Indian Antiquary Vol 58

SR No.: 032550
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1986
Total Pages: 408
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 358

THE INDIAN AXTIQUARY
[ October, 1929
men, women, boys and girls. These beads were in one bag, and he had an empty one also: and he was to transfer from the full to the empty bag a bead, colour by colour, for each person he met. After a little practising he was sent off, and as he had been a long while at the Home and took an absorbing personal interest in the Census, much was hoped from the plan and the parties were not disappointed.
It will be understood that the actual enumeration proceedings with the people were as informal as possible, and they were humoured in every practicable way. Thus they were fed with what they consider luxuries, rice, sugar, biscuits, tea, tobacco, pipes and so on. Archery matches, games, fish-shooting (with arrows), pig-hunting, photographing, anything they fancied were got up on the spur of the moment, and the Census tour necessarily took the form of a tour of amusement and sport ; but in the midst of the fun the Census officer was ever present with his note-book and his apparently casual questions. Although the procedure enabled the officers to collect all the information procurable from a wild but friendly and happy population on the points required, it had one drawback. Canoe loads of Anda. manese would follow from anchorage to anchorage, knowing from experience where the parties were likely to stop, and quite innocently give the same names again and again to the Census enquirers: A sifting of the notes and recognition of faces, however, prevented any pracvical harm accruing from chis source.
The aged, the sick, those engaged in pig-hunting in the interior (a matter of great practical importance as well as of sport to the Andamanese) were not seen--nor were any children cxcept those who could accompany their parents. In the case of the absent adults it is likely that most of the names were delivered up, but it is probable that a good many children in the North Andaman at any rate, and especially of the "new" Tribes, were not enumerated.
Since the establishment of the Penal Settlement in 1858, an Andamanese Home has been created in Port Blair for the use of the aborigines, and several attempts have been made to civilize some of them and to bring up the children to a Christian education. These attempts have met with no reasonable success, the “civilized " returning to their original savagery at the first opportunity, the children deserting the schools and except in an instance here and there, retaining nothing of their early education in after life. The use of the Home at the time of the Census was that of a free asylum to which every Andamanese that liked was admitted. He night stay as long as he pleased and go when it suited him. While there he was housod, fed and taken care of, and for the sick there was a good and properly maintained hospital. From the Home, too, were taken such little necessaries and luxuries as the people desired to friends at a distance, and during the many tours taken round the coasts by the officials similar presents were mado. In return, the Andamanege of the Home were omployed to help in catching runaway convicts, in collecting edible birds' nests and trepang and other natural produce, and in making "Andamanese curios," from which a small income was derived for the Home and expended on it. But the inmates never succeeded in acquiring any true idea of money for then selves, and all their savings had to be administered for them. It was indeed against local rules to give them money, as it was at cnoe spent in intoxicants. The general policy, in short, was to leave them alone and to do what was possible in the conditions to ameliorate their lives. The administrative objects gained by establishing friendly relations with the tribes were the cessation of the former and much too frequent number of shipwrecked crews, the external peace of the Settlement, and the creation of a jungle police to prevent Oscapes of con vists, and the recapture of runaways.
In the days of Blair and Kyd, 1789-1796, the tribes showed themselves to bo practically uniformly hostile, despite the conspicuous consideration these early officials exhibited, and they ramrined continuously so after the commencemont of tho re-establishment of the Settlement in 1858, attacking tho working parties of convicte, just as the Jarawas do still, for iron and articles suitable to thom, and robbing the gardens started for food supplies.