Indian Antiquary Vol 60

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

Page 97

MAY, 1931]
REMARKS ON THE NICOBAR ISLANDERS AND THEIR COUNTRY
REMARKS ON THE NICOBAR ISLANDERS AND THEIR COUNTRY. BY THE LATE SIR RICHARD C. TEMPLE, BT., C.B., C.I.E., F.B.A., F.S.A. Chief Commissioner, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, from 1894 to 1903. I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
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As a supplement to vols. LVIII and LIX of this Journal I published a series of amended extracts relating to the Andamans from the Census Report of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in 1901, which I compiled. I now publish a similar series of extracts regarding the Nicobar Islands, as they contain information, not procurable elsewhere, of value to students of ethnography.
I propose to divide the subject into the following heads: I Geography, II Geology, III Meteorology, IV History, V The People, VI Government and Village System, VII Commerce, VIII Reckoning.
The Nicobarese inhabit islands between the Andamans and Sumatra, from about 7° to about 9° North, and situated in groups at considerable distances in some cases from cach other. Thus, to enumerate the inhabited islands only, Car Nicobar lies by itself, 41 miles to the north of any other inhabited island of the group. Then comes Chowra, 6 miles north of Teressa and Bompoka, situated close together. East and south 12 miles distant from these lie Camorta, Trinkat and Nancowry, forming a close group creating between them the magnificent harbour of Nancowry. To their west, 4 miles distant, and to the south of Teressa, lies Katchall. Again, 30 miles to the south of them lies the group of Great and Little Nicobar with Kondul and Pulo Milo.
The inhabitants of these islands are thus divided off into groups, which have little communication with each other, owing to the diversity of the dialects they speak. The groups thus created are (1) Car Nicobar, (2) Chowra, (3) Teressa and Bompoka, (4) Central (Camorta, Trinkat, Nancowry, Katchall), (5) Southern (Great and Little Nicobar, Kondul, Pulo Milo); and in the interior of the Great Nicobar is a separate tribe, (6) the Shom Pen, usually at feud with the people on the seaboard.
Although the Andamans and Nicobars are grouped together as a single entity for administrative purposes, they have no other connection whatever either geographically or by population. The Andamans belong to Burma, being the summits of a lofty submerged continuation of the Arakan Yoma mountains, and the Nicobars belong to the Malay Archipelago as a continuation of Sumatra. The division between them and the Andamans is caused by the Ten Degree Channel, which is wide and deep.
The Nicobar Group contains every kind of island scenery from flat and waterless Car Nicobar not much above sea level to mountainous Great Nicobar with its many hills and streams. In some cases the scenery, though of course tropical everywhere, is truly beautiful, and the one landlocked harbour-Nancowry Harbour-the islands contain, formed by the islands of Camorta, Nancowry and Trinkat, and the coral reefs surrounding them, with Katchall to shelter it from the west, is of great beauty. The entry from the west in the early morning is one of the most superb sights I know in a very wide experience. There is another considerable landlocked harbour on Camorta just north of Nancowry Harbour, but it is too full of coral to be available for ships. An immense number of coco-nut trees grow all along the coasts and naturally attract the visitor's eyes, and hide to a great extent the variety of foliage inland.
The Andamanese are a race of the purest savages known and largely isolated in the world, but the Nicobarese belong to the Malay Peninsula, and their language and customs show them to be of the same general race of mankind as the Mons and to have come ultimately from the highlands of Western China. They are anything but savages and are indeed a semi-civilised, though illiterate, race, with a very ancient trade with the Far East and India. Like the Andamanese, however, though divided by dialects, now mutually unintelligible' to each other, they speak one fundamental tongue, which is Far Eastern in its affinities.
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