14. POTTERY, TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY

​​​​So far we have discussed mostly implements made and used by males. The one craft where the Andamanese did not have to fear comparison with other people was women's work: they excelled at basket-weaving. Not only were woven items made with relatively sophisticated techniques, they were also attractively decorated through variously colored materials. Even decorative shells were sometimes woven into the males. This is rather a contrast to the often clumsy items made by the stronger sex. Baskets were used for storage and came in all shapes and sizes. They were used to protect portable pottery as well as to wrap and hang up hunting trophies. Mats were used as roofing material and as ground covers to sleep on. Mats could be 1.5 m (5 ft) wide and up to 10 m (33 ft) long. When used for sleeping, the unused portion remained rolled up to serve as pillow. Only the best available quality of calamus cane or rattan was used.

There were a number of minor stylistic and technical differences between the various tribes. It is noticeable that items made by men developed further apart in style without advancing much or at all technically while the women made technically more advanced items but did not let their styles drift apart over time.

In order to adjust their personal appearance - important to all Andamanese of either sex and of any age - they filled shells of the huge tridacna bivalve with water and, hey presto, there was a serviceable mirror.

Rope, string and thread had and still have many uses in the Andamans. They ranged and range from ropes attached to harpoons or anchors, to bow-strings and strings needed to hold roofs to house frames, to the strings needed to attach outriggers to canoes, arrow heads to arrows, to the thread and string needed to make nets, baskets and personal ornaments. Rope was made by men but string and thread could be made by both sexes whenever it was needed. Fibers, bark and bast of many different plants could be taken, depending on the planned use.

Perhaps surprising for a people who never invented the fish hook, the Andamanese made relatively sophisticated fishing nets. Rope nets for catching turtle and dugong could be 150 cm (5 ft) deep and of widely varying length. Such nets were placed in relatively shallow water with stones holding them to the bottom while floats with tassels above the water level marked the position and signaled the movement of any large creature caught in it. Much smaller hand-nets made of string were used to catch small fish and crustaceans by women wading in shallow water. Nets were also used as baskets for storing small items and, often colored with clay, could be worn around the neck as personal ornaments.

Men hunted creatures large and small exclusively with bow-and-arrow and harpoons while net-making and hunting with nets was usually left to the women, the men helping only occasionally and briefly with the large nets.

Whether the simple level of Andamanese material culture was the result of being separated at a very early stage of development from the technical progress of the outside world, whether long isolation caused more and more skills deteriorating or being lost altogether, or whether genetic inbreeding among their small numbers was responsible for the faltering inventiveness must remain an open question. There is evidence for all three processes but without a great deal of additional, especially archaeological research there is no way to establish which of these processes was the decisive one.