Indian Antiquary Vol 52

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 234

218
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
AUGUST, 1923
point. As explained to him the terms daka-kam generally, and also dar-dôatinga and dar. wej(er)inga, occasionally were used for my younger brother and daka-kam also for "my uterine younger half-brother,' while dir-dóalinga and dar-waj(er)inga signified also my younger half-brother (if consanguino). Similarly the terms ad-en-tobare, ad-en-tobanga or ad-en-tökare, ad-en-lökanga were used for my elder brother' and dar chábil entó-bare (or entokare) for my elder half-brother,' (uterine or consanguine)."
The whole of the criticism on page 75 is captious. E.g.," Mr. Man says it is not considered decorous that any fresh alliance should be contracted until about a year had elapsed from the date of bereavement.' I knew of one case, however, of a woman with a young child, who married again only a fortnight or so after her husband's death." Mr. Man was here describing a social attitude when the society was numerous : Mr. Brown saw it so diminished as to be broken up. A social custom, therefore, might well be strictly applied in the former's day and loosely in the latter's. The inference is that if it comes to a question of the essential trustworthiness of the evidence available the palm must be given to Mr. Man.
The value of evidenoe as to social relations is so very important in discussions such as the present one, that I follow it further. I was much struck with the statements on p. 65 criticising Mr. Man thus: "It will be observed that the Akar-Bale list is consistent and logical throughout. It seems probable that there is an error in Mr. Man's list, and that husband's younger sister 'should be aka-ba-pail instead of otin, while younger brother's wife' should be otin instead of aka-ba-pail. This would make the Aka-Bea list consistent with itself and with the Akar-Bale list." I submitted this paragraph to Mr. Man and he at once wrote back : "I am willing to concede that it is probable that 'husband's younger sister should be akaba pail (not otin) and that younger brother's wife' should be otin (not aka-bā-pail)."14 The reply is complimentary to Mr. Brown's acuteness, but it also shows the difference in literary manners between the two writers, for there is nowhere that I can see any hint in Mr. Brown's book of his debt to his predecessor for information gathered with great labour and patience or of the assistance it had obviously been to him in making his observations, and, it may be added, his criticisms. Whereas Mr. Man will acknowledge an error, if there is one, without hesitation in the interests of scientific accuracy.
Mr. Brown can also be caught tripping in the same way, for at the bottom of the same page 65, he has inverted Balawa and Bea terms. His table runs :
Aka-Bea Akar-Bale Da Maia
Sir Chana 16
Lady Whereas it should run
Bea
Balawa Maia
Da
Sir Chana
In On the next page (66) Mr. Brown says: “According to Mr. Man these last two terms [did maia and did maiola) are applied not to a man's own father, but to the other persons whom he addresses as maia. This is contradicted by Mr. Portman who gives dia-maiola as the Akd-Bea for my father'." These two witnesses are here quoted as of equal value. Both worked before Mr. Brown's time and he is apparently not able to distinguish between them, although he was for some time in Port Blair itself. And then in a footnote he remarks: "The natives commonly applied the term to me in the form Mam-jula." Mamjola (Father, Great
14 The whole tribe has now disappeared and there is no one left to question. 16 For the benefit of the reader I have not adopted Mr. Brown's transcription.
In
Lady