6. A TRADITIONAL SOCIETY
6.2 Territory
The traditional Andamanese aborigine had a very limited geographical horizon. Members of one group were unaware of the existence of other groups living as little as 30 km (20 miles) away. The ignorance of the traditional Andamanese (apart from the Onge) of their island geography was profound: they knew and cared only about their own hunting grounds and those of their neighbours. The Andamanese seem to have been quite unconscious of being one people and there was no fellow-feeling towards other Andamanese. Quite the contrary, in fact. If a member of one tribe found himself accidentally adrift in his canoe, fetching up on the beach of another tribe, his goose would as surely be cooked as if he had been a shipwrecked British sailor: he would be killed. A feeling of belonging together would only come to the Andamanese after the outsiders and their diseases had cut the ground from under all of them.
The hunting ground (which among Aryoto groups also included fishing grounds) was the local group's most valuable, indeed it’s only, possession. It was held in common. The territory provided its members with all the essentials of life. Not surprisingly since the group's survival depended on it, the rights to the land were fiercely defended. So strong was the claim to the ancestral hunting grounds that as late as the early 20th century permission to hunt had to be sought from the owning group even if one frail old survivor was all that was left of it. In happier days, each member of the local group had the right to hunt and gather on the land held by his or her local group. Most borders between territories had been fixed from time immemorial; they were immutable and known to all. Trespassing and poaching could lead to bloody and sometimes long-lasting feuds between neighbours. As we have seen, the relationship between the richer Aryoto and the poorer Eremtaga was at best an uneasy one because the latter could not always resist the temptation the formers' richer territories presented. Generally speaking, borders separating Aryoto and Eremtaga groups were less well-defined than others and seem to have still been in the long drawn-out process of being sorted out through feuds and agreements - until 1858 made it all irrelevant. Local groups had carved up practically all the territory of the Andaman archipelago among themselves, only a few areas like Saddle Peak were avoided by all. In some places long-forgotten border disputes left traces of what must have been negotiated peace accords: there were areas over which two groups could hunt, others where one group had the hunting and another the gathering rights while at still other places two groups could hunt and gather at different times of the year.
6.3 Names
The local groups did not have their own names but instead were known by the area they occupied. This could be a major land feature, a hill, a rock, a creek, an island or the name of the main campsite. For example, a local group of the Aka-Bale tribe living on the island of Teb-juru was known as the Teb-juru-wa, wa meaning "people". The northern equivalent of wa was koloko but the system of naming local groups was the same. A local group of the northern Aka-Bo tribe that lived on a creek (buliu) called Terant was known, with irresistible logic, Ter-ant-buliu-koloko. Of 58 place names that could be translated, 39 referred to trees and plants, 12 to topographic features and 7 to socio-cultural aspects. In the old days, it would have been very rare to come across a person from an unknown local group so that the names of local groups became useful only after 1858 when people started to move around and had to identify themselves to strangers.
6.4 Friend and foe
It was more tradition, an established and known position in society, rather than personal spontaneous likes and dislikes that determined conduct towards others. Not to be known and without somebody well-known to introduce him or her, could place any stranger in mortal danger. With their friendliness-rating like an impersonal computer program at the back of traditional Andamanese minds, ship-wrecked sailors never stood a chance. Among Jarawa the same schematic way of treating strangers is still very much alive today. We have mentioned in a previous chapter how Indian anthropologists through patient efforts and much gift-giving had over the years established a sort of friendship with two Jarawa groups. Although these groups were "tamed" to a degree, any stranger who had the bad luck to chance upon them would be placed in a very dangerous position, especially if he did not immediately offer lots of presents. New faces were safe only if accompanied by someone familiar. Policemen had accompanied parties of anthropologists and some became well-known and liked by the Jarawa. In the 1980s and 1990s, after retirement, a few of these guardians of law and order established lucrative businesses bringing tourists to the Jarawa to shake hands and be photographed. Such illegal practices dramatically increase the risk of disease among the Jarawa and will undoubtedly hasten the demise (Absterben) of these groups. Even the rare Western tourists, despite their alien appearance and light skin colour, are readily accepted by the Jarawa as long as the beturbanned ex-policeman come along and as long as presents are handed out.
Among groups in close touch with outsiders, the standard friendliness-rating did not long survive 1858. We cannot say whether the Greater Andamanese of the later 19th century "really" liked their British masters, especially since there were only a few exceptional individuals among the British and virtually none among the convicts (Strafgefangene) who took an informed and sympathetic interest in the aboriginal population (Ureinwohner). The Andamanese no doubt respected and greatly feared their colonial masters, their guns and superior technology. Doubtlessly they also disliked the ordinary British sailor and soldier for the incurable habit of pilfering anything moveable from any Andamanese village visited. As regards the mostly Indian or Burmese convicts that made up the main population of the islands, the Andamanese developed a new standard friendliness-rating.
