8. THE ROLE OF WOMAN

Not many Andamanese men come alive as persons in the dusty colonial records. Fewer still are the women that are more than insubstantial shadows. The woman Hina, called Topsy or Madam Cooper by the British, was one such. We first meet her when her husband Tura (called Jumbo by the British and described as a mild and not very intelligent man) was unjustly imprisoned and even put in irons for several months. He had killed a British sailor, Pratt, after the latter had tried to rape his wife Hina. We will return to the Pratt case in a later chapter. Hina was brought to Ross island off Port Blair where her husband was kept prisoner. The Officer in Charge of the Andamanese, British clergyman Corbyn, decided to teach her and some other Andamanese women sewing and English. His draconian discipline went some way to overcome the natural resistance to concentrated work on the part of his charges but it made for a depressing atmosphere. Happily or not, Hina learnt enough English during this time to be invaluable to the British later.

She must have been a very strong, intelligent and determined character. In one remarkable incident, an exploring party under Corbyn found itself surrounded by many furious Andamanese men, clearly determined on wholesale slaughter. Taking Hina by the hand, Corbyn bravely advanced towards the Andamanese leader whom he later described as the picture of savage hatred. Hina forcefully addressed the headman in such a manner as to make him hand over his bow and arrows to Corbyn and meekly follow Hina and Corbyn to Ross island with two of his followers.

At an Andamanese party for British visitors in the jungle a dagger was borrowed to kill a pig. The dagger was not returned to its owner Corbyn who, for educational reasons, decided to make a big fuss about it. The aboriginal thief was clapped in irons and brought to British headquarters on Ross island. Hina conducted the delicate negotiations with consummate skill, explaining the British actions to her fellow Aka-Bea. As a result of her efforts, the dagger reappeared and the thief was set free. Hina became a widely popular and respected figure among her people and an important channel of information between aborigines and outsiders. She was rightly proud of her high status which, uniquely among Andamanese, she had acquired through her own intelligence and talent.

Hina subsequently went on several British exploratory expeditions, sometimes very much against her will. As Corbyn coolly noted on one occasion, she had to be forced to act as guide against her pleading, screaming and crying. She seems to have been very fond of her husband and could not bear to be parted from him for long. When forced aboard ship she kept her eyes fixed on the dwindling figure of her husband who ran along the shore until he was out of hearing.

It was Hina who first mentioned a terrifying tribe living in the interior around Port Blair. The British had not before been aware of the Jarawas' existence. When one of Corbyn's expeditions turned into an unexplored creek in what is today called Corbyn's Cove southeast of Port Blair, Hina became highly agitated and made Corbyn understand that the way he was heading would lead directly to a terrible tribe. She then acted out a dramatic death scene to illustrate what would happen if they met the dread Jarawas.

Hina could also be quite devious: Andamanese men had acquired the habit of hiding their bows and arrows in the jungle from the thieving parties that visited them. For unknown reasons (perhaps she had an old grudge against the owner) Hina betrayed the hiding place of a large bundle of arrows to Corbyn, asking him tell everyone that he had found the hoard himself. The owner of the arrows had no choice but to accept the situation. It would have caused much ill-feeling if he had found out who was really behind his misfortune.

Corbyn also took Hina and Tura to Calcutta, along with another Andamanese man Jacko and 5 children. For a month they were a great attraction there with crowds clamoring to see the famed "cannibals" and "monkey people." The Andamanese did not show astonishment or interest at anything shown to them. Later, back in the Andamans, this was found to have been show and deception: in reality, they had been most attentive but would not admit their interest to the many strangers that watched their every move. The group was also taken to a meeting of the Asiatic Society and to a visit of the Calcutta museum.

When Corbyn was at pains in his official reports to stress that the Andamanese on Ross island were there of their own free will, he was stretching the truth. He used harsh methods, even by the standards of his time, to keep the Andamanese there. In his own ominous words "any disinclination to work was soon overcome by firmness." It was this excessive firmness that led to Hina's death. We do not know (but we can imagine) why one night in 1864 she and her husband Tura decided to swim ashore. They were both free to go, officially, at any time, but Corbyn may have refused permission or to supply a boat. Her husband made it across the few hundred meters between Ross island and the Port Blair shore but Hina did not. Her body was found floating in the sea a few days later. Tura was forcibly returned to Ross island. He was later appointed raja of a sept, dying a very old man in 1882.

We know Hina's life only for the two years 1863 and 1864 without any idea of her age . A British report after her death was her epitaph:

It is a pity that more care was not taken of the woman Topsy who seems to have been invaluable.

Another - indeed the only other - Andamanese woman who is more than just a name is Ruth. Neither her original Andamanese name nor her origins are known. We first hear of her as domestic servant of Mr. Homfray. After her employer's death she never stayed in any employment for long because of her tendency to "form liaisons" with other servants and for getting pregnant. Victorian society could be stuffy about such things, colonial society was stuffier still but stuffiest of all were outlying colonial societies on remote penal islands. Ruth's character in the official reports was denigrated ("about her character, the less said the better," "not all that could be wished" and "a bad character") but at least credit was given to her for the attention and love she lavished on her little daughter. The child's father was an Indian convict, an hospital official.

Ruth refused to return to her own people in the jungle when officialdom requested this of her. We do not know the background to the unusual refusal; most likely she wanted to stay with her lover, the father of her child. The official report coldly and unsympathetically stated merely that there seemed nothing for it but to permit her to marry the convict "for whom she had an affection." A convict needed permission to marry and he did not receive it. In a crowning burst of official callousness, the same report noted that Ruth's children should be "interesting scientifically."

The reports on Ruth were written by Portman himself. Elsewhere, he comes across as a humane observer with a sense of humor and a genuine sympathy for the Andamanese. These qualities seem to have deserted him completely in the case of Ruth.

Ruth was obviously talented, high-spirited and very emotional - anything but a stuffily moral Victorian character. She was employed at the Aberdeen School where her work was said to be far superior to that of other seamstresses. A strict watch was kept over her movements by officials concerned about public morals. Later, after an unspecified misconduct, she was dismissed from her post at which she had been so much better than others and instead was given old clothes to mend. When last heard of she was still at Port Blair and her little girl was learning English and Hindi as well as picking up some Andamanese from other children at the Andamanese Home. Nothing more is heard of Ruth nor what became of her daughter.