell it. Their whole song consisted of one tone, which was taken first at a very high pitch, but by repeating it so often they slowly sank to the lowest notes, then they paused, and one of them commenced again very high, and the others chimed in until they had again arrived at the lowest notes. They kept on singing in this way as long as I was there, which, however, was not very long, because it soon grew dark. I felt the invalid's forehead, which was a little warmer than ordinarily and covered with weak perspiration. Her hands were also hot, and her pulse quicker than usual, which symptoms might point to a cold in a body inclined to laziness.

"The number of children that I met here was not large either, and was far smaller than what I had seen on the coast in villages of equal size.

I saw very few animals here; they kept some pigs near their houses, and the pork is said to be of very good taste here, because they feed the pigs on coconuts. There were also some small hens here, and a female dog, very much like the pariah dogs, which I had seen on the coast, and probably it was brought from there, only it seemed to have shorter legs than the ordinary kind....

"... As it grew dark I left the country, where I should have liked to stay for some days, but I feared we might not get safely through the high waves. A _cicada_ sang in the wood in a strange manner--for me it was a sad song. In the dark evening I picked up a little piece of seaweed which had been thrown on sh.o.r.e. We were luckier than we had feared to be as regards the starting from sh.o.r.e, which we left after having explored the country for one hour and a half. After one hour's journey both ways, we arrived on board at 7 o'clock.

"_September 1st._--Early this morning the anchors were hoisted, but hardly had we left the land when a storm, combined with heavy showers of rain, arose. The atmosphere was misty, and one of these stormy showers was so violent and sudden that we almost perished. A new top-sail was torn to pieces, the waves at the same time were uncommonly high, and the whole sea like in a thunderstorm. I thanked G.o.d that I succeeded in arranging the specimens which I had gathered on my journey."

CHAPTER VI

SOME CUSTOMS OF THE KAR NICOBARESE

The Feast of Exhumation--A Scene in the Graveyard--"_Katap-hang_"-- "_Kiala_"--"_Enwan-n'gi_"--Fish Charms--Canoe Offerings--"_Ramal_"-- "_Gnunota_"--Converse with the Dead--"_Kewi-apa_"--"_Maya_"-- "_Yintovna Siya_"--Exorcism--"_Tanangla_"--Other Ceremonies--The "_Sano-kuv_"--The "_Mafai_"--The "_Tamiluana_"--_Mafai_ Ceremonies-- Burial--Mourning--Burial Scenes--The Origin of Village Gardens-- Destruction of Gardens--Eclipses--Canoe-buying--Dances--Quarrels-- "_Amok_"--Wizardry--Wizard Murders--Suicides--Land Sale and Tenure-- Dislike to Strangers--Cross-bow Accidents--Canoe Voyages--Commercial Occupations--Tallies.

Amongst the Kar Nicobarese there are far more customs and ceremonies than I could ascertain during a short visit, but in the following pages an attempt has been made to chronicle all those that came to my knowledge. Many of them were elicited by questioning Mr V. Solomon, the Government Agent on the island, but still more are extracted from his diaries as printed in the Supplements of the _Andaman and Nicobar Gazette_. For the accuracy, therefore, of much of this chapter, Mr Solomon is responsible.

Of all the observances, customs, and ceremonies of Nicobarese life, that of _Kana Awn_, where the bones of the dead are exhumed, is perhaps the most important. Literally it is called _Ka-al-awn_--feast of pigs'

flesh.

It is a very laborious and costly festival, commemorated every third or fourth year, with much ceremony commingled of joy and sorrow.

All the islanders cannot observe it at one limited period, nor can the people of one whole village do so conjointly with each other. If a few families of a village commemorate the feast during one year, other families will undertake it at some other convenient year, which will be at a time when their stores are abundant, and after sufficient delay for the bones of their deceased to become denuded of flesh.

The festival is conducted with much expenditure and demonstration, and differs slightly in each village.

It consists of a course of ceremonies continuing from one full moon to another, and commences as follows:--

About ten months prior to the occasion, all the people of a village consult together to fix the festival month, and then inform the rest of the villages, and obtain their promise of a.s.sistance. They next send messengers to give notice to all the villages of the island of their intentions, and bear preliminary invitations (_mahau-kare_). Of these there are two kinds--general and special. The general invitation is given to friends and relatives, that they may join them in the feast and help in various respects. The special invitation is sent by one family of the commemorators of the ceremony to the people of a whole village, that the hosts may give a performance in their house on the occasion. If ten families of a village commemorate the feast, they would invite the people of ten distant villages for this purpose, while those of three adjacent villages would be invited generally.

Their first duty, after sending out invitations, is to make a _na-kopah_ (feast for the dead). Some well-carved wooden poles, fifty or sixty feet in height, with cross battens, are prepared and planted in the ground at _Elpanam_, and in the village in front of the houses of the commemorators. On these the people hang up varieties of yams and plantains; bundles of sireh leaf; bunches of coconuts, areca-nuts, panda.n.u.s, fruit, cheroots, and other eatables to which they are accustomed; in all, about fifty kinds. Below the posts they place teakwood boxes containing new clothes and jewels; bottles of toddy and earthen pots from Chaura, all fenced in carefully. These arrangements are decorated from top to bottom with flags, etc., until they look like Indian processional cars. This work is the occupation of about thirty men for three months. From the day the _na-kopah_ is commenced, the natives are restricted from killing pigs in the village.

On these occasions they take great pains in repairing their cooking huts, erecting new ones, and in making new roads and paths up to the boundaries of their village in every direction. The open ground at _Elpanam_ and the graveyard are also cleared and kept tidy, and in the meanwhile they make every effort to secure sufficient quant.i.ties of provisions for the festival. A month before this begins some more _na-kopahs_, similar to the above, are prepared with fresh eatables, which, however, are not set out until a week before the feast. When this is done, final invitations (_mi-nga-la_) are sent to all the guests.

Besides this, a week before the opening day _kare-yeng-chon_ (headstones of graves) are made in the following manner:--A well-shaped, round log of wood, about 3 feet long and 9 inches in diameter, having two through holes crossing each other near one end, is prepared and kept in readiness. At the approach of the feast a number of men and women together adorn it by rolling round it a piece of white calico and fringing it with red or blue cloth. Four large soup-ladles are fastened to the holes and to the middle of the log, a cross-shaped iron pike, about 6 feet long, called _merahta_, ornamented with many spoons, forks and soup-ladles,[205] is fixed. To it also are attached toys, dolls, and fancy weapons, with other curiosities, which all add to the gorgeous appearance of the object. Some families keep this in the newly-erected cookhouse, others in the open yard. They particularly take the guests and friends to see it in order to show that they are wealthy.

The men then construct, for temporary use, two or three long bamboo cages, with separate enclosures, so that a dozen pigs may be put in each cage. One is built underneath, and the others in front of the house.

Meanwhile, the canoes are decorated, filled with many kinds of provisions, and drawn up in front of the houses.

All this is done with the help of friends from neighbouring villages, who, neglecting their own affairs, willingly come and a.s.sist, even bringing with them food sufficient for their needs until the close of the festival.

After all these preparations are completed, there commences the preliminary ceremony called _Vani pati_ (house decoration), which takes place a day before the festival. The interiors of the houses are decorated profusely with coco-palm leaves, goian (Arum) plants, and flags. Bunches of tender coconuts, areca-nuts and plantains are tied all about the posts of the house outside, that the guests may partake at pleasure. Several pieces of chintz, red cloth, and calico are hung from strings in the interior, and beneath the house as well, and the _merahta_, with the ornamented canoes, are placed on either side of the _na-kopah_. The bamboo pig-pens are also decorated, and when all this is completed they kill a pig, sprinkle the blood over all as a sacrifice, and dance and sing around the house, with their guests, for the first time.

Now comes the first act. On the festival evening the people bring, with songs, numbers of pigs from their jungle piggeries, and placing them in the cages, dance before them. Those animals put in the cage beneath the house are merely for exhibition, as a proof of wealth, though, at the same time, they are dedicated to a future festival. In the cages outside are left those pigs that are to be slaughtered for the present occasion, and there is yet another cage in which are confined those brought to them by their friends as a festive gift.

_Kiriam Hetpat_ (dancing in bright light) is the second and chief festival. By eight or nine in the evening, the village is filled with almost the whole of the islanders; a group of one village in one house.

The special and general guests a.s.semble in gangs in their respective quarters.

The men are adorned with new loin-cloths of various kinds and colours, with the _ta-chokla_, or chaplet, and _ta.s.ses_--necklaces made of silver coins.

The women wear necklaces, "ear-distenders," bangles--made by twisting silver wire round arm and leg--and strings of silver coins as head ornaments. A pair of red Madras handkerchiefs, or two yards of red cloth and two of Chinese blue, st.i.tched together, are worn as the princ.i.p.al garment.