Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 58
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(ADUST, 1929
Chief Commissionership, and in that year occurred the one event of general importance that has made the Andamans well known: the murder of Lord Mayo, Viceroy of India, by a convict while on a visit of inspection to the settlement for the welfare of whose convict population he had worked so sympathetically.
(c) Ethnography. In dealing with the outlines of the ethnography of the Andaman Islands, I shall follow the Census Report and consider the people from the point of view of () race, (ii) physical and (iii) mental characteristics, (iv) habits and customs, (v) art. Many of my observations will be found to differ from those in Mr. A. R. Brown's Andaman Islanders.
(0) THE RACE. The Andaman Islands, sd near to countries that have for ages attained a considerable civilisation and have been the seat of important empires, and close to the track of a great commerce which has gone on for at least 2,000 years, continue to our day the abode of savages as low in civilisation as almost any known upon earth, though close observation of them discloses the immense distance between them and the highest of the brute beasts in mental dovelopment, one most notable fact being that they eat nothing raw, cooking all their food. however slightly, and making pots for the purpose, and this from time immemorial.
As to what general variety of the existing human beings the Andamanese belong, it can be clearly predicated of them that their various tribes belong to one people, speaking varieties of one fundamental language, and that they are Negritos. Many theories have been advanced as to their affinities; the most credible being that they are connected with the Semangs of the Malay Peninsula and the Aetas of the Philippines, and the silliest, though not the least persistent, that they are descendants of shipwrecked cargoes, of African slaves. On the whole the safest thing to say about them is that they are probably the relies of a bygone Negrito race, now represented by themselves, the Semangs, and the Aetas, that in very ancient times occupied the south-eastern portion of the Asiatic continent and its outlying Islands before the irruptions of the oldest of the peoples, whose existence or traces can now be found there. In this view the Andamanese are of extreme interest as preserving. owing to an indefinite number of centuries of complete isolation, in their persons and customs the last pure remnant of the oldest kind of man inexistence. The possibility of their representing the archaic type of the Negrito and the consequent extreme ethnological interest they arouse was long since pointed out by Sir W. Flower (Pigmy Races of Men, Royal Institution, Feb. 13th, 1888).
It is to be noted, however, that Professor Owen considered them to be not connected on anatomical grounds with the people of any existing continent. In view of that opinion it will be of interest here to state the points of agreement and difference between the Andamanese and the Semangs, a wild race which is found in Northern Perak, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu, and Northern Pahang in the Malay Peninsula. They have come considerably under outside influence and especially under that of the wavy-haired (Sakai) and the longhaired (Jakun, wild Molay) tribes of the Península and even of the civilised Malays themselves.
Points of Agreement of Semangs with Andamanese. Hair : In colour and growth. Height : Men 57 to 58 inches, women, 531 to 544 inches. Skin : In texture and colour. Shape of head : Mesatioephalic and brachycephalic. Eyes : In colour and shape. Food : In its nature and elaborate preparation. Huts : In leaf shelters ;-with the Önge-Jarawas, in communal huts, though not so goo 1. Funerals : In ceremonies and probable former disinterment of bones, Belief : In tho bridge to Paradise. Boys : With the inge-Jara was only.
