Chapter XXVII: Conclusion

The examination of the technical culture of the Andamanese given above has been sufficient to enable us to make a few statements as to what was probably the culture of the Negritos before they were split up into isolated groups. It is highly probable that they obtained their subsistence solely by hunting and collecting vegetable products. They had bows and arrows, the form of bow being probably fairly similar to that used at the present day in the Little Andaman, while for hunting the larger animals they had arrows with detachable heads. They possibly had no knowledge of any way of making implements of stone, but made use only of such materials as wood, bone, and shell. It is not probable that they possessed the art of making pottery, and their basketry and mat-work were probably confined to very simple forms. In their personal ornaments there is reason to think that they showed a fondness for bright yellow vegetable fibre, and made little or no use of the feathers of birds. The ornamentation of their utensils was probably confined to the use of the simplest forms of geometric design with a preponderance of the zig-zag and the lozenge. Finally their huts consisted of a single sloping roof sufficient to afford shelter for a single family or larger huts consisting of such small huts joined together.

We have seen that since the Andamanese have occupied their present home, or at any rate since the Great Andaman Division and the Little Andaman Division have been separated from one another, many changes, some of considerable importance, have taken place in the Andaman technology. In general it would seem that the technical culture of the Great Andaman has changed more than that of the Little Andaman. Putting aside the effect on the technology of the introduction of iron, there is no evidence that any of the changes that have taken place in the Great Andaman have been due to outside influence. Important modifications have taken place in the form of the bow, in the forms and technique of baskets, and in personal ornaments, and in all these instances there is no reason to think that these changes have not been brought about by the natives themselves without the influence of contact with other people. Their method of working iron, based as it is, to all appearance, on their former method of working shell, shows that even here, though the iron itself came to them from outside, and even though they may have learnt its use from seeing it used by aliens, still they have not learnt from others how to fashion the metal into shape by heating it. Thus, so far as their technical culture is concerned, there is no evidence whatever that the Andamanese have ever been influenced by contact with any other race since the time, now many centuries ago, when they first reached the islands.

On the other hand there is some probability that the ancestors of the Andamanese, before they first reached the islands, or at any rate before the isolation of the Little Andaman from the Great Andaman, had learnt from some other race how to make pottery, and it is possible that at the same time they may have acquired other elements of their culture, such as the outrigger canoe. We may even give a guess as to the particular culture from which the ancestors of the Andamanese may have adopted these elements, which may well have been that of a branch of that people of whom an offshoot peopled the Nicobars.

Confirmation of these hypotheses, if confirmation be ever forthcoming, can only be obtained in the study of the history of races and of culture in south-eastern Asia. Until we have much fuller knowledge of the culture of the Semang and the Negritos of the Philippines, any conclusions that may be drawn from the study of the Andamanese alone must be regarded as provisional working hypotheses only, and it is as such that they are here put forward.