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151
JULY, 1924]
THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION OF THE ANDAMANESE
In this case we have two investigators whose observations have led to quite opposed views, and we cannot help first glancing at the qualifications that each sets forth for the realization of their propositions, Let us then examine firstly the question of the time of their stay among the Andamanse, and we shall learn the following.
The whole of Brown's expedition lasted from the end of 1906 till the beginning of 1908. Of that time 3 months were spent in the Little Andaman Island, and owing to insufficient knowledge of the language, brown lett it. He thus spent only a year in Great Andaman. On the other hand, E. H. Man's stay there lasted 11 years, which he spent in constant intercourse with the inhabitants. During that time he spent 4 years as Director of the Andamanese Home. Just for this reason E. H. Man gained a considerable advantage. This was increased by the fact that he particularly concentrated his researches on the Southern Branch of the tribes, more especially the Aka-Bea, whilst Brown worked as well at the Middle and Northern tribes, but could obtain less information about the Southern tribes, especially that of the Aka-Bea with whom Man had been working. Moreover, Man during this long time, gainod a detailed knowledge of the language and could associate directly with the inhabitants, an indispensable condition to real searching investigations of the natives. Brown, on the other hand, was most of the time only able to communicate with the inhabitants through an intermediate languageHindustani, which he was not master of himself, and which only the young Andamanese spoke, and those only as he himself said "more or less perfectly." Only in the last weeks did he meet an inhabitant who spoke English and with whose help he could get better information.
To all that it must be added that, whilst in Man's time the individual tribes lived entirely separated one from the other, so that really exact research of an individual tribe was still possible, the tribes, according to Brown's own statement had, on the contrary [at the time of his visit], in many cases intermingled, and consequently their speech and customs had naturally lost considerably in purity, distinctness and certainty. So that in every way Man was, so to speak, in an incomparably better position than Brown. Therefore, for this reason, from the first, Man's information deserves, at least, the same confidence as Brown's. Sir Richard C. Temple, who is acknowledged also by Brown as one of the best judges of the Andamanese, expresses himself on Brown's book in the following terms:
"The first part of the book is harmed because the author lays too much weight on his own observations and too little on those of his predecessors, especially on those of such a very scrupulous descsiber as Mr. E. H. Man, who had extraordinary opportunities for observation, which lasted for many years." (Man, 1989, p. 121.)
So if Brown declares that Man, through his Christian convictions, let himself be betrayed into colouring his observations with Christianity, then one must oppose to it that such a thing never occurred; for Man brings forward in all sincerity also a number of rare and even grotesque particulars about Puluga, the Supreme Being, that are truly not to be found in any profession of faith of any of the Christian denominations. Moreover, one could retort that Brown could be equally reproached with the fact that his own unprejudiced mind was obscured by the opinions of the school of evolutionists for the time being dominant,
According to the statements of E. H. Man, the Andamanese pygmies, who certainly belong to the oldest people of South Asia, now worship a real Supreme Being, named Puluga, who created the world and men, omniscient moral judge of their doings, but who is also good and helpful and to whom the good people will go after death. Against that Brown declared he had discovered that not one, but two, high gods exist, Biliku (Puluga) and Teria (Baria). Neither are supposed to represent anything other than the two chief prevailing winds there,
6 Over 30 years-ED.
Compare Brown's own statements referring to them, pp. 170, 176.
