12. HUNTING, GATHERING, EATING
Traditional Andamanese graded their food animals in a hierarchy based on the individual animal's food value and the degree of difficulty in catching it: The ranking of food animals has also been called the 'social value' of a food. Vegetables, roots, fruit, nuts and seeds do not fit into this scheme but were held in lower esteem than meat. Turtle eggs, on the other hand, were highly prized.
Fishing was a widely popular activity of the shore-dwelling groups. The forest-dwellers also appreciated the protein of fish and crustaceans but could only get at the small fry and shrimps of inland creeks and freshwater brooks. To them, crustaceans were never more than a welcome but marginal supplement to their diet of pork.
Small fish was caught in nets by women, larger ones were hunted by men with multi-pronged harpoons or with bow and arrows, often with special multi-pronged fishing arrows (in effect arrow-harpoons). Among Onge harpoons were unknown until recently but they are widely used now. Instead, in the old days the Onge used large nets of considerable sophistication to catch large fish, turtle and dugong.
Fish lines, fish hooks and fish traps were unknown, nor did the Andamanese know or use poisons. There was a method of flushing out and stunning small fish in pools by throwing certain crushed seeds into the water, but the method had fallen into disuse by the late 19th century.
Eggs of all kinds but especially turtle eggs were a favorite treat. Turtle eggs were searched out so avidly by man and beast alike that one observer thought no clutch laid on Little Andaman could possibly have a chance of survival. To get away from this merciless competition, the Onge took to visiting the small islands between Little and Great Andaman such as the Brothers, Sisters and Cinque islands as well as South Sentinel and Passage island. Even with their chances to find such eggs much improved, turtle eggs remained a rare and special treat. The Andamanese regarded any eggs as edible at any stage of development; if an embryo was already developing, that was regarded as delicious. Undeveloped eggs were boiled and the yellow eaten (the white of turtle eggs does not congeal however long it is boiled) but sometimes were eaten raw.
Mussels, collected by women were so low on the ranking of food animals that their very mention was enough to bring up thoughts of famine and hunger. The Andamanese only touched them when there was nothing else to eat. Something like that also seems to have happened to birds, snakes, frogs, rats and monitor lizards, all of which were eaten only during times of famine. There were considerable differences between the groups: the Jarawa occasionally eat monitor lizard while the Onge never; the Great Andamanese accepted eel as food while the Onge do not. Birds, despite their abundance, are very rarely eaten by any group, probably for religious reasons. Edible birds' nests and trepang (the sea cucumber) have attracted Malay, Chinese and Burmese collectors to the islands for centuries but they were not eaten by the locals. The Onge have been reported to be quite keen on collecting birds' nests on behalf of outside collectors but not for their own consumption.
It is sometimes alleged that the Andamanese eat raw meat and even that the very concept of cooking was alien to them until recently. No doubt this fits the popular image of the Andamanese as "living like animals" and of being urgently in need of outside help to survive. It is incorrect. Archaeological evidence from kitchen midden shows clearly that the Andamanese knew how to cook at least 2500 years ago. Nor do they eat meat that is in any way off. The misconception may have arisen from the fact that cooking was often done in two stages - half-cooked or uncooked meat was distributed to individual families for storage and consumption at leisure while the rest was cooked for immediate eating. As if to counter-balance this uncharacteristic regard for hygiene and food safety, the Andamanese drank water from pools in which carcasses of dead animals were rotting, apparently without ill effects. The local climate even at the best of times does not allow food to be stored for more than a short time before going bad. Andamanese cooks, however, are not fastidious about storage as long as the meat itself does not go off. Left-over pieces of meat were and still are hung up wrapped in leaves or sometimes unprotected, quite heedless of the dust, insects and spiders' webs under the roof.
The amount of fatty meat consumed daily during the rainy season when pork was at its fattest was large and could on occasions rise to the truly gargantuan. People with an average adult body weight of around 40 kg (88 lb.) on normal days consumed up to 1.8 kg (4 lb.) of food. This could rise to a staggering 4.5 kg (10 lb.) during a 24-hour period on special occasions. At major feasts participants stuffed themselves to bursting point in colossal honey-and-pork orgies, leaving everybody barely able to walk and with severe indigestion for days. Food pig-outs are known from many primitive societies that are precariously dependent on an insecure food supply. A single day's unsuccessful hunt could lead to a night on short rations and a three-day failure could be the beginning of life-threatening famine. An attitude of let-us-enjoy-when-and-what-we-can is understandable in such circumstances even if perhaps not from a nutritionist's point of view.
A diet very rich in animal fats together with the occasional over-indulgence cried out for a counter-balance in the form of starchy roots, vegetables and fruit. These were available throughout the year but most abundant during the dry season. Gathering the unglamorous but necessary supplements was left to the women. If an all-male hunting party, especially an unsuccessful one, happened to come across such items, they might stoop to gather and bring home. We may suspect a form of hunters' re-insurance against hurtful wifely comments on inadequate hunting prowess and related matters. The following description of a normal day in camp has been left to us by one of the last qualified eyewitness observers to have seen a traditional routine day:
