National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

CHAP. XIII. p. 31I.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE.

149

considerable mental capacity which is respected. Several women

trained in a former local Mission Orphanage from early childhood have

shown much mental aptitude and capacity, the ` savagery ' in them,

however, only dying down as they grew older. They can read and

write well, understand and speak English correctly, have acquired

European habits completely, and possess much shrewdness and common

sense : one has herself taught her Andamanese husband, the dynamo-

man above mentioned, to read and write English and induced him to

join the Government House Press as a compositor. She writes a well-

expressed and correctly-spelt letter in English, and has a shrewd notion

of the value of money. Such women, when the instability of youth is

past, make good ' ayas,' as their menkind make good waiters at table.

" The highest general type of intelligence yet noticed is in the

Jarawa tribe."

P. 31o. The name Andaman. To my mind the modern Andaman

is the Malay Handuman = Hanuman, representing monkey " or

savage aboriginal antagonist of the Aryans = also the Rakshasa. Indi-

viduals of the race, when seen in the streets of Calcutta in 1883, were

at once recognised as Rakshasas. It may amuse you to know that the

Andamanese returned the compliment, and to them all Orientals are

Chauga or Ancestral Ghosts, i.e., demons (see Census Report, pp. 44-45

for reasons). I agree with you that Angamanain is an Arabic dual, the

Great and the Little Andaman. To a voyager who did not land, the

North, Middle, and South Andaman would appear as one great island,

whereas the strait separating these three islands from the Little

Andaman would be quite distinctly seen.

P. 31 I. Cannibalism. The charge of cannibalism is entirely untrue.

I quote here any paragraph as to how it arose (Census Report, p. 48).

The charge of cannibalism seems to have arisen from three observa-

tions of the old mariners. The Andamanese attacked and murdered

without provocation every stranger they could on his landing ; they

burnt his body (as they did in fact that of every enemy) ; and they had

weird all-night dances round fires. Combine these three observations

with the unprovoked murder of one of themselves, and the fear aroused

by such occurrences in a far land in ignorant mariners' minds, century

after century, and a persistent charge of cannibalism is almost certain to

be the result."

The real reason for the Andamanese taking and killing every

stranger that they could was that for centuries the Malays had used

the islands as one of their pirate bases, and had made a practice of

capturing the inhabitants to sell as slaves in the Peninsula and Siam.

P. 311. Navigation. It is true that they do not quit their own

coasts in canoes, and I have always doubted the truth of the assertions

that any of them ever found their way to any Nicobar island.

I

r