In the Andamans and Nicobars: The Narrative of a Cruise in the Schooner "Terrapin"

by C. Boden Kloss

"There was great cleanliness as regards the floor, and the air also was very pure, not the faintest disagreeable odour could be detected. The upper storey consisted only of bamboo sticks, they were thin, not tied together, and resting on the cross beams; they had turned somewhat brown through the smoke of the lamps, but I could not see that they kept any provisions there, and on the whole they do not collect many provisions. I saw some piles erected near some of the houses, they were more than man's height, two cross piles were fastened to them, and here they stewed some yam roots in the open air. They had no gardens, their houses and also their outhouses stood among Carica papaya. Their weapons consisted of small lances somewhat shaped like pikes, which were made of smooth round sticks about as thick as a finger and three yards long.[203] I saw some of them return with these kind of weapons. They had been in the wood to fetch provisions for one or two days. I did not see any fishing implements.

"There were two ships there, one of them an English three-master, the second one lying further south with two masts, it was a French ship. They were both loading coconuts, which they bought here very cheaply in order to take them to Pegu, and to sell them there with great profit.

"Their women have almost the same appearance as their men, being strong and muscular, but most of them had their hair shorn off. Their clothing consisted of a blue cloth wound round their loins, or they wore an apron made of leaves, which was cut in strips hardly one line wide, and reached down to the knees; they were plaited together at the top and hung round their bodies in layers almost two inches thick. These strips seemed to have been taken from the borassi or chamœrops. Some grown-up girls I saw here as well, their hair was cut off below the ear and hung loosely round their head.

"However many people I saw here of different sex, I did not come across any whom I could have termed old. The only exception was a woman, apparently about fifty years old. The shortness of my stay here prevented me to make further researches and inquiries, which besides would have been very difficult considering the language and utter simplicity of the natives. As far as I could observe they were very vague in their ideas as regards years, months, weeks, days, and hours.

"Near one of the large houses I saw some piles; they were about ten inches thick, square, and two and a half feet high. At the upper end they had two holes, meeting in the middle like a cross; through them were plaited many coloured ribbons both of linen and of cloth, presenting the appearance of streamers; at their end there was a stick about as high as a man, at the end of this a piece of white linen was fastened of about two inches wide, looking like a flag; all this was surrounded by a sort of conical figure of the sheaths of the chamœrops, so that only in front a little piece of the streamers was to be seen. I made inquiries as to these things, and they told me they were monuments for the dead, and that lately three persons had died in this house. I saw some more of the same kind of stakes which were already old, but there was not one near every house.

"I saw some persons of both sexes wearing green fringes, and I inquired why they were in this manner distinguished from the others; as much as I could learn from my interpreter these were those who had held their feast of love. This is always celebrated in the woods, never anywhere else, and as a sign of this joy they wore these fringes; they were really made from long pisang[204] leaves split through the middle and fringed crossways. They are first worn round their neck, then across their shoulders, and at last round their loins.

"My attention was attracted by a continual murmuring; I inquired into its cause. It was the singing of some women, who wanted to cure another of her headache. This afforded me at the same time the opportunity of seeing the interior of their houses. I was admitted and allowed to mount, and I found the invalid sitting on her feet, some of the women lying near her, and four standing before her; one of them held something in her hand, which was supposed to be some article for fumigating; I could, however, neither see nor smell it. Their whole song consisted of one tone, which was taken first at a very high pitch, but by repeating it so often they slowly sank to the lowest notes, then they paused, and one of them commenced again very high, and the others chimed in until they had again arrived at the lowest notes. They kept on singing in this way as long as I was there, which, however, was not very long, because it soon grew dark. I felt the invalid's forehead, which was a little warmer than ordinarily and covered with weak perspiration. Her hands were also hot, and her pulse quicker than usual, which symptoms might point to a cold in a body inclined to laziness.

"The number of children that I met here was not large either, and was far smaller than what I had seen on the coast in villages of equal size. I saw very few animals here; they kept some pigs near their houses, and the pork is said to be of very good taste here, because they feed the pigs on coconuts. There were also some small hens here, and a female dog, very much like the pariah dogs, which I had seen on the coast, and probably it was brought from there, only it seemed to have shorter legs than the ordinary kind....

"... As it grew dark I left the country, where I should have liked to stay for some days, but I feared we might not get safely through the high waves. A cicada sang in the wood in a strange manner—for me it was a sad song. In the dark evening I picked up a little piece of seaweed which had been thrown on shore. We were luckier than we had feared to be as regards the starting from shore, which we left after having explored the country for one hour and a half. After one hour's journey both ways, we arrived on board at 7 o'clock.

"September 1st.—Early this morning the anchors were hoisted, but hardly had we left the land when a storm, combined with heavy showers of rain, arose. The atmosphere was misty, and one of these stormy showers was so violent and sudden that we almost perished. A new top-sail was torn to pieces, the waves at the same time were uncommonly high, and the whole sea like in a thunderstorm. I thanked God that I succeeded in arranging the specimens which I had gathered on my journey."