A year later the Danish corvette Galathea,[124] voyaging round the world, spent some months among the islands, and her commander, Steen Bille, took possession of the central group for Denmark, and invested two natives with the insignia of chief magistrates. Two years afterwards, however, the Valkyrien was sent to the islands to bring away the flags and bâtons, and the last of several ineffective annexations came to an end. The Galathea expedition surveyed much of the coasts, sought for coal and other minerals, and named the principal river the "Galathea."
In 1858 the Austrian frigate Novara[125] spent a month in the group, during which, half the time was passed at sea. Many parts hitherto unsurveyed were charted by them, and valuable knowledge as to the ethnographical and geological conditions of the islands was obtained.
The islands were finally taken possession of by the Indian Government in 1869—the British had officially annexed the group in 1807, but not occupied it—and a settlement was formed at Nankauri Harbour to check the piratical proceedings of that place, and although this was given up in 1888, after it had served its purpose, the history of the Nicobars is now bound up with that of the Andamans, to which they are affiliated.
MEN OF THE SHOM PEṄ;
MEN OF THE SHOM PEṄ (in profile).
Although the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands were originally all of the same stock, various causes have contributed to bring about a distinction amongst them, and they are now separated into two distinct ethnical groups,—the Shom Peṅ of the interior of Great Nicobar, and the coast people, or Nicobarese, who are found in all the inhabited islands.
Of the Shom Peṅ but little is known, as, with the exception of a few families who have friendly intercourse with the coast villages, they have, as now constituted, always been persistently hostile to the Nicobarese, but it is probable that they number at most between 300 and 400 individuals.
It was for long believed that the interior of Great Nicobar was inhabited by a race of Negritoes akin to the Andamanese, but the Shom Peṅ are an isolated group of primitive Malayans, and although they must be regarded as the aborigines of the islands, many features amongst them point to the fact that they are no longer racially pure.
Not only does the facial appearance vary greatly, but the hair, which is universally regarded as an almost infallible indication of race amongst primitive peoples, occurs in all the grades between curly and straight.