Malabar and Bengal settlers to a considerable extent make the Nicobarians a mixed, rather than a pure population.
Carnicobar.—Inhabitants well made, but undersized, with Malay features.
Chowry.[80]—South of Carnicobar. Trade between the Chowrians and Carnicobarians; the former selling canoes, the latter cloth.
Nancowry is described by Marco Polo, as being under the government of no king, the people being "little removed from the condition of brutes, all of them both males and females going naked, without a covering to any part of the body. They are idolators."[81]
One of the most remarkable of their customs is the way in which they celebrate the anniversary of the burial of any near relation, when "their houses are decorated with garlands of flowers, fruits, and branches of trees. The people of each village assemble, dressed in their best attire, at the principal house in the place, where they spend the day in a convivial manner; the men, sitting apart from the women, smoke tobacco and intoxicate themselves, while the latter are nursing their children, and employed in preparations for the mournful business of the night. At a certain hour of the afternoon, announced by striking the coung, the women set up the most dismal howls and lamentations, which they continue without intermission till about sunset; when the whole party gets up, and walks in procession to the burying-ground. Arrived at the place, they form a circle around one of the graves, when the stake, planted exactly over the head of the corpse, is pulled up. The woman who is nearest of kin to the deceased, steps out from the crowd, digs up the skull, and draws it up with her hands. At sight of the bones, her strength seems to fail her; she shrieks, she sobs, and tears of anguish abundantly fall to the mouldering object of her pious care. She clears it from the earth, scrapes off the festering flesh, and laves it plentifully with the milk of fresh coco-nuts, supplied by the bystanders; after which she rubs it over with an infusion of saffron, and wraps it carefully in a piece of new cloth. It is then deposited again in the earth, and covered up; the stake is replanted, and hung with the various trappings and implements belonging to the deceased. They proceed then to the other graves, and the whole night is spent in repetitions of these dismal and disgustful rites."[82]
By referring to p. [209], the reader will find that three questions connected with the distribution of the Polynesians—and, through them, with that of the Oceanic tribes, altogether stand over for consideration; these being—
A. The general question, as to their origin and distribution in respect to their connection with the Continent, and with each other. B. The date of the migrations. C. The inferences to be drawn from the existence of a darker-coloured population in areas more especially belonging to the brown and olive-coloured tribes.
A. Connection with the Continent of (1) The Kelænonesians, (2) The Polynesians.
1. A. Of the Papua Kelænonesians.-The Papuans of New Guinea are, more probably, a continuation of the population of the Eastern Moluccas than aught else. This is what their geographical position indicates; and (such being the case) it is the primâ facie doctrine. At the same time, they are a continuation of the black or black-like portion of the Moluccan area, rather than of the Mahometan Malays. The chief difference lies in the texture of the hair, a difference which has, most likely, been over-rated.
B. Of the Australian Kelænonesians.—The a priori view as to the source of the Australian population is complicated, as may be understood by looking at the distance between Cape York and New Guinea on one side, and that between Cape Van Dieman and Timor on the other. The difference in breadth between the interspaces of ocean in these two parts is nearly the same: that, however, of Torres Straits is the smaller;—besides which, there is a numerous series of islands which would serve as stepping-stones to emigrants from New Guinea; assuming that to be the line. Now as it is a general rule to derive the population of islands forming part of a series from the nearest inhabited point between the area under consideration and the Continent, unless reasons can be shown to the contrary, the apparent primâ facie view is in favour of the south of New Guinea having peopled the north of Australia. Nevertheless, it not only is highly probable that such is not the case, but it is by no means certain that, all conditions considered, it is a correct view even a priori. In many instances those reasons for believing that one particular island has supplied a population to another, which are based on the principle of simple contiguity, are modified by the relations of the supposed immediate source of population to the supposed remote one; in which case, although the land and sea conditions between the two last links of the chain may be of the most favourable kind, those between the last link but one and the first, may be the contrary. Thus, in the case before us, the fact of Torres Straits being the narrowest portion of Ocean between Australia and the inhabited land, on the side of the continent next to it, taken by itself, constitutes a reason for deriving the Australians from the Papuans. It is complicated, however, by the circumstance of the line between New Guinea and the Continent being by no means of the most direct and straightforward sort. Hence, if there were any other point of inhabited land which should at one and the same time be not much farther from some part of Australia than New Guinea is from Cape York, and much nearer the remote source (assumed to be on the Continent) of the Australian population, such a locality would divide with New Guinea the claims for having been the immediate origin of the occupants of the great island in question; inasmuch as the slight difference between the favourable conditions of one kind, would counterbalance the preponderating conditions of another.