10. CLOTHS, CLAY AND BEAUTYCARE

Jarawa women have been seen wearing at least two types of skirt besides head-bands, shell necklaces and armbands. Skirts are the only form of clothing that the men have not so far been seen to use. The most widely worn type of skirt consists of a thin string around the waist from which many short strings hang down to form a sort of skirt. The strings hanging down are so widely spaced that they do not hide the genital area and cannot have the function of hiding a taboo zone. This makes them quite unlike the Onge nakuinyage. Another type of Jarawa skirt consists of a thick strand of loosely woven fiber from which many lose fibers of the same material sticking outwards form an extremely short skirt that barely reaches below the pubic area. Probably a simplified version of the latter is a thick strand of plain fiber around the waist that does not even try to be a skirt.

While most of the fibers seen show their natural colors, usually yellow, there are some cases known when the strings of skirts and on necklaces have been colored. It is not known by what process and from what materials the Jarawa get their colors. Red seems to be a favorite but others such a green and blue have also been seen. Red headbands made of non-native material given by Indian visitors as a gift are also popular with both sexes.

Not much is known of Sentineli attire. It has been reported that when gifts are left on Sentineli beaches, if a red piece of cloth is among them the other items would be taken but the red cloth is be left untouched on the beach. What this signifies is unknown but it certainly shows up a difference to the Jarawas. The people seen from afar during a number of attempts at contact were either completely nude or wore items that were reminiscent of the Onge and Jarawa. A warrior was seen wearing a bark belt with arrows stuck into it besides two bark arm rings. Yellow headbands were also noted while one woman (or possibly a man, the observer was not quite sure) had some leaves tucked into a belt at her or his back. Males wearing something resembling the Jarawa corset, though considerably narrower, have also been seen. There is one report of the late 19th century claiming that lower jawbones of humans ornamented with a fringe of twisted fiber and evidently intended to be worn had been found on the island. Nothing of the sort has so far been observed in more recent times.

Body painting rather than clothes was the Andamanese way of dressing up. The use of variously colored clays was and still is widespread among all tribes.

Besides being practical and decorative, painting was regarded by the Great Andamanese as a gift of the god Puluga. The practice has religious significance and is likely to be very ancient indeed. One of the colors used in the Andamans was ochre in the form of a burnt, powdered iron oxide. The same material was used by humans a hundred thousand and more years ago, making it the oldest known color in human use. Ochre was also widely used by the first anatomically modern humans 50,000 years ago in funeral ceremonies and very possibly for body painting. It is thought that the red color signified blood and life. Its use in the Andamans is important, all the more so in view of the fact that the Andamanese used it in connection with sickness, death and funeral rites. This cannot be coincidence.

Paint was prepared from clay or powdered iron oxide mixed with pig fat or turtle oil and then applied either with a finger or alternatively by smearing over whole areas by hand and then scraping away unwanted paint. Three basic colors were used and each had its own function: a common whitish-gray clay which could shade into gray, yellowish, olive or pink (called among Great Andamanese og, odu or od), a rare white clay (called talaog or tol) and a reddish-brown ochre pigment (called koiob).

The whitish-gray clay was most widely used. It was spread all over the body as a sign of mourning and is also splattered over participants at certain initiation ceremonies. Most popular, however, was its use for painting purely decorative pattern. Applying body paint was a privilege of the women who painted each other as well as the men. A husband returning from a successful hunt was sure to get an especially elaborate pattern painted on his heroic body by his wife. The women vied with each other to produce different designs and a successful new idea was sure to be copied by less successful artists far and wide. The copyright applied to the words of songs did not apply here. Competition among women led to fashions in the type of pattern used that came and went much as clothes fashions come and go in our world. Fashion in our world can be circular with grand-mother's laced boots becoming the dernier cri of today. Andamanese fashion, despite the competitive creativity involved, always returned to the old starting points, not evolving anywhere in the long run. The pattern painted were always strictly geometrical straight, zig-zag or wavy lines and dots and never in any way representational. The painting of animal or human forms was quite unknown, even unthinkable. Common clay was applied in the late afternoon before the evening meal and sometimes, after an especially extensive repast, afterwards. In this, body painting resembles nothing so much as the once fashionable changing for dinner. Among the Onge, there were enormous pork and honey feasts which ended in competitive body painting sessions when the women tried to outdo each other.

The rare white clay was used only in one strictly traditional pattern, the so called snake-pattern, lines zig-zagging in a particular way across the body. Although the Andamanese, when asked, merely said that this pattern made them look attractive, the traditionally fixed form clearly must have once had a deeper significance which has long since been lost. This clay and its associated pattern was applied across the entire body for large gatherings and dances involving two or more local groups. It was also used at the dance that marked the end of the mourning period and after a wedding ceremony when the bride and groom were painted in this way. The white clay and its special pattern could be said in some ways to correspond to our gala or formal dress. There was a reduced gala version for dances without outside guests when no one had to be impressed: only the face was then painted with the snake-pattern.

Finally, ochre paint was used when someone was sick. For coughs the chest was painted, toothache was cured by smearing red paint on the cheeks while fever disappeared when the upper lip was covered or when the ochre was eaten. Ochre was also used to decorate the corpse before burial together with white clay.