4. QUESTIONS OF CHARACTER

Throughout life [the Andamanese] retains the main characteristics of the child: very short but strong memory; suspicious of, but hospitable to, strangers; ungrateful; imitative and watchful of his companions and neighbours; vain, and under the spur of vanity industrious and persevering; teachable up to a quickly reached limit; fond of undefined games and practical jokes; too happy and care-less to be affected in temperament by his superstitions; too careless, indeed, to store water even for a voyage; plucky but not courageous; reckless only from ignorance or in appreciation of danger; selfish but not without generosity, chivalry, and a sense of honour; petulant; hasty of temper; entirely irresponsible and childish in action in his wrath, and equally quickly to forget; affectionate; lively in his movements, and exceedingly taking in his moments of good temper. As a rule, the Andamanese are gentle and pleasant to each other; considerate to the aged, the weakly and the helpless, and to captives; kind to their wives, and proud of their children, whom they often over-pet; but when angered, cruel and jealous, treacherous and vindictive, and always unstable. They are bright, merry companions; talkative, inquisitive, and restless; busy in their own pursuits; keen sports-men and naturally independent, absorbed in the chase from sheer love of it and other physical occupations; and not lustful, indecent, and indecently abusive. As the years advance they are apt to become intractable, masterful, and quarrel-some; a people to like but not to trust. Exceedingly conservative and bound up in ancestral custom, not amenable to civilization; all the teaching of years bestowed on some of them has introduced no abstract ideas among the tribesmen, and changed no habit in practical matters affecting comfort, health, and mode of life. Irresponsibility is a characteristic, though instances of a keen sense of responsibility are not wanting. The intelligence of the women is good, though not as a rule equal to that of the men. In old age, however, they frequently exhibit a considerable mental capacity which is respected. Several women trained in a former local mission orphanage from early childhood have shown much mental aptitude and capacity, the savagery in them, however, only dying down as they grow old. They can read and write well, understand and speak English correctly, have acquired European habits completely, and possess much shrewdness and common sense. The highest general type of intelligence yet noticed is in the Jarawa tribe.

4.9 Problems of communication

What is not mentioned here is an Andamanese characteristic that many re-searchers must have suspected but may have been too bashful or embarrassed to mention. The Andamanese were what we today would call very private per-sons. They did not like to be interviewed and there is no question that they, deliberately and with malicious aforethought, told barefaced lies. Even when telling what they saw as the truth, the cultural chasm between interviewer and interviewee was often too deep to be bridged. And then there was the language problem: the language barrier is rarely mentioned in reports but it remains a fact that very few researchers were adequate in one or more of the Andamanese languages. Investigators were, and some still are, remarkably coy about their own linguistic skills or lack thereof. Handicapped by inadequate linguistic skills, investigators either tried to muddle through interviews using sign language or worked with translators of questionable competence and integrity. Too often, the mischievous natives had their sport with the earnest seekers after truth. Many items published, especially on religious beliefs, are reported by only one author and the resulting shapeless mass of confused, contradictory and uncorroborated detail available might well be due to the unwillingness of the Andamanese to explain themselves and to the inability of the two sides to understand each other. There may be yet another source of confusion: in everyday life, the Andamanese were capable of logical and consistent thinking, were shrewd observers of natural forces as well as of human character. In their myths, legends and stories, however, they could cheerfully hold many contradictory beliefs simultaneously without be-ing disturbed in the slightest when the inconsistencies were pointed out to them. They do not seem to have had a concept of "reality." Whatever someone did or thought or believed at any moment was reality and was true even if it could change at a moment's notice. Consistency was not an Andamanese obsession.

4.10 Friendship with the Andamanese

In the list of characteristics quoted above, the discrepancy between the natives' hospitality and their well-documented hostility to outsiders is especially striking. The Andamanese could indeed be the most charming and generous hosts but only if they recognized and accepted the visitor as a friend. It was extremely difficult for an outsider to be so accepted. Shipwrecked survivors with lootable belongings or escaped convicts did not stand a chance. It took many years of patient application of the carrot and the stick to encourage the Great Andamanese not to kill but to help shipwrecked people and to notify the authorities. In return, they were then unofficially allowed to loot the wrecks for iron, leaving all parties more or less satisfied. Less happy were escaped convicts caught by the Andamanese. Encouraged by the British, the Great Andamanese had stopped killing escapees outright but instead began to make a cottage industry out of catching and turning over escaped convicts for reward. Escapees were terrified of the little black hunters and both sides often murdered before they could be murdered. Although friendly relations between convicts and Andamanese are known to have existed, for escapees in the jungle the law of the jungle prevailed in a most literal sense. When the Andamanese had apprehended an escapee and been kind enough not to have killed him, the prisoner did not have an easy time of it. Before turning him in, the natives would humiliate their prisoner, make him beg for his life and make him work for his food. It may not have been an agreeable experience but it was still better than being dispatched in the traditional way.

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4.11 Dudhnath Tewari

There is one well-documented case of an outsider being accepted or at least tolerated by the natives: that of the escaped Indian convict Dudhnath Tewari. In April 1858 he had run off with 90 others into the jungle around Port Blair. The group wandered aimlessly, suffering from lack of food and water. After thirteen days of this, they suddenly found themselves encircled by a war party of about 100 native men who immediately set about massacring the defenceless crowd. Dudhnath had been seriously wounded by three arrows when he managed to escape and hide. Two others had also done likewise. The next morning the three survivors tried to resume their wanderings but were spotted by a new group of 60 natives including women and children. They, too, attacked at once and again Dudhnath survived, by feigning death. The natives pulled him out of his hiding place and despite piteous pleading shot more arrows at him from a short distance. Again he survived. After playing dead yet again and then by pleading for mercy when the natives came up to him to pull their arrows out of his body, his assailants finally relented. They looked after his wounds and took him to their camp. The incident is extreme but seems characteristic of the unpredictable Andamanese behaviour. Dudhnath stayed with his group and moved all over south-ern Great Andaman and the Labyrinth islands with them, never staying long in one place. He adapted to his new circumstances, learnt the language, wore no clothes, shaved his head and apart from his slowly-healing wounds enjoyed the best of health despite the unhygienic conditions of traditional Andamanese life. We can only marvel at such resilience. The natives remained suspicious of Dudhnath, however, and never allowed him near a weapon. After about four months of this, the chief of the group suddenly and without discussion made over his daughter aged 20 as wife along with a much younger girl which Dudhnath mistakenly thought of as a second wife. The bridegroom later complained movingly about the lack of fuss surrounding his marriage.

During the following months of wandering, Dudhnath found out about a native plan to attack and loot Port Blair. He travelled with his group towards Port Blair until he could break away and warn the British. This he managed to do at the last possible moment. The attack took place in late Spring 1859 and is known rather melodramatically as the "Battle of Aberdeen." No one had thought the natives capable of organizing an attack on such a scale. Just as surprising to the British was the fact that the Andamanese could distinguish not only between convicts and jailers but also between the different ranks of convicts. Unless actively op-posed, they left the ordinary convicts alone and concentrated their attacks on supervising convicts and British officers. It was to be the only such large-scale attack. Dudhnath received an unconditional pardon from the British for his part in the battle and spent the rest of his life telling tall stories about his adventures among the savages.

4.12 Joseph

Another case also illustrates that at least some Andamanese did not lack an ability to learn. An 8 year old Andamanese orphan boy named Joseph was adopted during the 1870s by a British army doctor, Dr. Joseph, on the overwhelming grounds that they shared the same name. The boy was placed in a good school first in Rangoon and then in Bangalore where he acquired a knowledge of Hindi and English. After the death of his foster-father, who had neglected to make any provision for him, Joseph struck out on his own and was reported wandering all over India, learning Tamil and Telugu on the way. Joseph's unusual appearance as Negrito at one stage brought him the offer of a position in the brass band of the Raja of Vishakhapatnam (Vizianagram). It also made it easy for the British authorities to track the boy's progress through India. We meet Joseph later as cabin servant on board a passenger liner, as an employee of a Rangoon hospital, in service on board a British gunboat and finally for some unspecified offence, probably drink, serving a short sentence in jail. He was picked up in the streets of Rangoon, by this time aged around 20, and sent back to the Andamans where he attracted unfavourable attention by forging signatures to get at alcoholic drinks. His behaviour became so unruly that he was sent back into the Andamanese jungle. Next we hear of him when he received a Jarawa arrow in the leg but the circumstances of this adventure are not reported. Some years later he finally and no doubt to the relief of the authorities married and settled down on Middle An-daman, finding responsible work as supervisor of the local trepang fisheries. A little later he came as close to the pinnacle of local high-society as any Andamanese ever did when in the early 1890s he was attached as an orderly to the French anthropologist Lapique who visited Port Blair on his yacht and who wanted to see a ”vrai sauvage”. Joseph was a lot more than a 'true savage' even though the Victorian worthies whose reports are all that is left of his life called him a scoundrel and blackguard. With the advantage of distance in time, we can see an Andamanese orphan whose considerable talents were not (and given his environment, time and circumstances could not have been) appreciated by his con-temporaries.