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244
ENGLISH.
red ochre
net
sneeze
"God"
turtle
water
bone
wood
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
ÖNGE-JÄBAWA.
gyalap
chi
che, chi
chiba (Bea, Balawa)
Uluga: (öluge, thunder) Puluga, Bilak (Bea, wul-nga,
storm)
chokbe (Kede, Châriar)
ina (Bea, Balawa)
ta, toa (Bea, Balawa) ta, toa, to
chöbe
i, ig to
ta, da
JÄRAWA.
pa nge- -be flat become is
[AUGUST, 1907.
Colebrooke showed all sorts of impossible things to his Järaws to name, and one interesting result is the following:
ENGLISH.
ÖNGE.
cotton-cloth
bengebe flat-become-is
paper
Of course, no Jarawa had ever seen before anything approaching to either object, and this man's one expression for both means "it is (has been) flattened," which is what the savage meant to convey, when asked anything so impossible as to name them.
REMAINING LANGUAGES.
bilap, upla
chi
In Appendix B will be found a further list of Önge words to aid in the study of this interesting language.
M-önge-be I-man-kind-am
(I am am an Önge)
g.
Dérivation of Mincopie.
We are now in a position to solve a great puzzle of ethnographists for a century and more: why were the Andamanese called Mincopie by Europeans? What word does this transcription represent? It can now be split up thus :
Or, as the Jarawas perhaps pronounce the expression, "M-inggo-be," or even "M-injo-be," I am an Inggo (Injo). The name given by the Önges to themselves is a "verbal noun," ö-nge, man-being. So that when questioned as to himself by Colebrooke, his Järawa replied M'inggobe," or something like it, which compound expression by mistranscription and misapprehension has become the well-known Mincopie of the general ethnological books in many languages for an Andamanese. The Önges call their own home, the Little Andaman, Gwabe-l'Önge. Järawa is a modern Bea term, possibly radically identical with Yerews, the Bea name for the Northern Group of Tribes,
It is just possible that Colebrooke's Järawa misunderstood what was wanted altogether and simply said, "I am (will be, would be) drinking: m-inggo-be, I-drink-do."
I have now to record a great disappointment. The proof that the method herein adopted for recovering the Järawa Language was correct lay in the fact that the word i-nge for "water" was ascertained from a little Järawa boy captured during an expedition in February, 1902, and the identical word was quite independently unearthed from Colebrooke's and Portman's Vocabularies as Önge-Järawa for "water." The only other word clearly ascertained from the boy, walu-ng for "pig," has not been gathered independently as yet. This little boy was the last of the prisoners left, who were captured on that occasion, as the women and small children and girls were all returned and only two boys kept back for a while, in order to get their language, &c., from them. Of these, the elder died of fever, and on the very day that their language was fairly recovered, and we were in a position to set to work to learn quickly from him, the younger died very suddenly of pneumonia, without any warning illness.
