Note 103 — Chapter I

In the Jour. Royal Asiatic Soc., 1881, Mr M. V. Portman writes:—"Although traditions of a Creation, a Fall, a Deluge, and a future state have been recorded as extant among the Andamanese, there is reason to believe that these accounts are merely the Christian religion as formerly taught in the Andaman orphanages, and distorted among the natives; for, while the southern tribes have a legend of a stone house where the Deity was born, the northern tribes, who have not been brought into contact with the Settlement, have no such tradition;" but Mr E. H. Man records traditions of a Creation, Fall, and Deluge, obtained from aborigines possessing no knowledge of what had been taught to the few small children at the Orphanage (chiefly reading and writing, sewing, basket work, etc.), and moreover, doubts whether any of the latter were capable of giving an intelligent—if any—account of the views held by Christians on these subjects.

"The Andamanese traditions do not resemble those of Christians.... Savages in other parts of the world," writes Mr Man, "possessed traditions on the same subjects before missionaries or other Christians ever visited them."