Andaman Islands

The Andaman Islands are a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal, and are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory of India. Port Blair is the chief community on the islands, and the administrative center of the Union Territory. The Andaman Islands form a single administrative district within the Union Territory, the Andaman district (the Nicobar district was separated and established as a new district in 1974). The population of the Andamans was 314,084 in 2001.

The Andamanese

The various indigenous Andamanese peoples subsisted mostly as hunter-gatherer communities, supplemented by fishing and limited agricultural practices. The Sentinelese and Jarawa peoples continue in th and, Önge, and Sentinelese peoples of the southern part of the archipelago.

Related Topics:
Indigenous - Andamanese - Subsisted - Hunter-gatherer - Fishing - Agricultural

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The indigenous Andamanese are slightly built, dark-skinned, with tightly-curled hair, and physically resemble the Semang of the Malay Peninsula and the Aeta of the Philippines. The Andamanese, Semang, and Aeta are probably descendants of a people who were more widespread in Southeast Asia before they were displaced or assimilated by the ancestors of today's Austronesian-speakers.

Related Topics:
Semang - Malay Peninsula - Aeta - Philippines - Southeast Asia - Austronesian

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Their antiquity is attested by the remains found in their kitchen-middens. These are of great age, and rise sometimes to a height exceeding 5 metres. The fossil shells, pottery and primitive stone implements, found alike at the base and at the surface of these middens, show that the habits of the islanders have varied little since the remote past, and lead to the belief that the Andamans were settled by their present inhabitants some time during the Pleistocene period, and certainly no later than the Neolithic age. The oldest archaeological evidence for occupation yet obtained is dated to 2,200 years ago; however, the investigations which have been made are not extensive, and it is most likely that much earlier dates will be attested.

Related Topics:
Midden - Pleistocene - Neolithic - Archaeological - 2,200 years ago

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Andamans may have been linked to Myanmar by a land bridge during the ice ages, and it is possible that the ancestors of the Andamanese reached the islands without crossing the sea. Whether an original sea-crossing was required or not, linguistic and genetic studies indicate that the Andamanese peoples have lived in almost complete isolation for 30,000 to 70,000 years. For example, a report in the journal "Science" by Thangaraj et al. identifies M31 and M32 mtDNA types among indigenous Andamanese, which show that these populations became genetically isolated about 50,000 to 70,000 years ago, apparently after their initial migration from Africa.

Related Topics:
Ice age - 13 May - 2005 - MtDNA

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The indigenous Andamanese spoke several related languages, the Andamanese languages, a distinct language family unrelated to languages found outside the islands. Of the 13 languages spoken at the beginning of the century, nine are now extinct. The extinct languages were spoken on Great Andaman, and the Great Andamanese now mostly speak Hindi. The Jarawa, Önge, and Sentinelese mostly speak their own languages, and limit their contact with outsiders.

Related Topics:
Andamanese languages - Language family - Hindi - Jarawa - Önge - Sentinelese

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The earliest European notice of the Andamanese is in a remarkable collection of early Arab notes on India and China from the year 851 which influenced the view of this people until modern times. The traditional charge of cannibalism has been very persistent; but it is entirely denied by the islanders themselves, and is now and probably always has been untrue. Of their massacres of shipwrecked crews, there is no doubt, but that the policy of conciliation has secured a friendly reception for shipwrecked crews at any port of the islands.

Related Topics:
Arab - 851 - Cannibalism

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The historic population of the islands is difficult to estimate, but it has probably always been small. The estimated total at a census taken in 1901 was only 2,000. Though all descended from one stock, there are twelve distinct tribes of the Andamanese, each with its own clearly-defined locality, its own distinct variety of the one fundamental language and to a certain extent its own separate habits. Every tribe is divided into fairly well defined septs. The tribal feeling may be expressed as friendly within the tribe, courteous to other Andamanese if known, hostile to every stranger, Andamanese or other.

Related Topics:
1901 - Tribes

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Andaman languages are extremely interesting from the philological standpoint. They are agglutinative in nature, show hardly any signs of syntactical growth though every indication of long etymological growth, give expression to only the most direct and the simplest thought, and are purely colloquial and wanting in the modifications always necessary for communication by writing. The sense is largely eked out by manner and action. Mincopie is the first word in Colebrooke's vocabulary for "Andaman Island, or native country", and the term - though probably a mishearing on Colebrooke's part for Mongebe ("I am an Onge", i.e. a member of the Onge tribe) - has thus become a persistent book-name for the people.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Another division of the natives is into Aryauto or long-shore-men, and the Eremtaga or jungle-dwellers. The habits and capacities of these two differ, owing to surroundings, irrespectively of tribe. Yet again the Andamanese can be grouped according to certain salient characteristics: the forms of the bows and arrows, of the canoes, of ornaments and utensils, of tattooing and of language.

Related Topics:
Aryauto - Eremtaga - Tattoo

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The average height of males is 149 cm; of females, 137 cm. The only artificial deformity is a depression of the skull, chiefly among one of the southern tribes, caused by the pressure of a strap used for carrying loads.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The women's heads are shaved entirely and the men's into fantastic patterns. Yellow and red ochre mixed with grease are coarsely smeared over the bodies, grey in coarse patterns and white in fine patterns resembling tattoo marks. Tattooing is of two distinct varieties. In the south the body is slightly cut by women with small flakes of glass or quartz in zigzag or lineal patterns downwards. In the north it is deeply cut by men with pig-arrows in lines across the body.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The male is said to reach adulthood when about fifteen years of age, typically marries when about twenty-six, and lives onto sixty or sixty-five if he reaches old age. Except as to the marrying age, these figures fairly apply to women. Before marriage, free intercourse between the sexes is the rule, though certain conventional precautions are taken to prevent it. Marriages rarely produce more than three children and often none at all. Divorce is rare, unfaithfulness after marriage uncommon and incest virtually unknown.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By preference the Andamanese are exogamous as regards sept and endogamous as regards tribe.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There is no idea of government, but in each sept there is a head, who has attained that position by degrees on account of some tacitly admitted superiority and commands a limited respect and some obedience. The young are deferential to their elders. Offences are punished by the aggrieved party. Property is communal and theft is only recognized as to things of absolute necessity, such as arrows, pork and fire. Fire is the one thing they are really careful about, not knowing how to renew it. A very rude barter exists between tribes of the same group in regard to articles not locally obtainable.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The religion consists of beliefs in spirits of the wood, the sea, disease and ancestors, and of avoidance of acts traditionally displeasing to them. There is neither worship nor propitiation. An anthropomorphic deity, Puluga, is the cause of all things, but it is not necessary to propitiate him. There is an idea that the "soul" will go somewhere after death, but there is no heaven nor hell, nor idea of a corporeal resurrection. There is much faith in dreams, and in the utterances of certain "wise men", who practise an embryonic magic and witchcraft.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The great amusement of the Andamanese is a formal night dance, but they are also fond of games. The bows differ altogether with each group, but the same two kinds of arrows are in general use: (1) long and ordinary for fishing and other purposes; (2) short with a detachable head fastened to the shaft by a thong, which quickly brings pigs up short when shot in the thick jungle. Bark provides material for string, while baskets and mats are neatly and stoutly made from canes and buckets out of bamboo and wood.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

None of the tribes ever ventures out of sight of land, and they have no idea of steering by sun or stars. Their canoes are simply hollowed out of trunks with the adze and in no other way, and it is the smaller ones that are outrigged; they do not last long and are not good sea-boats. The story of raids on Car Nicobar, out of sight across a stormy and sea-rippled channel, must be discredited.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Honour is shown to an adult when he dies by wrapping him in a cloth and placing him on a platform in a tree instead of burying him. At such a time the encampment is deserted for three months.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~