5. THE TRIBES

5.5  The Jangil (Rutland Jarawa)

The interior of the large and hilly island of Rutland, lying just off the south coast of Southern Great Andaman, was home to the most obscure of all Andamanese tribes. For reasons that are not entirely clear, Andmanologists do not so much deny this tribe's separate existence as simply ignore it. On the rare occasions when the Rutland-Jarawa are mentioned at all, it is quietly assumed that they were ordinary Jarawa. The interchangeability of the terms "Jarawa" and "Onge" during the 19th century and into the 1930s contributed to the confusion. It does not explain the long lasting wilful neglect of the available evidence right up to today.

The last time the Jangil tribe of Rutland was officially mentioned (as far as we know) was in the Census of India, 1931, where on page 8 it is stated:

“In addition there was a fourth clan of Jarawas of which nothing has been seen since 1907”.

The mention of four "Jarawa" tribes does not refer to what we today call Jarawas. It meant all the Andamanese Negrito groups (the Onge, Sentineli and the Jarawa proper as well as, here, the Jangil).

What the evidence suggests is that Rutland Island until the late 19th and perhaps into the early 20th century not only had Aka-Bea and Onge fishing and hunting communities along its coasts but also a Jarawa-like tribe living in its interior. The vegetation of Rutland Island is unlike that of the nearly impenetrable jungle in which the Jarawa tribes of Great Andamans lived and still live. Though hilly, Rutland Island has, like North Sentinel Island, mostly dry sandy soils and the island is overgrown with fairly open jungle and brush.

The Andaman Association has in its collection a photograph, probably by M.V. Portman, that must have been taken in the 1890s; It is simply labeled "a Rutland hut" and shows a rather large structure that resembles a Sentineli communal hut more than anything else (see chapter 14, plate 14-4). It does not look at all like a Great Andamanese or Jarawa hut. This raises the possibility that the Jangil were more closely related to the Sentineli than to the Onge or Jarawa. The photograph is shown in the later chapter "Huts and Kitchen-Midden." Incidentally, to the best of our knowledge there does not exist a single photograph of a Jangil person.

We only have one source for the existence of a distinct Andamanese group in the interior of Rutland Island. But this solitary source is of such quality that there can be little doubt as to the tribe's separate existence. The redoubtable Portman was in no doubt about the separate existence of the tribe. As he wrote in 1899:

“It must be remembered that at this time [1874] it was thought that the Jarawas on the South Andaman, and those of Rutland Island, were one tribe”.

It was Portman who recorded the fact that the Aka-Bea called the Rutlanders "strangers" (Jarawa) or Jangil. In order to distinguish the Rutlanders from the Jarawa living on Great Andaman, we shall use the term Jangil here. The meaning of the Term "Jangil" (which Portman himself puts into quotation marks) is not explained.

Throughout the 1880s and for some years later expeditions went into Jarawa country, including Rutland Island in search of the elusive groups. As far as the Jangil are concerned, only traces of recent occupation, occasionally with signs of a hurried departure and still burning home fires, but no people were found. The failure of so many search parties crisscrossing the country was later justified towards higher authority as a measure to accustom the Jarawa to the British presence. The early expeditions, including those led by Portman himself, though with a distinct military flavor, were generally peaceful attempts at making contact. Portman himself suggested in the mid-1890s that the Jangil, "who have not been much molested by us" should be rather more molested in future. This was rather out of character for someone normally so sympathetic and understanding of the Andamanese. Portman even went so far as to suggest the construction of a network of supply tracks through the jungle from Portman Bay in order to facilitate molestation. Nothing came of it and the interior of Rutland Island with its Jangil seems to have been forgotten after the turn of the century. The Jangil never suffered the sort of genocidal military expedition mounted between 1910 and 1930 against the Jarawa on Great Andaman.

In July 1884, at long last, did an expedition actually capture a Jangil, a male aged around 30 years. The captive man called himself Habia and it was assumed that this was his name. He was brought to Port Blair where it was found that he spoke a language different from but related to that spoken by the Jarawa of Great Andaman. Habia himself was described as "friendly but half-witted." After a fortnight at Port Blair he fell sick and was returned to Rutland Island, never to been seen again.

Portman says that Habia could not speak the same language as the tribe of Jarawas on the mainland, and that he was an Aryoto and not an Eremtaga, as they are. I [Portman] could, however, distinguish a connection between the two languages, and at some former period they were undoubtedly the same."

It is infuriating that Portman does not give more detail than this on Habia's language although he must have studied it fairly closely to make such a remark. The cryptic reference to Habia being an "Aryoto" must remain unexplained. It may be a printing error, transposing the two terms, or perhaps it meant merely that Habia was different from the "ordinary" Jarawa who, in Portman's time, were all Eremtaga. Portman himself later calls the Jangil Eremtaga. The possibility that the captive was an Onge visitor to Rutland can be discounted. Mr. Portman had visited Onges on Little Andaman several times since 1880 would have recognized the Onge language when he heard it.

It took another ten years before the tribe appeared again in the records. In 1894 a small boat returning from collecting edible birds' nests sailed under the cliff on the southeastern corner of Rutland Island. A group of Jangil surprised the owner of the boat, Moung Yu, by waving at him from their clifftop lookout. However, when he turned his boat towards them he was given unmistakable signs that they wanted no closer contact. Mr. Portman remarked on this incident that Moung Yu had the sense not to land or annoy the Jangil in any way. Interestingly, Portman added that he knew there was a Jangil village on that particular cliff and that he had often visited it and left presents but that he had never met anybody there.

The third and last recorded contact with the Jangil tribe took place in 1895 when a party of Aka-Bea captured an elderly couple on Rutland Island near the place of Moung Yu's experience. The two were the only people found in a village and probably no longer capable of running away. They were brought to Port Blair and handed over to the inevitable Portman who was eager to take them to Little Andaman to see whether they could converse with the Onge. The plan had to be abandoned in a hurry when both began to sicken and pine in the well-known Andamanese way. Both were returned to the place where they had been captured. All that could be established in the short time available was that in personal appearance, in their weapons and ornaments, the Jangil resembled the Onge and not the Jarawa - but also that they were definitively not Onge. The question of the Jangil language remained unsettled, much to Portman's chagrin. The captives spoke so rapidly and indistinctly with each other that no recognizable words could be made out.

The Jangil couple's attitude towards their situation, surroundings and to each other was peculiar. As Portman observed

While at my house the man, who was surly and evil-tempered, kept begging my Andamanese to kill him by throttling him or cutting his throat, and rejected all overtures of friendship. His wife appeared to be friendlier and was pleasant looking, but when she was willing to make friends with us her husband abused and beat her, and once tried to kill her when she went away for a short distance with an Andamanese woman, being only prevented from doing so by his guards.

Although the Jangil are reported as having been "numerous in former times" it can only mean that they were more numerous in the days before the British became aware of their existence. The interior of the small and not very fertile Rutland Island with little or no access to the resources of the sea would not have provided a living from more than a small group at the best of times. It is conceivable that before the arrival of Aka-Bea coastal settlers the Jangil controlled the entire island and then could indeed have been much more numerous. The fact is that we just do not know. We also have no idea whether their relationship to the Aka-Bea was as hostile as was that of the Jarawa on Great Andaman. From the fact that the Jangil vanished shortly after the turn of the century at roughly the same time as the Aka-Bea, makes it likely that there was some intercourse between the two groups, enough to allow the penetration of new diseases into their community.

After 1895 the Jangil vanish from the record. All we know is that in 1907 the last contact was made (though we have found no information on what happened then) and during in the early 1920s a British expedition into the interior of Rutland Island found no trace of human habitation.