The Kar Nicobarese seem to hold much the same belief with regard to an eclipse as do the Chinese and some of the peoples of India.
They think the moon is actually being swallowed by a serpent, and throughout the night both young and old refrain from sleep, and occupy themselves in driving the serpent away. Providing themselves with tins and planks, they beat them, causing a tremendous din, and shout, "Alas! alas! do not devour it, let the moon alone and go away."
In the buying and selling of the larger canoes the natives of Chaura act as middlemen—seeming to possess a monoply of intermediation in this business as they do of pottery making.[214]
The canoes are not made at Chaura; there are no suitable trees on that small island to construct them from. The Chaura people obtain them—very cheaply—from the central groups (where many are made, and where others, obtained from the southern group, are also sold), and sell them again to the Kar Nicobarese, making four or five times in the transaction what they themselves pay.[215]
"As the Kar Nicobarese are timid, and allow themselves to be bullied by the natives of Chaura, who assume an overbearing manner towards them, as well as towards their southern neighbours—all of whom are dependent on them for pots, which cannot be made at any of the other islands—the feeling predominant among the Kar Nicobarese as regards the people of Chaura is one of fear, and they evince every desire to avoid incurring their ill-will and resentment,"[216] even to the point of submitting to be flagrantly cheated in their canoe barter! The extortionate price they have to pay may have something to do with the high value the Kar Nicobarese set on their large canoes.
The business of purchasing these is accompanied by its peculiar ceremonies. In an instance at Mūs, after busy bargaining for pots and a large canoe, the Chaura people, in the evening, feasted, each man in his friend's house, and then at midnight assembled at the Elpanam, with the chief men of Mūs, and amused themselves singing songs in turn, and partaking of betel-nut and toddy. There they got through the preliminaries to purchasing the canoe, and the articles intended as its price were exhibited. After the bargain was closed the Mūs people returned to the village, leaving the Chaura men at the house in Elpanam.
The articles agreed on were handed over.
Next evening a great feast was given to the people of Chaura by those of Mūs; in each house a young pig was killed for the purpose. At night all the people assembled in a house in Elpanam, and after dining, amused themselves singing songs by turns.
The Chaura people then left the island in the canoe they had sold, for it is the custom to do this, and bring the canoe back on a later occasion. They were provisioned for the voyage by the village of Mūs.
The dances of the Kar Nicobarese are always held at the open ground of Elpanam. With a mafai, a fire, or a trophy of spoons and forks as a centre, the people form large circles, or parts of circles, according to their number, and move slowly round to left and to right. The sexes dance separately, the one ring within the other, or join the ends of their chains to form one large circle, but form up very compactly, each person grasping his neighbour's shoulder with outstretched arms intertwined. The dance is somewhat monotonous, and consists of two or three steps sideways, and a pause, with a stamp with the foot or a swing of the body, and then the same movement in the reverse direction, and so on, over and over again, to the accompaniment of the performer's songs.[217]