Their manufactures are very few. They make canoes; construct a spear out of a single piece of wood, baskets, both of rattan and palm spathe, and a rough cloth from the inner bark of a tree.[132]
The friendly Shom Peṅ are energetic collectors of rattan, which they trade with the Nicobarese, and so obtain garments, beads, knives, parangs, axes, and tobacco, which is smoked in the form of cigarettes. They are great consumers of betel-nut, in combination with lime and sireh.
Amongst these friendly families, the clothing worn is similar to that of the Nicobarese, with necklaces of beads, and they employ a large wooden ear-distender an inch and a half in diameter.[133] The sheets of bark cloth are used as pillows and coverings at night, and amongst the hostile aborigines it is said the women wear short petticoats of this material, while the men go entirely clothesless.
Amongst those met with, there was generally one man in each party, who, by virtue possibly of superior intelligence or knowledge of the coast language, seemed to have some slight authority over the remainder.
They are monogamous, and, unlike the Nicobarese, marry for life. The position of the women is apparently a satisfactory one, for they are regarded as little or in no way inferior to the men. The men obtain the food, the women prepare it. Rattans are collected in the jungle by the men, and by them carried to market; both sexes together prepare it, by scraping and splitting, for sale. When bringing articles for barter, the men bore the spears, and the baskets and cloth were carried by the women, and generally such things as were obtained in exchange were immediately handed over to the latter.
All those met with seemed quiet, stolid, and timid in disposition; but a cupidity for the goods of their neighbours at times overcomes the latter characteristic amongst the less accessible of the aborigines, and many are the murderous attacks they are said to have made on the Nicobarese for the purpose of loot.
No infants or young children were seen, although surprise visits were paid to several of the villages, neither were any old people en evidence, but the ages were judged to vary between ten and forty-five years.
The language differs from all others in the islands, but here and there are individuals who know sufficient of the coast speech to hold converse with the Nicobarese.[134]
Their carelessness with regard to their water-supply—for any muddy pool or stagnant brook is made use of—is probably sufficient reason for the large number of cases of elephantiasis occurring among them; the only other affection besides this, that seems to be in anyway chronic, is the common body ringworm of the tropics.
