Pegu is about 400 miles from the islands, and Tenasserim a little less. About 1000 A.D. the first historical conquest of the Lower Irrawadi was effected by the Burmese, and its inhabitants, the Mous, became known as "Talaings," or slaves. Their final defeat took place in 1757.
Nothing is more possible than that, after one of their disasters, a small section of the Talaings fled from their home and established themselves in the Nicobars, which they had probably become cognisant of in the way of trade.[143] At present the only sea-going craft are a few score "kallu," small junks of 20-60 tons, built in Tavoy, which, manned by five or six Talaings, venture as far as the Nicobars, where they ship coconuts in the fine monsoon.[144]
Nor are these all, for the islanders are doubtless leavened by stray immigrants from India,[145]—which would account for the not infrequent occurrence of Caucasian features among them,—by Arabs, and even by Chinese.
Malays and Burmese—or rather Talaings—formed, however, the greater part of the intrusive element.
Although colonisation was very local—the reason possibly for so many distinct languages in the group—the islands now exhibit a state of transition, due to intercrossing. Individuals occur at the extremes of the Archipelago who bear a striking resemblance to each other, but nevertheless there is a marked, though vague, difference to be seen when the natives of several of the islands, or groups of islands, are compared with each other as a body.
"TANAMARA" OF NANKAURI; "TANAMARA" OF NANKAURI (IN PROFILE); A HEADMAN OF THE SHOM PEṄ; HEADMAN OF THE SHOM PEṄ (IN PROFILE).
"All things considered, it may be inferred that the Archipelago was originally occupied by primitive peoples of Malayan stock, now represented by the Shom Peṅ of Great Nicobar, and was afterwards resettled on the coast-lands by Indo-Chinese and Malayan intruders, who intermingled, and either extirpated and absorbed, or else drove to the interior, the first occupants."[146]
It is difficult to picture a typical representative of this much-mixed people, as even in those islands that have a distinct speech of their own, and whose inhabitants might be supposed to be fairly homogenous, wide differences are met with, as above pointed out. The variations, however, are not sufficient on the whole to merit separate descriptions of the inhabitants of each island.