Indian Antiquary Vol 52

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

Page 239

August, 1923 ) REMARKS ON THE ANDAMAN ISLANDERS AND THEIR COUNTRY
223
knowledge of both ? The same remark applies to the statements on p. 109 about infant burial, with the additional reason for not contradicting Mr. Man that Mr. Brown's informant came from & different tribe, even if rightly understood. Lastly, when on p. 115 he is dealing with Mr. Man's statements as to prohibited food, his reasons for differing are even more indefensible, as Mr. Man had given the vernacular word for prohibited food, yat-túb. This word must have a definite sense. If it does not imply what Mr. Man says it does, what does it imply ? Mr. Brown does not tell us what he thinks about its meaning.
He is nothing if not cock sure. On a very minor point, the botanical identification of a plant, every body is wrong, Mr. Man, Mr, Portman and myself (pp. 181, 451, 452). We all gave the same name to a certain small tree or shrub used for producing rope and also for keeping off spirits. We called it Melochia velutina. Mr. Brown says it is Hibiscus tiliaceus. He reverts to this 'error' more than once, as if it were important. His authority apparrently is a photograph by Mr. Portman in the British Museum. I for one am not inclined to sit in sack-cloth and ashes. We may be wrong of course, for in matters of this kind it is easy to make slips. Parhaps Mr. Brown is the best botanist of us all. But it is not Mr. Man's habit, nor is it mine, to make statements of this nature without some verification. Our authorities are Beddome, Watt, Kurz, Prain, Gamble, Brandis, and if I recollect rightly, also King. So wa ara in good company, even assuming that one of these authorities origi. nally made a blunder and all the rəst followed him. As I said before, the point of botanical identification is here a very minor one : the real point is that the fibre and leaves of a certain local shrub are used by the Andamanese for both domestio and magical purposes. If, however, one puts stress on botanical names, we are all liable to make slips, even Mr. Brown himself. On p. 189 he refers to the anadendron paniculatum as "a vegetable substance with magical properties, and he constantly speaks of it under that name. Sir David Prain, however, oalls the plant Anodendron. All this does not matter much, except as showing that Mr. Brown would do well to be gentle with others, 28
These remarks are not too severe. Again and again, on page after page, Mr. Brown quotes Mr. Man only to contradict him or belittle his powers of observation in the above manner. Indood, the book reads in parts as if it were an Oratio contra Manum in the good old classical style. Yet on March 17, 1909, not long after his return from the Andamans, Mr. Brown read a paper before the Folklore Society, in the course of which he said : “Mr. Man's researches were in many ways excellent. I have tested as far as possible every statement in his book and oan speak with ungrudging praise of it." Why then is Mr. Man such a bad witness now! Although he oan be proved to be oocasionally at fault, as in the case of the use of alaba-fibre, as long ago pointed out by Mr. Portman and acknowledged by himself. Are we to look for a solution of this question in the strictures of Pater Schmidt in Man. 1910. Art. i, and of Andrew Lang in the same volume? Is it unfair to surmise that the author is in this book justifying his omniscienoe?
93 To be meticulously accurate here, the point was referred to the Royal Botanical Gardena Kew, and it was there ascertained that "the original and generally accepted spelling of the fibre-producing shrub in question is Anodendron panioulatum, as the name of the genus was derived from the way in which Anodendron paniculatum ascended high trees (DO. Proar. viii, p. 443; 1844). It should, striotly speaking, have been spelt Anadendron. L. Wight (III. Ind. Bot., ii, p. 164, 1850) spolt it that way. It is desirablo, however, to retain the original spelling, as the corrected form Anadendron would be apt to be confused with the genus Anadondron (Araceae)." Mr. Brown in his remarks on Melochia Veluting and Hibisous tiliacewe soom to lay claim to be an expert botanist. If so and if he deliberately adopted anadendron for the original anodendron, he would be guilty of something very like pedantey.