Indian Antiquary Vol 53

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

Page 173

August, 1924 )
THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION OF THE ANDAMANESE
165
THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION OF THE ANDAMANESE,
By P. W. SCHMIDT, 8.V.D.. (Continued from page 160.)
III.
The Establishment of the Ethnological Age of the Northern and Southern Groups.
Thus, here in the larger Andaman islands, we have two clearly differing forms of religion, as well as a third, which hovers between the two. Now the question arises as to which of these forms is the oldest.
Although Brown often denies that he can solve questions of historical priority, he never. theless felt strongly that, in the above question, the decision lay in the judgment as to the correctness or incorrectness of his whole conception, and he sought even in his first publication (op. cit., p. 266) for a proof that it is the Northern tribes, who exhibit ethnologically the oldest forms.
For this reason he next alleged that Biliku-Oluga was feminine in the two furthest ends of the islands in the furthest North among the Northern tribes of Great Andaman and in the furthest South among the tribes of Little Andaman, whilst the Middle tribes show transition forms towards the conception of Bilik as masculine, which appear openly in the Puluga of the Southern tribes of Great Andaman. This is in no way a proof. I have alreadyll answered him that the Southern tribes of Great Andaman might just as well be the oldest form, of which a later further development could as easily have taken place towards the North as towards the South. Now I am able to put it better by saying that these two furthest regions lay nearest to the zone of influenoe of the culture of mother-rights, which may possibly have emanated from the hinterlands of India and from the Nicobar Islands. Furthermore, Brown gives no infornation of a being among the tribes of Little Andaman corresponding to the Tarai of the Northern tribes of Great Andaman.
Another argument was suggested to Brown by an Andamanese. "If Biliku (originally) was & man, then he would have seized his bow and arrow and not flung fire-brands and pearl-shells. Those are women's things. To that I replied that one must here set oneself against the good Andamanese :--the pearl-shell which is the women's kitchen knife is, it is true, a "woman's thing: " but the flinging of fire-brands can just as well be a man's affair as a woman's. And so, as a symbol of the lightning which Biliku flings, only the pearl-shell of the Northern tribes with their feminine Biliku is mentioned: while among the Southern tribes with their masculine Puluga, only the fire-brand appears as such. There can be no doubt as to which of the two is the older and more widely spread symbol, the pearl-shell or the fire-brand.
In his new publication Brown does not again mention this argument; he must therefore have seen its worthlessness. He goes even further in his agreement with me when he writes :"The simplest of the different beliefs, the one following immediately from the natural phenomeņa would be, therefore, that which makes the lightning a fire-brand. This is on the whole, the one that is most usually expressed, at any rate in the South Andaman " (1, p. 368). If the fire-brand compared to the mother-of-pearl-shell is the simpler and more natural symbol of lightning, then it is without doubt the older. But this older symbol is not to be found among the Northern tribes, at any rate not among their myths of the bringing of the fire. So that here is already a proof of their lesser ethnological age.
* Translated from the German in Anthropos (Vols. XVI–XVII, 1921-22, pp. 978-1005) Di religiösen Verhalenisse der Andamaneren-Pyymden.
11 Man, Vol. X (1910), p. 4, Stellung der Pygmdehatamme, p. 205.