Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 370

38
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[Novex
, 1929
name while it lasts, no secret to he communicated, no religious cereniony. In after-life, however, men who have gone through the initiatory period together will not fight, quarrel, nor call each other by name. Thoy will assume great friendship, while avoiding each other with a mutual shyness. The women also practise a limited tabu as to food during menstru. ation and pregnancy. The idea of tabu does undoubtedly exist as to food and every man has his own tabued articles through life, which is, however, usually something observed to dis. agree with him in childhood or to be unpalatable.
There are also limitations as to sexual family relations. Only husband and wife can eat together. Widows and widowers, bachelors and maidens 'eat with their own sex only. A man may not address directly a married woman younger than himself or touch his wife's sister or the wife of a younger relative, and vice versa.
The tattooing is partly ceremonial, as a test of courage and enduranoe of pain, and so is painting the body with clays, oils, etc. By the material and design is shown sickness, Borrow or festivity and the unmarried condition.
The great amusement of the Andamanere, indeed their chief object in life after the chase, is the formal evening or night dance, . curious monotonous performance accompanied by drumming the feet rhythmically on a special sounding board, like a Crusader's shield and mistaken for a shield by several observers, singing & song more or less impromptu and of a com pass limited to four semitones and the intermediate quarter tones, and clapping the hands on the thighs in unison. The dance takes place every evening whenever there are enough for. it, and lasts for hours and all night at meetings of the tribes or septs for the purpose. It then becomes ceremonial and is continued for several nights in succession. Both sexes take allotted parts in it. This and turtle hunting are the only things which will keep the Andama. nese awake all night long. There are five varieties of the dance among the tribes : that of the Onge-Jara was being an entirely different performance.
The Andamanese appreciate rhythm and time, but not pitch or tune. They sing in unison, but not in parts, and can neither king in chorus nor repeat or even catch an air. The key in which & solo or chorus is started is quite accidental. They can be readily taught any dance step and can teach it themselves from observation.
Every man who respects himself is a composer of songs, always consisting of a solo and refrain, and sings without action or gestioulation and always to the same rhythm. The songs relate only to travel, sport and personal adventures, never to love, children and the usual objects of poetry, and very rarely to beliefs and superstition. The wording is enigmatic and excessively elliptic, the words themselves being in grammatical order, but shorn of all affixes 28 a rule. As in all poetry unusual words are employed. But olipped as the wording is and prosaic as the subjects are, the Andamanese are far from being unable to give & poetic turn to their phraseology and ideas. The women have lullabies for their babies.
The Andamanese are childishly fond of games and have an indigenous blind-man's-buff, leap-frog and hide-and-seek. Mock pig and turtle hunts, mock burials, and "ghost "hunts are favourite sports. Matches in swinging, swimming, throwing, skimming (ducks and rakes), shooting (archery), and wrestling arc practised.
Every child is named for life after one of about twenty conventional names by the mother, of course without reference to sex, immediately upon pregnancy becoming evident, to which afterwards a nickname, varying occasionally as life proceeds, is added from personal poculiarities, deformities, disfigurements, or eccentricities and sometimes from flattery or reverence. Girls are also given "flower names" after one of sixteen selected trees which happen to be in flower at the time they reach puberty.
The "womb-name" is called the teng-l'ar-ula and on the child being born, the words distinguishing sex by the genitals, ôta, male, and kita, female, are prefixed to it in babyhood. The women's "Rower name" prooedes the teng-l'ar-ula till motherhoood or advancing years, but is often used alone, As the flower names" are of much interest, the following list of