4. QUESTIONS OF CHARACTER

It took a fifth visit to the same Jarawa group a short time later before the outsiders saw another side of the native character: the outburst of a tarendsek. Someone had tried to photograph the inside of a hut but the reaction of the women there was such that the attempt had to be abandoned. At an earlier visit, flashlights had been used and that seemed to have frightened the Jarawas of any kind of cam-era. One of the women who had been so obviously against the photographing told her husband (returning from the Indian boat, laden with presents) of the incident. The furious husband screamed, roared and made threatening gestures to-wards the visitors. They, at first, did not know if he was genuinely angry or if he was just trying to impress his wife. It soon it became clear that he was both. The man approached the outsiders and began to search their pockets, later picking up sea shells to throw at them. When a cameraman tried to film him, he turned still more furious and tried to tear the teleobjective out of its case and then to snatch the camera itself. He was distracted when a comb was offered to him, an item that no Jarawa had yet seen. He took it but not without snatching the straw-hat from on one of the bystanders, bringing both items to his wife. She had stood quietly nearby all the time, watching the scene that her husband was so busy creating. The man then returned and repeated this several times. A policeman experienced in dealing with the Jarawas entreated all to keep calm and to give the man whatever he demanded without offering any resistance. By this time the man had worked himself up into such a state that he was frothing at the mouth and seemed to be close to running amuck. Yet he remained rational and greedy enough to continue looking for additional items to loot. When the other Jarawas who had only stood by and watched the spectacle this far saw that the man was finding more and more new items that had been hidden in the visitors' pockets, they too started to loot. Only the raging man was shouting and screaming, how-ever, the others merely seemed to take advantage of the situation. One of the policemen present understood a little of the Jarawa language and could tell the others that the man wanted their presents but did not want to be photographed. The Jarawas love games to show off their strength and so the outsiders began to lift each other up. The tarendsek tried it too but found to his astonishment and renewed fury that he could not lift the stoutest of the outsiders. There seemed to be nothing but to go back on board with the Jarawas, including the tarendsek, following. In an attempt to divert the Jarawas, the crew took the entire party on a sightseeing trip down the coast. Unfortunately, this failed to impress. While the boat was moving, the man who had been at the centre of all the trouble had qui-eted down and was sitting calmly on a water cask, preening himself. He was re-pairing the typical Jarawa piece of apparel while he was wearing it, a corset-like contraption that looks like an old-fashioned corset but is worn only by men, probably for decorative purposes. Nearby, a woman was squeezing an old wound and wiped the resulting blood and pus on what minimal clothing she wore. When she saw the revulsion at her surgical procedure on the visitors' faces, she laughed out loud and made a game of it. Another man had climbed up the mast and was sing-ing a song that had not been heard before. Slowly, peace and quiet returned to the disturbed party. According to the police interpreter (who had trouble following the rapid-fire conversations), the Jarawas were now merely insulting their hosts by calling them playfully 'idiots,' 'long noses' or 'skin-and-bones.' When the boat returned to the home beach, the visitors finally left but not without a great deal of delay and not without each of them having been lifted up once more.

The Onge often displayed similarly mischievous, if not childish, behaviour. On one occasion in 1887 Portman had set up and adjusted a prismatic compass on a Little Andaman beach when one of the many Onge spectators came up and knocked it down. Mission accomplished, he just stood there grinning at Portmann who reacted by grinning back and hitting the man over the head with the stand of the compass. Many spectators then left in a hurry, clearly expecting trouble, but those remaining did not interfere with Portman's work. There was no further trouble.

Deception and cunning duplicity has always been the preferred weapon of the weak against the strong. When an enemy seemed too strong for outright attack, as the British were in relation to the Aka-Bea after 1858, the natives pretended friendliness while biding their time. Genuine cooperation and friendly feelings towards the intruders on the part of the Aka-Bea grew only up after three Andamanese men had been sent to Burma for two months in 1860. On their return, they told the others that the fight was hopeless. Deception remained an important weapon in the Andamanese arsenal, however, and the British were often taken aback by the lack of fair play in the jungle. On the other hand, the Andamanese were outraged by the clearing of their jungles, by violent parties of es-caped convicts passing through their hunting grounds, followed by pursing parties of prison guards, both groups pilfering the aboriginal huts as they went.

The Andamanese were often accused of laziness. The charge can be true only from the point of view of societies whose members regard the daily drudgery in fields, factories and offices as the height of civilization. A hunting-gathering society in a bountiful tropical jungle had no use for and no concept of hard work. Hunting was not "work," it provided not only meat but much entertainment and excitement. Many well-meaning outsiders tried to introduce the joys of agriculture to the Andamanese, to the point where the idea was called the igniis fatuus of many British officers. Again and again it was found, after spending much effort, labour and money that the Andamanese would rather do without the new luxuries if the only way to get them was to work. Fishing lines (left out overnight and then pulled in heavy with fish the following morning) were demonstrated to the Onge who showed polite interest but who did not take up the idea. Nets were what their fathers had used and nets were what they continued to use. The attempt to make the Andamanese breed their favourite food, pigs, also failed. Breeding your food was less fun than hunting it. In an another chapter we have already mentioned the fate of the coconut palm and how it was practically extinguished in the islands because all nuts were immediately eaten with none left to germinate. Many other plants, occurring naturally or deliberately introduced, suffered a similar fate. The natives used what they needed down to the last seed, leave, root or stem, never giving a thought to leaving a few seeds or whole plants to regenerate the supply.

For some reason, the Onge treated yam differently: they applied a form of 'un-conscious agriculture' to it. The Onge believed that wild yam be-longed to the spirits of the forest who would take most unkindly to the looting of their property. The women elegantly got around the problem by digging up the plant, cutting off the useable parts and then sticking the remnant back into the earth. The spirits never noticed the theft and the plant had a chance to regenerate and provide future nourishment.

With no hard labour to take up their time, much time and effort was ex-pended on personal appearance. Vanity was a widespread Andamanese weakness. To the last man and woman, they were all convinced of and fascinated by their own good looks. A lot of time was spent on beauty care, on shaving and on painting their bodies. Given this preoccupation, it is not surprising to find that to criticize another person's looks or decorations was a serious matter. Among the worst terms of abuse were "your nose is ugly" or "your mouth is deformed." The Jarawa bad-mouthing of their hosts mentioned above was strong language by Andamanese standards.



The following grab-bag of generalizations was compiled by government officials who were closely and personally acquainted with Andamanese living not more than three generations after the watershed of 1858. Some formulations may grate on late 20th century susceptibilities while others reflect the Victorian prejudices of the authors. The list is worth quoting all the same: