Chapter II: Ceremonial Customs (2)

Should a person die while on a visit, he or she is buried in the usual way and news of the death and place of burial is sent to the relatives. A stranger who dies or is killed is buried unceremoniously or is cast into the sea. Among the Northern tribes the body of such a one used in former days to be disposed of by cutting it into pieces and burning it on a fire. The natives say that if this be done the ‘blood’ and the ‘fat’ of the dead man go up to the sky and this removes all danger to the living from the dead man. The blood of persons so burnt is seen in the sky at sunset. If a man were killed in a fight between two communities and his body remained with the enemy, they would dispose of it in this way. If the friends secured the body they would bury it in the usual way. It may be worthy of remark that this custom of burning the bodies of slain enemies is perhaps the real origin of the belief that the Andamanese are or were cannibals. We can well imagine that when, as must have often happened, sailors venturing to land on the islands have been killed and the survivors have seen the bodies of their companions cut up and placed on fires, they would readily conclude that they were witnessing a cannibal feast. There can be no doubt whatever that since the islands were occupied in 1858 the inhabitants have not practised cannibalism, and there is no good reason to suppose that they once followed the custom and then abandoned it.

The burial is conducted, if possible, on the day of the death. If it has to be deferred till the morrow all the inhabitants of the camp keep awake. The relatives sit round the corpse weeping at intervals, while some of the men take it in turn to sing songs during the hours of darkness. This, so they say, is to keep away the spirits that have caused the death, and so prevent them from further mischief. When a man or woman dies in the prime of life after a short illness the friends and relatives often break out in anger which they express in different ways. A man will shout threats and curses at the spirits that he conceives to be responsible for the death of his friend. He may pick up his bow and discharge his arrows in all directions, or in some other way give expression to his angry feelings. On the occasion of a death in one of the Akar-Bale villages the relatives expressed their grief by cutting down a coconut tree that grew there.

The period of mourning for near relatives—parent, adult child, consort, brother or sister—lasts for several months. In the case of a young child only the parents mourn. The essentials of mourning are (1) the use of clay (odu), and (2) abstention from certain foods, from dancing, and from the use of white clay (to̱l) and red paint. As stated above, every adult in the camp covers himself or herself with clay on the death of an adult member of the community, but when this wears off, or is washed off in the course of two or three days, it is not renewed. The near relatives retain this covering of clay for many weeks, constantly renewing it. The clay is smeared evenly over the body, and is not put on in patterns, as on other occasions. The relatives, but not the others, plaster some of the same clay on their heads. A widow mourning for her husband covers her whole head with a thick layer of clay, renewing it from time to time. For a lesser degree of mourning, the custom is to plaster clay on the forehead only. After some weeks or months of mourning, the near relatives discontinue the use of clay on their bodies, but retain a band of clay over the forehead as shown in Plates IX, X, and XVII.

The name of the clay thus used is odu in the Northern languages, and a mourner is called aka-odu. In the Aka-Bea language the name of the clay is og and the term for a mourner is aka-og.

During the period of mourning the name of the dead person is carefully avoided and no one uses it. If it is necessary to refer to the dead this is done by using some such phrase as “he who is buried by the big rock” or “he who is laid in the fig tree” or by mentioning the name of the place of burial. There is no prohibition against mentioning the name itself in other connections. Thus if a man were called Buio, from the name of a species of Mucuna, it is not necessary to avoid the word buio when speaking of the plant. Further if there is another person alive of the same name as the dead man it is not necessary to avoid the name in referring to the living individual. The custom is that a dead person must not be spoken of unless it is absolutely necessary, and then must not be spoken of by name. After the period of mourning is over the dead person may again be spoken of by name.

During the period of mourning a near relative of the deceased is never addressed or spoken of by name. There are certain terms which are used for this purpose, being terms of address that can be substituted for the names that are avoided. Thus in the Aka-J̌eru language one such term is Bolok, meaning “orphan,” used in addressing or speaking of a person who has lately lost a parent. Another term of the same language is Ropuč, applicable to one who has lost a brother or sister. After the period of mourning is over the use of the personal name of the mourner is resumed.

During the period of mourning the near relatives of the deceased are required by custom to abstain from dancing and from using red paint or white clay. The white clay here referred to is that called to̱l or to̱l-odu in Aka-J̌eru and tala-og in Aka-Bea, and is used for decorating the body on ceremonial occasions, such as that of a big dance. Further, the mourners must abstain from eating certain foods. The customs with regard to the foods to be avoided are different in different parts. There is however the universal rule that coast-dwellers must not eat turtle, and jungle-dwellers must avoid pork. Other foods that are included amongst those to be avoided are dugong, certain fishes such as that called komar in Aka-J̌eru, and in some parts yams and honey.

The exact duration of the period of mourning is difficult to discover. It seems to vary considerably in different cases. In all cases it must last long enough for the flesh to decay from the bones. The proceedings at the end of mourning consist of (1) digging up the bones of the dead man or woman and (2) a dance in which all the mourners join. The bones are generally dug up by the men who performed the burial. They cover themselves with clay (odu) and proceed to the grave or tree and dig up or take down the bones and weep over them. These are then washed in the sea or a creek and are taken back to camp. Here they are received by the women who weep over them in their turn. The skull and jawbone are decorated with red paint and white clay, and each separately has a band of ornamental netting attached to it so that it may be worn around the neck. Additional ornament is frequently added in the form of strings of Dentalium or other shells. The skulls and jawbones of deceased relatives are preserved for a long time, and are worn round the neck either in front or behind. The photograph in Plate XVIII shows a woman wearing the skull of her deceased sister. Like all their other possessions these relics are lent or exchanged, passing from one person to another, until sometimes a skull may be found in the possession of a man who does not know to whom it belonged. The other bones are also preserved. The limb bones are generally painted with red paint and white clay and are kept in the roof of the hut. They are not treasured as much as the skull and jaw, and are often mislaid. Thus, while every camp is sure to contain a number of skulls and jaw-bones it is comparatively rarely that the limb bones are to be found. The other bones are made into strings, such bones as those of the hand and foot being used as they are, while ribs and vertebrae are broken up into pieces of convenient size. The bones or pieces of bone are attached to a length of rope by means of thread and the string thus produced is often ornamented with the dried yellow skin of the Dendrobium and with shells. The whole is covered with red paint. These strings of bone are worn as cures for and preventives of illness. If a man has a head-ache, for instance, he will attach one of the strings round his head. They are in almost constant use in every camp and every man and woman is sure to possess one or two. The bones are made into strings by the female relatives of the deceased and are then given away as presents.

In the North Andaman the skull of a baby is preserved by enclosing it in a small basket just big enough to contain it, the top of the basket, which is narrower than the lower part, being only finished after the skull is placed inside, so that it cannot fall out and can only be removed by unfastening the rim of the basket. Mr Man states that children’s skulls are not carried in baskets, except temporarily as when travelling, fishing, etc., but are preserved from injury by being entirely covered with string [64]. This applies only to the tribes of the South and Middle Andaman.

At about the time that the bones are recovered there takes place a special ceremony referred to as “taking off the clay” or “the shedding of tears.” The object of this ceremony is to release the mourners from the restrictions that they have had to observe. The ceremony takes place in the evening, and an occasion is chosen when there are plenty of people in the camp. The mourners, male and female, remove the odu clay from their foreheads and decorate themselves with red paint and white clay in the way described in connection with dancing. They also put on what ornaments of Pandanus leaf or netting and Dentalium shell they may possess or be able to borrow. When all the members of the camp are assembled around the dancing ground one of the male mourners takes his stand at the sounding-board and sings a song. This song does not refer in any way to the dead man or woman; it is just an ordinary song of hunting or canoe-cutting or any other subject, though it may have been specially composed for the occasion. Those women who are not in mourning sit near the singer and take up the chorus. When the song is fairly started the mourners, male and female, begin to dance. There is nothing special about the dance, which is exactly like any other dance. After dancing for a short time the mourners seat themselves at one end of the dancing ground and their friends begin to weep and wail. Everybody present joins in the lamentation until they are tired. The mourners then rise and again dance. After a time the women retire and seat themselves with the chorus, but the men continue the dance (in which they are joined by the other men present), till they are tired, which often means till near dawn. After this ceremony the mourners are free to eat any of the foods up till then forbidden, and are free once more to use red paint and white clay and to take their part in all dances and other festivities.

It has been seen from the preceding descriptions that the Andamanese have a number of ritual customs relating to food. There are certain occasions in the life of every individual when he or she must abstain from eating certain foods. A person mourning for the death of a relative is subjected to restrictions of this kind, and so are the parents of a new-born child for a short period before and after the birth. A woman must not eat certain things when she is menstruating. Restrictions as to diet are imposed by custom on all persons who are ill. The most important restrictions, however, are those imposed on every boy and girl during the period of adolescence. During this period of life, as we have seen, the initiate is required to abstain for a longer or shorter period from all the most important foods of the Andamanese.

Mr Man states that “every Andamanese man or woman is prohibited all through life from eating some one (or more) fish or animal: in most cases the forbidden dainty is one which in childhood was observed (or imagined) by the mother to occasion some functional derangement; when of an age to understand it the circumstance is explained, and cause and effect being clearly demonstrated, the individual in question thenceforth considers that particular meat his yat-tub, and avoids it carefully. In cases where no evil consequences have resulted from partaking of any kind of food, the fortunate person is privileged to select his own yat-tub, and is of course shrewd enough to decide upon some fish, such as shark or skate, which is little relished, and to abstain from which consequently entails no exercise of self-denial [65].”

Although I made repeated enquiries amongst the natives of both the North and the South Andaman I was not able to confirm this observation of Mr Man. It is quite true that if a certain food is observed to disagree with a child he or she is taught to avoid that food for the rest of life, but it is not necessary for every person to have some forbidden food. Many men told me that they were under no such prohibition and might eat any food they liked, apart from the restrictions on special occasions. On a minor point it may be noted that skate and even shark are not by any means so little relished as the statement of Mr Man would imply. The liver of skates and rays, and even the liver of sharks is rather regarded as a delicacy.

I noticed on several occasions that men would not eat certain foods when they were away from their own part of the islands. Thus one man of the North Andaman told me that he would not eat dugong when he was with me in the South Andaman. Another said that though he would eat the fish komar when he was at home, he would not eat it when he was in a strange place, as at the Settlement of Port Blair, for fear that it would make him ill.

In the North Andaman I was told that when a dugong is caught and the people feast on it they do not leave the camp till some hours after the meat is all finished, either to go fishing or hunting. The reason they give for this is that the spirits of the jungle and the sea may smell them, attracted by the odour of the food they have eaten and may cause them to be ill. They therefore remain in the camp and eat up all the dugong and do not venture out till they begin to feel hungry and must go in search of food. I believe that the same custom is observed in the South Andaman also.

A few other customs connected with food may be mentioned here. There is only one way in which a turtle may be killed [66]. It must be laid on its back with its head pointing towards the open sea, and a skewer of wood is then thrust through the eye-socket into the brain. The natives say that if a turtle were killed in any other way than this, the meat would be “bad,” i.e., uneatable.

Turtle meat may only be cooked on a fire of the wood of the Hibiscus tiliaceus.

A pig is killed as it runs, without ceremony, but there is one special way in which it must be cut up. The pig is first disembowelled, and the joints of the legs are severed. The abdominal cavity is then filled with leaves, of which only certain special kinds are used. It is placed on a fire and roasted whole, and is then cut up. Should the carcase be cut up by any other than the traditional method, the natives believe that the meat would be “bad,” and they would not eat it.

A number of beliefs relating to vegetable foods will be mentioned in the next chapter.

In several of the ceremonies described in this chapter it will be noticed that the weeping of relatives and friends occurs as an essential part of the ceremony. The female relatives of a youth or girl who is being initiated come and weep over him or her at the turtle-eating ceremony. Their friends weep over, or with, the mourners at the dance at the end of mourning. The friends of a bride and bridegroom weep over them when they are married. The friends and relatives weep over a corpse before it is buried and over the bones when they are recovered. In all cases it is real weeping. The man or woman sits down and wails or howls, and the tears stream down his or her face. On one occasion I asked the natives to show how it was done and two or three of them sat down and were immediately weeping real tears at my request. The weeping in this way is really a ceremony or rite. When two friends or relatives meet who have been separated from one another for a few weeks or longer, they greet each other by sitting down, one on the lap of the other, with their arms around each other’s necks, and weeping and wailing for two or three minutes till they are tired. Two brothers greet each other in this way, and so do father and son, mother and son, mother and daughter, and husband and wife. When husband and wife meet, it is the man who sits on the lap of the woman. When two friends part from one another, one of them lifts up the hand of the other towards his mouth and gently blows on it.

Reference has already been made in this chapter to a number of customs relating to personal names. It will be useful to bring together the scattered references, and give a general account of the whole matter.

Every Andaman Islander has a personal name that is given to him or her before birth, and which we may speak of as the birth-name. As soon as a woman realises that she is pregnant, she and her husband begin to think of a name for the child. The name is selected by the parents, but the suggestions of their friends and relatives are always considered. It is regarded as a compliment to name the child after some man or woman. Sometimes a man may request the parents that the child shall be named after him, and such a request is rarely, if ever, refused. The names given before birth are of course applicable to both sexes, there being no difference between the names of men and those of women. There are a considerable number of names in common use, but some of them are more popular at a given time and place than others. It therefore happens that there are several persons, both men and women, bearing the same name.

Each of the names in common use has a meaning, but it is not always easy to obtain an adequate and accurate explanation of the meaning from the natives themselves [67]. In a certain number the derivation is obvious. Many names are the names of objects such as trees, fish or other animals, or even such objects as rope or mats. A few examples from the North Andaman are:—

Buio Mucuna sp., a plant with edible beans.
Bol Hibiscus tiliaceus.
Čop a tree with edible nuts.
Ko̱nmo Dioscorea sp.
Čokbi turtle.
Maro honey.
Meo a stone.
Čeo a knife.
Bani the oriole.

In the case of a number of names it is not possible to discover with certainty the derivation, and the statements of the natives regarding them do not always agree. Such names in the North Andaman, with their meanings as stated by the natives, are:—

Kea one who turns in his sleep.
Bo̱ičo one who wrestles.
Elpe one who comes and goes.
Kiǰe̱ri one who walks backwards and forwards.
Nimi one who catches hold.

Some time after a child is born it is given a nick-name. Nick-names may be given at any time of life, and some persons may have several nick-names given to them at different times. New nick-names are from time to time invented, but there are a certain number of recognized names from which a choice is usually made. A few examples from the North Andaman are:—

Ra-t’ot-betč pig’s hair.
Renya-čope much baggage, or many possessions.
Po̱ičo-tomo the wood (literally flesh) of the Sterculia
(po̱ičo) tree.
Lau-tei spirit blood.
Luremo rope.
Remu-to̱i a piece of iron.
Čokbi-čiro turtle liver.
Tarenǰek angry.

During childhood boys and girls are addressed by either the birth-name or the nick-name.

When a girl reaches the age of puberty she receives a new name. This is one of a limited number of names, each of which is the name of a tree or plant. The name given to the girl is that of the tree or plant that is in flower at the time of her first menstruation.

There is a succession of trees and plants flowering one after another throughout the year. The natives describe the different parts of the year by reference to the plants in flower at the time. The plants selected as typical of the different seasons all have flowers from which the native bees make honey. Each of them has a distinctive scent and gives to the honey made from it a distinctive flavour. The flower-names are given below in Aka-Bea and Aka-J̌eru.

Aka-Bea Aka-J̌eru

Čilipa Čelibi From the middle of November to the middle of
February.
Moda Mukui }
Ora Oko̱r }
Jidga } From the middle of February to the middle of
Yere J̌eru } May, in order.
Pataka Bo̱tek }
Balya Puliu }

Reče Re } From the middle of May to the end of August.
Čagara Čokoro }

Čarapa Čarap } September, October and the first half of
Čenra To̱ro̱k? } November.
Yulu J̌ili }

From the time that a girl receives her flower-name her birth-name and nick-name fall entirely out of use. No one would address an unmarried girl by any name except the flower-name. This continues until some time after the girl is married. Properly speaking a woman should be known by her flower-name from the advent of puberty until after the birth of her first child. In these days of childless women the flower-name drops out of use after a few years of married life. After the birth of her first child the woman is known by her birth-name or by a nick-name. Thus a woman who was named before her birth Kaba (from kabal, a species of mangrove) was called by that name until puberty; thereafter she was called J̌ili (her flower-name) until the birth of her first child; after this event she is again called Kaba, and no one would think of addressing her as J̌ili. A woman named Ele (lightning) at birth was known by this name until puberty, and thereafter was called Bo̱tek. When I knew her she had been married for three years or so, but had not had a child. A few of the younger men and women addressed her as Ele, but the older people still called her Bo̱tek. If she should bear a child, the name Bo̱tek would fall entirely out of use and she would be known as Ele by both her juniors and her seniors.

In the case of a boy there is nothing corresponding to the flower-names of girls. He continues to be known by his birth-name and his nick-name from the time he is born until he dies. During adolescence a youth has to pass through certain ceremonies of initiation as described in the present chapter. At the turtle-eating ceremony the youth is given a new name, of the nature of a nick-name. The name given in this way is never used either in addressing the youth or in speaking of him. It is possible that he also receives a new name on the occasion of the pig-eating ceremony, but of this I am not sure. Though girls pass through the same ceremonies as boys, I did not discover whether or not they also are given new names on these occasions.

Names are used freely in speaking of and to one another. An older person always speaks of or to the younger one by the name alone. When a younger person is speaking to an older one it is customary and polite to use one of the terms of address, either by itself, or prefixed to the name of the person spoken to, as Maia Buio, Mimi Kaba, etc. A native generally hesitates to tell his own name, and if asked the question “What is your name?” often asks a bystander to give the required information. There is, however, no hesitation about mentioning the name of any other person, except under certain special conditions.

There are certain occasions when the name of a man or woman is temporarily avoided. After the death of a relative and during the period of mourning, a mourner’s name is not mentioned, either in speaking to him or of him. There are a few terms that may be used instead. One who has lost a parent is addressed as Bolok, one who has lost a brother or sister as Ropuč. For a short time before and after the birth of a child the names of the father and mother are not mentioned. A bride and bridegroom are not addressed or spoken of by name for a short period after their marriage, though if their names be A and B there seems to be no harm in referring to A as “the husband of B,” or to B as “the wife of A.” During the initiation ceremonies through which every boy and girl must pass, the name of the initiate is avoided. Thus on the occasion of the turtle-eating ceremony or the pig-eating ceremony, during the few days the ceremony lasts and for a few weeks afterwards, the youth or girl is never addressed or spoken of by name, but is referred to as Kimil. During the ceremony that takes place on the occasion of the advent of puberty, and for some weeks after, a girl is not spoken of or to either by her birth-name or her flower-name, but is called Toto. When a boy, in the Northern tribes, has the scars made on his back, which show him to be no longer a child, his name is avoided for a few weeks and he is called Eǰido.

The name of a dead man or woman is not mentioned during the period of mourning, which lasts for some months after the death.

In the preceding portions of the chapter reference has been made several times to the ornamentation of the body with clay and pigment. In the Great Andaman three different substances are used for painting the body. These are (1) a common clay of which different specimens are gray, yellow or pink, called odu in Aka-J̌eru and og in Aka-Bea; (2) a fine white pipe-clay which is rarer than the common clay and is more highly prized, called to̱l or to̱l-odu in Aka-J̌eru and tala-og in Aka-Bea; (3) a red pigment made by mixing burnt oxide of iron with animal or vegetable fat or oil, called keyip in Aka-J̌eru and ko̱iob in Aka-Bea.

The common clay (odu) is used in three different ways. After the death of a relative a man or woman smears himself all over with this clay and plasters it on his head. From this custom a person who is mourning for a dead relative is called aka-odu in Aka-J̌eru or aka-og in Aka-Bea. The same clay is used at a certain stage of the initiation ceremonies, as described above, being spattered over the initiate in the turtle-eating and pig-eating ceremonies. The third and most common use of this clay is to decorate the bodies of men and women with patterns called (in Aka-J̌eru) e̱ra-puli. These patterns are always made by the women, who decorate each other and their male relatives. The clay is mixed with water in a wooden dish or a shell and the mixture is applied to the body with the fingers. There is an almost indefinite variety in the patterns employed, although there are a certain number of what may be called usual designs. Each woman vies with others in her endeavours to produce some novelty of detail in her designs, and a successful innovation is immediately copied by others. I was able to watch the rise and development and ultimate disappearance of “fashions” in this connection in one of the camps of the North Andaman.

The design is made in one of two ways. It may, in some cases, be formed by painting with the finger on the body, that is by tracing white (or gray) lines on a black surface. A design of this kind is shown on the back of the man on the right in the photograph of Plate XI. On the other hand, an equally common method is to cover a part of the body with an even smear of clay and then to scrape it away either with the fingers or with a small fish-bone or with a little instrument made of small strips of bamboo, so as to leave a design of black lines where the skin shows through the smeared clay. Two not very striking designs of this kind are shown in Plates IX and X. As a rule the designs are more or less symmetrical, the right and the left sides of the body being treated alike, but in a few cases different patterns are made on the two sides, and I have seen a man with one side of his body painted and the other not. The painting may cover the whole of the body and limbs with the exception of the hands and feet, or it may be confined to the front and back of the trunk, or it may be on the front only. The face is often painted, the designs being made with greater care than those on the body.

These patterns are made in the afternoon after the men return from their day’s hunting, and always either just before or just after a meal.

If a man be asked what pattern he is painted with, he replies by mentioning the food that he has just eaten. A man who has been eating turtle will say that the painting on his body is čokbi-t’e̱ra-puli, turtle pattern, while if he has been eating pork he will call it ra-t’e̱ra-puli, pig pattern. There is not, however, a strict uniformity in the use of particular patterns in connection with special foods. When the whole camp has been feasting on turtle many different and (apparently) unrelated designs are to be seen on the bodies of the men and women. I did not find it possible, even after a study of the matter, to distinguish by means of the design a man who has been eating turtle from one who has been eating pork. There is one design, or group of closely related designs, that seemed to be based on the pattern of the plates on a turtle’s carapace. A pattern of this distinctive kind was never, so far as my experience went, used except after eating turtle. Other patterns, however, which were used after eating turtle, did not seem to me to be related in any way to what I may call the specific turtle pattern. In some of the patterns used after eating pork I noticed a tendency to make use of vertical lines or bands on the back and chest. There may be a connection here with the longitudinal markings on the back of the wild pig.

Of special patterns I was only able to discover two. One of these is called kimil-t’e̱ra-puli and is only used to paint a person who is aka-kimil, i.e., who has just been through one of the initiation ceremonies. This pattern is shown on the back of a man in the photograph reproduced as Plate XI (the second figure from the left). Another special pattern is called toto-t’e̱ra-puli (Pandanus pattern), and is used, I believe, to decorate a girl after the ceremony at her first menstruation.

The fine white clay called to̱l-odu in Aka-J̌eru is used in a different way and on different occasions. When it is used to ornament the body it is always applied in one customary pattern. The name of this pattern in Aka-J̌eru is o̱r-čubi-t’e̱ra-bat, from the name of a species of snake, o̱r-čubi. Exactly the same name is used in A-Pučikwar, wara-čupi-l’ar-par. Mr Man gives the Aka-Bea name as ǰobo-tartaŋa, from ǰobo the name for snake in general. A man decorated with this “snake pattern,” as it may be called, is shown in Plate XII, and a pattern of the same kind is shown on the head of the man in Plate XIII. The pattern is built up of zig-zag lines. They are made by taking a little of the clay mixed with water between the thumb and first finger; by a movement of the thumb the space between the nail and the skin of the finger is filled with the clay, and the end of the finger is then applied to the skin so that it leaves a short and fine line of clay. A zig-zag line is thus built up of short lines each a finger’s breadth in length. A second line is then added, not parallel to the first, but opposed to it, so that the two lines together form a row of lozenges. A third and sometimes a fourth or fifth line are similarly added. As shown in Plate XII the lines of pattern are carried down the front of the body, down the sides of the arms, and down the front of the legs, and they are similarly worked on the back of the body, and the back of the legs. The face also is decorated. These patterns are made by the women. It is one of the duties of a wife to decorate her husband in this way when occasion requires.

The only reason that the natives give for ornamenting themselves in this way is that it makes them “look well.” On the occasion of a big dance many of the performers are thus ornamented. This is always so at the dances held when two or more local groups meet together. There are certain special occasions, already mentioned in this chapter, when the use of the “snake pattern” is required by custom. One of these is the dance at the end of mourning. During the period of mourning the mourners are forbidden to make use of this form of decoration. The same pattern is used to decorate a bride and bridegroom after their marriage. In the initiation ceremonies the youth or girl is decorated in this way before the dances at the turtle-eating and pig-eating ceremonies. The same pattern is also made on a corpse before burial.

In all these cases the whole body is decorated. On less ceremonial occasions, such as an ordinary dance when there are no visitors of importance in the camp, a man frequently has his face alone decorated with white clay, as in the photograph of Plate XIII.

The third kind of material used for painting the body is red paint. This is applied in two different ways. When a man or woman is ill he or she is generally to be seen with some part of his body smeared with red paint. For colds and coughs the chest and neck are painted. In fevers red paint is smeared on the upper lip. Besides the medical use of red paint, if we may call it so, there is a ceremonial use, the pigment being used in combination with white clay, lines of red paint being applied to the body between the lines of clay of the snake pattern. It is used in this way to decorate the body of a dead person for burial, and on ceremonial occasions such as the dance at the end of mourning and the dances in connection with the initiation ceremonies.

Most of the ornaments worn at various times by the Andaman Islanders have a ceremonial or a magical purpose. The only things worn by men that can be considered to have a utilitarian value are the belt of rope and the necklet of string. The belt may be a plain piece of rope, or it may be ornamented with the yellow skin of a species of Dendrobium. It serves as a receptacle in which the natives carry such things as adzes, fish, roots, or even arrows. It is the one object that is constantly worn by men. The string necklet is simply a length of thin string tied round the neck. It serves as a means of carrying a knife and skewer. The knife, in former days made of a slip of cane, but in these times from a piece of scrap iron, is attached to a skewer of Areca wood by a short length of rope or stout string. By sliding either the knife or the skewer under the necklet at the back of the neck the double implement hangs securely in a position where it is not likely to get lost when running through the jungle, and where it is immediately accessible when wanted. The necklet also serves as a means of carrying bees’-wax, which is in constant use amongst the natives, a small ball of the wax being attached to one of the ends of the string of which the necklet is made.

As a rule, in everyday life, the men wear only a belt, or a belt and necklace. Those natives who visit the Settlement of Port Blair have been required by the European officers to wear a strip of cloth over the genitals. It has now become the rule to wear such a loin cloth whenever they are in the neighbourhood of a European. This, however, is a modern custom, and in former times the men went freely with no covering whatever, as do the inhabitants of the Little Andaman at the present time. As showing the extent to which the natives have been influenced in this matter by outside opinion, it may be mentioned that at the present day many of the younger men, particularly those who have been brought up at Port Blair, regard it as very immodest to be seen without some covering over the genitals.

On ceremonial occasions, such as the dance at the end of mourning, or a big dance-meeting, the men put on a number of ornaments. A common costume on such occasions consists of a belt, necklace, bracelets, and garters of netting and Dentalium shell. A belt and necklace of this kind are to be seen in Plate V, and garters are worn by the woman in Plate IX. An alternative costume for men consists of a set of ornaments of Pandanus leaf (belt, chaplet, bracelets and garters), decorated with Dentalium and other shells. Garters of this kind are shown in Plate XII.

Other objects are worn by the natives for magical purposes. Chief amongst these are the strings made of human bones which are worn to prevent and cure sickness. The bones are attached to a length of rope, and this is generally decorated with shells or with Dendrobium skin. These strings of bones are worn most commonly as chaplets, necklaces or belts, but they may also be made into garters and bracelets. The bones of animals, such as pig, turtle, dugong, etc., are treated in exactly the same way as human bones, and ornaments made of them are commonly worn.

There are a number of other ornaments that are commonly worn, not only on ceremonial occasions, which, unlike the strings of human bones, do not obviously have a magical purpose. Such are necklaces made of various kinds of shells, and of mangrove seeds. At the present time the natives obtain beads from Port Blair and make ornaments of these.

The ordinary costume of the women is different from that of the men. Every woman and girl wears at least one belt of Pandanus leaf. There is one kind of belt that is always worn by married women and which may not be worn by unmarried girls. There is another kind of belt that may only be worn by unmarried girls. The women of the Southern tribes wear a bundle of leaves of the Mimusops littoralis laid one over another suspended from the front of the belt so as to cover the pudenda. In the Northern tribes it was formerly the custom for the women to wear a similar apron of the leaves of a plant called čainyo, and over this they also wore a tassel of shredded palm-leaf stem (koro). Within recent years the Northern tribes have given up their own custom in this matter and have adopted the custom of the Southern tribes.

Women often wear round the neck a piece of string similar to that worn by the men, but as they do not carry knives it does not serve the same purpose. It is more usual for a woman to wear a necklace of some sort. Nowadays they are rather fond of necklaces of beads which they obtain from the Settlement at Port Blair. In former times different kinds of shells were used, such as the Dentalium octogonum.

With the exception that men wear the belt of rope, and women wear the belt of Pandanus leaf and the apron of leaves, there is no difference between the ornaments worn by men and by women. On the occasion of a dance or other ceremony a woman may wear any of the objects described as being worn by men on such occasions. They also wear in the same way strings of human or animal bones.

One object which would seem to have a purely utilitarian purpose is the sling used for carrying children (called in Aka-J̌eru čiba). This object, however, seems to have its ceremonial uses also. In one of the initiation ceremonies that I saw, the man who was officiating wore such a sling round his shoulders during the ceremony.

In the earlier parts of this chapter reference has been made several times to the dance of the Andaman Islanders. For the natives the dance is both a means of enjoyment and also a ceremony. The period of mourning for the dead is brought to a close by a dance, in which all the mourners join. As will be shown later, a dance was generally held before a fight, in former times when fights occurred. The ceremony by which two hostile local groups made peace with one another was a dance.

In the initiation ceremonies there are special dances, which have already been described, in connection with the pig-eating and turtle-eating ceremonies. With the exception of these special dances, and the peace-making dance to be described later, there is only one kind of dance in any given tribe. Thus the dance at the end of mourning, or before setting out on an attack on enemies, is in all essentials exactly the same as the dance in which the natives indulge when the day’s hunting has been successful and the evening is fine.

The time for dancing, except in connection with certain ceremonies, is at night, after the evening meal. The dance takes place on the open ground in the centre of the village. This is swept clean by the women and the younger men. One or two fires are lighted, and little heaps of resin are placed in convenient situations to provide lights. These have to be replenished from time to time as the dance proceeds. Near one end of the dancing ground is placed a sounding-board, upon which it is the duty of one man to beat time with his foot. A sounding-board is a piece of wood somewhat of the shape of a large shield, cut from the hard Pterocarpus tree. One is shown in Plate VI. Behind the sounding-board, or a little to one side of it, the women, who form the chorus, sit in a row, with their legs stretched out in front of them, facing the dancing-ground. The men who intend to dance sit or stand round the edge of the space reserved for the dance.

When all is ready a man who has volunteered to sing the first song takes his stand at the sounding-board, and sings his song through. When he reaches the chorus the women take it up and repeat it after him, and as they do so each woman marks time by clapping her hands on the hollow formed by her thighs, the legs being crossed one over the other at the ankle. The singer continues to sing, thus leading the chorus, and at the same time marks the time of the song by beating on the sounding-board with his foot. As soon as the chorus begins the dancers begin to dance. The step of each dancer is the same, but there is very little attempt to form a figure. When the singer and the chorus get tired, the singing ceases, but the man at the sounding-board continues to mark time for the dancers. The singer repeats his song several times, and he may sing several songs, each repeated several times. When he gets tired he is relieved by another man. In a dance that lasts for any time, one singer succeeds another, and the singing and dancing are kept up continuously, sometimes for five or six hours.

The above description applies to all the tribes of the Great Andaman, but there are some differences between the four tribes of the North Andaman, and the tribes of the Middle and South Andaman.

In the North Andaman the song is sung through once from beginning to end by the singer, and is then repeated three or four times by the chorus. In the South Andaman each song consists of one verse and a refrain, if we may speak of them thus. The singer sings the verse and the refrain, and then the refrain only is repeated an indefinite number of times by the chorus.

In the dance of the Southern tribes, each dancer dances alternately on the right foot or on the left. When dancing on the right foot the first movement is a slight hop with the right foot, then the left foot is raised and brought down with a backward scrape along the ground, then another hop on the right foot. These three movements, which occupy the time of two beats of the song, are repeated until the right leg is tired, and the dancer then changes the movement to a hop with the left foot, followed by a scrape with the right and another hop with the left. The time of the movement is as follows, the upper line being the rhythm of the dance, while the lower line shows the beats of the song, which is marked on the sounding-board and by the clapping of the women.

[Music Notes] or [Music Notes]

The body of the dancer is bent slightly forward from the hips, the legs being flexed at the knees and the back being curved well inwards. There are several ways of holding the hands and arms, one of the commonest being to hold the arms outstretched in front on a level with the shoulders, while the thumb and forefinger of one hand are interlocked with those of the other. When a man does not wish to cease altogether from dancing but desires to have a short rest, he marks the time by raising each heel alternately from the ground. As a man dances he remains in one spot for a short time, and then, still continuing the same step, moves for a yard or two around the circle of the dancing ground. Every now and then a dancer is to be seen trotting from one position to another across the dancing ground, abandoning the step of the dance, but still keeping time to the song.

The Northern tribes have now adopted the same kind of dance as the tribes of the South, but formerly their dance was slightly different. There was a little more attempt at forming a figure, the dancers moving for the most part in a circle, some in one direction and others in the other. The step was as follows: a step forward with the right foot, a hop on the right foot, a scrape with the left, then another hop with the right, a step forward with the left foot, a hop with the left, a scrape with the right and a hop with the left. The rhythm is as follows:—

[Music Notes]

The lower line shows the beats on the sounding-board.

Some of the dancers occasionally break into the regular Southern step. A dancer sometimes changes from the usual step to another called ko̱i, in which each foot is alternately struck on the ground and scraped backwards. Other slight variations of the movement may be introduced.

In both the Southern and the Northern dance each dancer pleases himself as to the direction in which he moves, and the step that he adopts at any given moment. All the dancers, however independently of one another they dance, keep strict time to the music.

Women do not, as a rule, join in the ordinary dances held in the evening. Their share in the entertainment consists of forming the chorus. When they do dance, as they do on certain occasions, such as the dance at the end of mourning, their step is different from that of the men. In the Southern tribes the female dancer stands at one spot with knees flexed and lifts her heels alternately from the ground in time to the music, thus producing a slight swaying or swinging motion of the hips. After dancing thus at one spot for a few moments, she moves forward a few steps to a new position, keeping time to the music in all her movements, and then repeats the same performance. The arms are swung in time to the dance, or else are held before the breast with one wrist crossed over the other.

In the Northern tribes the common dance of the women is a sort of modification of that of the men. A woman advances across the ground in regular time, but at every third step she gives a peculiar little hop which has something of the effect of a bobbing curtsey. The time is as follows:—

[Music Notes]

l and r standing for left and right foot, and the accent indicating the hop or curtsey. Every now and then a dancer stops and remains at one spot, alternately scraping each foot backwards, holding her knees flexed, and swinging both arms together.

The ordinary dance of the Andamanese, as described above, must always be accompanied by a song, and the purpose of every song is to serve as the accompaniment to a dance. Every man composes his own songs. No one would ever sing (at a dance) a song composed by any other person. There are no traditional songs. Women occasionally compose songs, but I never heard a woman sing at a dance except in the chorus.

Every man composes songs, and the boys begin to practise themselves in the art of composition when they are still young. A man composes his song as he cuts a canoe or a bow or as he paddles a canoe, singing it over softly to himself, until he is satisfied with it. He then awaits an opportunity to sing it in public, and for this he has to wait for a dance. Before the dance he takes care to teach the chorus to one or two of his female relatives so that they can lead the chorus of women. He sings his song, and if it is successful he repeats it several times, and thereafter it becomes part of his repertory, for every man of any age has a repertory of songs that he is prepared to repeat at any time. If the song is not successful, if the chorus and dancers do not like it, the composer abandons it and does not repeat it. Some men are recognized as being more skilful song-makers than others.