Chapter V · THE INTERPRETATION OF ANDAMANESE CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS: CEREMONIAL

It is otherwise with the meaning of these customs. Every custom and belief of a primitive society plays some determinate part in the social life of the community, just as every organ of a living body plays some part in the general life of the organism. The mass of institutions, customs and beliefs forms a single whole or system that determines the life of the society, and the life of a society is not less real, or less subject to natural laws, than the life of an organism. To continue the analogy, the study of the meaning of savage customs is a sort of social physiology, and is to be distinguished from the study of origins, or changes of custom in just the same way that animal physiology is distinguished from the biology that deals with the origin of species, the causes of variation, and the general laws of evolution.

The problems that this chapter presents are therefore not historical but psychological or sociological. We have to explain why it is that the Andamanese think and act in certain ways. The explanation of each single custom is provided by showing what is its relation to the other customs of the Andamanese and to their general system of ideas and sentiments.

Thus the subject of the present chapter is not in any way affected by questions of the historical origin of the customs with which it deals, but is concerned only with those customs as they exist at the present day. Nor are we concerned with the comparison of the customs of the Andamanese with those of other savage races. Such comparisons are not only valueless for our purpose, but might be misleading. To draw any valid conclusion from the comparison of two apparently similar customs in two different societies, we must be sure that they are really similar, and to do this we need to know the true meaning of each of them considered by itself. The true comparative method consists of the comparison, not of one isolated custom of one society with a similar custom of another, but of the whole system of institutions, customs and beliefs of one society with that of another. In a word, what we need to compare is not institutions but social systems or types.

It is often urged that in ethnology description and interpretation should be most carefully separated. So far as this means that the facts observed by the ethnologist should be recorded free from all bias of interpretation, the necessity cannot be too often or too strongly urged. If, however, it is meant to imply that efforts at interpretation are to be excluded from works of descriptive ethnology, there is much to be said against such an opinion. In trying to interpret the institutions of a primitive society the field ethnologist has a great advantage over those who know the facts only at second hand. However exact and detailed the description of a primitive people may be, there remains much that cannot be put into such a description. Living, as he must, in daily contact with the people he is studying, the field ethnologist comes gradually to “understand” them, if we may use the term. He acquires a series of multitudinous impressions, each slight and often vague, that guide him in his dealings with them. The better the observer the more accurate will be his general impression of the mental peculiarities of the race. This general impression it is impossible to analyse, and so to record and convey to others. Yet it may be of the greatest service when it comes to interpreting the beliefs and practices of a primitive society. If it does not give any positive aid towards a correct interpretation, it at least prevents errors into which it is only too easy for those to fall who have not the same immediate knowledge of the people and their ways. Indeed it may be urged, with some reason, that attempts to interpret the beliefs of savages without any first-hand knowledge of the people whose beliefs are in question, are at the best unsatisfactory and open to many possibilities of error.

It is clear that such studies need to be based on a scientific and carefully elaborated method. Unfortunately ethnologists are not yet agreed as to the methods of their science. The question of method is therefore, at the present time, of the greatest importance, and for this reason I have tried, in the present chapter, to present the argument in such a way that the various steps of the analysis shall be immediately apparent, so that the reader may be able not only to judge the value of the conclusions, but also to form a clear idea of the psychological methods by which they are reached.

Any attempt to explain or interpret the particular beliefs and customs of a savage people is necessarily based on some general psychological hypothesis as to the real nature of the phenomena to be explained. The sound rule of method is therefore to formulate clearly and explicitly the working hypothesis on which the interpretation is based. It is only in this way that its value can be properly tested.

On this hypothesis the beliefs are primary, arising first merely as beliefs and then acquiring the power to influence action and so giving rise to all sorts of ceremonies and customs. Thus these customs are only to be explained by showing that they depend on particular beliefs. This hypothesis, which we may call the intellectualist hypothesis, has never, so far as I am aware, been very clearly formulated or defended, but it does seem to underlie many of the explanations of the customs of primitive man to be found in works on ethnology.

Using the term “social function” to denote the effects of an institution (custom or belief) in so far as they concern the society and its solidarity or cohesion, the hypothesis of this chapter may be more briefly resumed in the statement that the social function of the ceremonial customs of the Andaman Islanders is to maintain and to transmit from one generation to another the emotional dispositions on which the society (as it is constituted) depends for its existence.

The present chapter contains an attempt to apply this hypothesis to the ceremonial customs of the Andaman Islanders. An attempt will be made to show that there is a correspondence between the customs and beliefs of the Andamanese and a certain system of social sentiments, and that there is also a correspondence between these sentiments and the manner in which the society is constituted. It is an attempt to discover necessary connections between the different characters of a society as they exist in the present. No attempt will be made to discover or imagine the historical process by which these customs have come into existence.

For the clearer understanding of the argument it is necessary to draw attention to a few rules of method that will be observed. (1) In explaining any given custom it is necessary to take into account the explanation given by the natives themselves. Although these explanations are not of the same kind as the scientific explanations that are the objects of our search yet they are of great importance as data. Like the civilised man of Western Europe the savage of the Andamans seeks to rationalise his behaviour; being impelled to certain actions by mental dispositions of whose origin and real nature he is unaware, he seeks to formulate reasons for his conduct, or even if he does not so when left to himself he is compelled to when the enquiring ethnologist attacks him with questions. Such a reason as is produced by this process of rationalisation is rarely if ever identical with the psychological cause of the action that it justifies, yet it will nearly always help us in our search for the cause. At any rate the reason given as explaining an action is so intimately connected with the action itself that we cannot regard any hypothesis as to the meaning of a custom as being satisfactory unless it explains not only the custom but also the reasons that the natives give for following it. (2) The assumption is made that when the same or a similar custom is practised on different occasions it has the same or a similar meaning in all of them. For example, there are different occasions on which a personal name is avoided; it is assumed that there is something in common to all these occasions and that the meaning of the custom is to be discovered by ascertaining what that common element is. (3) It is assumed that when different customs are practised together on one and the same occasion there is a common element in the customs. This rule is the inverse of the last. As an example may be mentioned the different customs observed by mourners, which may be assumed to be all related to one another. The discovery of what is common to them all will explain the meaning of each. (4) I have avoided, as being misleading as well as unnecessary, any comparison of Andamanese customs with similar customs of other races. Only in one or two instances have I broken this rule, and in those I believe I am justified by special considerations.

Everywhere in human life the embrace is employed as an expression of such feelings as love, affection, friendship, i.e. of feelings of attachment between persons. There is no need to enquire into the psycho-physical basis of this expression. It is probably intimately related to the nursing of the infant by the mother, and is certainly very closely connected with the development of the sex instinct. It is sufficient for our purpose to satisfy ourselves that the embrace in all its forms does always express feelings of one generic kind. Nor is it necessary for us to consider the peculiar form of the Andamanese embrace, in which one person sits down and extends his or her legs, while the other person sits on the lap so formed and the two wrap their arms round one another’s necks and shoulders.

The meaning of the marriage ceremony is readily seen. By marriage the man and woman are brought into a special and intimate relation to one another; they are, as we say, united. The social union is symbolised or expressed by the physical union of the embrace. The ceremony brings vividly to the minds of the young couple and also to those of the spectators the consciousness that the two are entering upon a new social relation of which the essential feature is the affection in which they must hold one another.

The rite has two aspects according as we regard it from the standpoint of the witnesses or from that of the couple themselves. The witnesses, by their presence, give their sanction to the union that is thus enacted before them. The man who conducts the ceremony is merely the active representative of the community; in what he does and says he acts as a deputy and not as a private individual. Thus the ceremony serves to make it clear that the marriage is a matter which concerns not only those who are entering into it, but the whole community, and its occasional performance serves to keep alive this sentiment with regard to marriage in general. The existence of the sentiment is shown in the reprobation felt and often expressed at an irregular marriage, in which the couple unite without a ceremony; such a union showing a contemptuous or careless thrusting aside of an important social principle.

For the witnesses, then, the ceremony serves to awaken to activity and to express this sentiment; but it also serves as a recognition on their part of the change of status of the marrying pair. It makes them realise that henceforward the young couple must be treated no longer as children but as responsible adults, and it is thus the occasion of a change of sentiment towards those whose social position is being changed. For in the society of the Andamans there is a very marked division between married and unmarried persons in the way in which they are regarded by others, and in respect of their place in the community.

The married couple are made to realise, in a different way and with a much greater intensity of feeling, these same two things; first, that their union in marriage is a matter that concerns the whole community, and second, that they are entering a new condition, with new privileges but also with new duties and obligations. For them, indeed, the ceremony is a sort of ordeal from which they would only too gladly escape, and which, by the powerful emotions it evokes in them very vividly impresses upon them what their marriage means.

The wedding gifts that are bestowed upon the young couple are an expression of the general good-will towards them. The giving of presents is a common method of expressing friendship in the Andamans. Thus when two friends meet after separation, the first thing they do after having embraced and wept together, is to give one another presents. In most instances the giving is reciprocal, and is therefore really an exchange. If a present be given as a sign of good-will the giver expects to receive a present of about equal value in return. The reason for this is obvious; the one has expressed his good-will towards the other, and if the feeling is reciprocated a return present must be given in order to express it. So also it would be an insult to refuse a present offered, for to do so would be equivalent to rejecting the good-will it represents. At marriage the giving is one-sided, no return being expected, for it is an expression not of personal friendship on the part of the givers, but of the general social good-will and approval. It is for this reason that it is the duty of everybody who is present to make some gift to the newly-married pair.

The screen of fibre against which the passive participants in the ceremony stand has a peculiar symbolic meaning that will be explained later in the chapter. The only other elements of the ceremony are the weeping together, which will be dealt with very soon, and the exchange of weapons, which is simply a special form of the rite of exchanging presents as an expression of good-will. The special form is particularly appropriate as it would seem to ensure at least some months of friendship, for you cannot go out to fight a man with his weapons while he has yours.

The purpose of the ceremony is clearly to produce a change in the feelings of the two parties towards one another, feelings of enmity being replaced through it by feelings of friendship and solidarity. It depends for its effect on the fact that anger and similar aggressive feelings may be appeased by being freely expressed. Its social function is to restore the condition of solidarity between two local groups that has been destroyed by some act of offence.

The marriage ceremony and the peace-making dance both afford examples of the custom which the Andamanese have of weeping together under certain circumstances. The principal occasions of this ceremonial weeping are as follows: (1) when two friends or relatives meet after having been for some time parted, they embrace each other and weep together; (2) at the peace-making ceremony the two parties of former enemies weep together, embracing each other; (3) at the end of the period of mourning the friends of the mourners (who have not themselves been mourning) weep with the latter; (4) after a death the relatives and friends embrace the corpse and weep over it; (5) when the bones of a dead man or woman are recovered from the grave they are wept over; (6) on the occasion of a marriage the relatives of each weep over the bride and bridegroom; (7) at various stages of the initiation ceremonies the female relatives of a youth or girl weep over him or her.

First of all it is necessary to note that not in any of the above-mentioned instances is the weeping simply a spontaneous expression of feeling. It is always a rite the proper performance of which is demanded by custom. (As mentioned in an earlier chapter, the Andamanese are able to sit down and shed tears at will.) Nor can we explain the weeping as being an expression of sorrow. It is true that some of the occasions are such as to produce sorrowful feelings (4 and 5, for example), but there are others on which there would seem to be no reason for sorrow but rather for joy. The Andamanese do weep from sorrow and spontaneously. A child cries when he is scolded or hurt; a widow weeps thinking of her recently dead husband. Men rarely weep spontaneously for any reason, though they shed tears abundantly when taking part in the rite. The weeping on the occasions enumerated is therefore not a spontaneous expression of individual emotion but is an example of what I have called ceremonial customs. In certain circumstances men and women are required by custom to embrace one another and weep, and if they neglected to do so it would be an offence condemned by all right-thinking persons.

According to the postulate of method laid down at the beginning of the chapter we have to seek such an explanation of this custom as will account for all the different occasions on which the rite is performed, since we must assume that one and the same rite has the same meaning in whatever circumstances it may take place. It must be noted, however, that there are two varieties of the rite. In the first three instances enumerated above the rite is reciprocal, i.e. two persons or two distinct groups of persons weep together and embrace each other, both parties to the rite being active. In the other four instances it is one-sided; a person or group of persons weeps over another person (or the relics of a person) who has only a passive part in the ceremony. Any explanation, to be satisfactory, must take account of the difference between these two varieties.

I would explain the rite as being an expression of that feeling of attachment between persons which is of such importance in the almost domestic life of the Andaman society. In other words the purpose of the rite is to affirm the existence of a social bond between two or more persons.

We now come to a more difficult example of the rite, that at the end of mourning. It will be shown later in the chapter that during the period of mourning the mourners are cut off from the ordinary life of the community. By reason of the ties that still bind them to the dead person they are placed, as it were, outside the society and the bonds that unite them to their group are temporarily loosened. At the end of the mourning period they re-enter the society and take up once more their place in the social life. Their return to the community is the occasion on which they and their friends weep together. In this instance also, therefore, the rite may be explained as having for its purpose the renewal of the social relations that have been interrupted. This explanation will seem more convincing when we have considered in detail the customs of mourning. If it be accepted, then it may be seen that in the first three instances of the rite of weeping (those in which the action is reciprocal) we have conditions in which social relations that have been interrupted are about to be renewed, and the rite serves as a ceremony of aggregation.

Let us now consider the second variety of the rite, and first of all its meaning as part of the ceremony of marriage. By marriage the social bonds that have to that time united the bride and bridegroom to their respective relatives, particularly their female relatives such as mother, mother’s sister, father’s sister and adopted mother, are modified. The unmarried youth or girl is in a position of dependence upon his or her older relatives, and by the marriage this dependence is partly abolished. Whereas the principal duties of the bride were formerly those towards her mother and older female relatives, henceforth her chief duties in life will be towards her husband. The position of the bridegroom is similar, and it must be noted that his social relations with his male relatives are less affected by his marriage than those with his female relatives. Yet, though the ties that have bound the bride and bridegroom to their relatives are about to be modified or partially destroyed by the new ties of marriage with its new duties and rights they will still continue to exist in a weakened and changed condition. The rite of weeping is the expression of this. It serves to make real (by feeling), in those taking part in it, the presence of the social ties that are being modified.

When the mother of the bride or bridegroom weeps at a marriage she feels that her son or daughter is being taken from her care. She has the sorrow of a partial separation and she consoles herself by expressing in the rite her continued feeling of tenderness and affection towards him in the new condition that he is entering upon. For her the chief result of the rite is to make her feel that her child is still an object of her affection, still bound to her by close ties, in spite of the fact that he or she is being taken from her care.

Exactly the same explanation holds with regard to the weeping at the initiation ceremonies. By these ceremonies the youth (or girl) is gradually withdrawn from a condition of dependence on his mother and older female relatives and is made an independent member of the community. The initiation is a long process that is only completed by marriage. At every stage of the lengthy ceremonies therefore, the social ties that unite the initiate to these relatives are modified or weakened, and the rite of weeping is the means by which the significance of the change is impressed upon those taking part in it. For the mother the weeping expresses her resignation at her necessary loss, and acts as a consolation by making her feel that her son is still hers, though now being withdrawn from her care. For the boy the rite has a different meaning. He realises that he is no longer merely a child, dependent upon his mother, but is now entering upon manhood. His former feelings towards his mother must be modified. That he is being separated from her is, for him, the most important aspect of the matter, and therefore while she weeps he must give no sign of tenderness in return but must sit passive and silent. So also in the marriage ceremony, the rite serves to impress upon the young man and woman that they are, by reason of the new ties that they are forming with one another, severing their ties with their families.

When a person dies the social bonds that unite him to the survivors are profoundly modified. They are not in an instant utterly destroyed, as we shall see better when we deal with the funeral and mourning customs, for the friends and relatives still feel towards the dead person that affection in which they held him when alive, and this has now become a source of deep grief. It is this affection still binding them to him that they express in the rite of weeping over the corpse. Here rite and natural expression of emotion coincide, but it must be noted that the weeping is obligatory, a matter of duty. In this instance, then, the rite is similar to that at marriage and initiation. The man is by death cut off from the society to which he belonged, and from association with his friends, but the latter still feel towards him that attachment that bound them together while he lived, and it is this attachment that they express when they embrace the lifeless corpse and weep over it.

There remains only one more instance of the rite to be considered. When the period of mourning for a dead person is over and the bones are recovered the modification in the relations between the dead and the living, which begins at death, and is, as we shall see, carried out by the mourning customs and ceremonies, is finally accomplished. The dead person is now entirely cut off from the world of the living, save that his bones are to be treasured as relics and amulets. The weeping over the bones must be taken, I think, as a rite of aggregation whereby the bones as representative of the dead person (all that is left of him) are received back into the society henceforth to fill a special place in the social life. It really constitutes a renewal of social relations with the dead person, after a period during which all active social relations have been interrupted owing to the danger in all contact between the living and the dead. By the rite the affection that was once felt towards the dead person is revived and is now directed to the skeletal relics of the man or woman that once was their object. If this explanation seem unsatisfactory, I would ask the reader to suspend his judgment until the funeral customs of the Andamans have been discussed, and then to return to this point.

The proffered explanation of the rite of weeping should now be plain. I regard it as being the affirmation of a bond of social solidarity between those taking part in it, and as producing in them a realisation of that bond by arousing the sentiment of attachment. In some instances the rite therefore serves to renew social relations when they have been interrupted, and in such instances the rite is reciprocal. In others it serves to show the continued existence of the social bond when it is being weakened or modified, as by marriage, initiation or death. In all instances we may say that the purpose of the rite is to bring about a new state of the affective dispositions that regulate the conduct of persons to one another, either by reviving sentiments that have lain dormant, or producing a recognition of a change in the condition of personal relations.

The study of these simple ceremonies has shown us several things of importance. (1) In every instance the ceremony is the expression of an affective state of mind shared by two or more persons. Thus the weeping rite expresses feelings of solidarity, the exchange of presents expresses good-will. (2) But the ceremonies are not spontaneous expressions of feeling; they are all customary actions to which the sentiment of obligation attaches, which it is the duty of persons to perform on certain definite occasions. It is the duty of everyone in a community to give presents at a wedding; it is the duty of relatives to weep together when they meet. (3) In every instance the ceremony is to be explained by reference to fundamental laws regulating the affective life of human beings. It is not our business here to analyse these phenomena but only to satisfy ourselves that they are real. That weeping is an outlet for emotional excitement, that the free expression of aggressive feelings causes them to die out instead of smouldering on, that an embrace is an expression of feelings of attachment between persons: these are the psychological generalisations upon which are based the explanations given above of various ceremonies of the Andamanese. (4) Finally, we have seen that each of the ceremonies serves to renew or to modify in the minds of those taking part in it some one or more of the social sentiments. The peace-making ceremony is a method by which feelings of enmity are exchanged for feelings of friendship. The marriage rite serves to arouse in the minds of the marrying pair a sense of their obligations as married folk, and to bring about in the minds of the witnesses a change of feeling towards the young people such as should properly accompany their change of social status. The weeping and exchange of presents when friends come together is a means of renewing their feelings of attachment to one another. The weeping at marriage, at initiation, and on the occasion of a death is a reaction of defence or compensation when feelings of solidarity are attacked by a partial breaking of the social ties that bind persons to one another.

In the ceremonial life of the Andamans some part is played by dancing, and it will be convenient to consider next the meaning and function of the dance. It is necessary, however, to deal very briefly with this subject and omit much that would have to be included in an exhaustive study. Thus the ordinary Andaman dance may be looked upon as a form of play; it also shows us the beginnings of the arts of dancing, music and poetry; and therefore in any study pretending to completeness it would be necessary to discuss the difficult problem of the relation between art, play and ceremonial in social life, a subject of too wide a scope to be handled in such an essay as this. For our present purpose we are concerned with the dance only as a form of social ceremonial.

If an Andaman Islander is asked why he dances he gives an answer that amounts to saying that he does so because he enjoys it. Dancing is therefore in general a means of enjoyment. It is frequently a rejoicing. The Andaman Islanders dance after a successful day of hunting; they do not dance if their day has been one of disappointment.

Pleasurable mental excitement finds its natural expression in bodily activity, as we see most plainly in young children and in some animals. And in its turn mere muscular activity is itself a source of pleasure. The individual shouts and jumps for joy; the society turns the jump into a dance, the shout into a song.

The essential character of all dancing is that it is rhythmical, and it is fairly evident that the primary function of this rhythmical nature of the dance is to enable a number of persons to join in the same actions and perform them as one body. In the Andamans at any rate it is clear that the spectacular dance (such as the performance described on page 164) is a late development out of the common dance. And it is probable that the history of the dance is everywhere the same, that it began as a common dance in which all present take some active part, and from this first form (still surviving in our ball-room dances) arose the spectacular dance in which one or more dancers perform before spectators who take no part themselves.

In the Andamans the song is an accompaniment of the dance. The dancing and singing and the marking of the rhythm by clapping and by stamping on the sounding-board are all parts of the one common action in which all join and which for convenience is here spoken of as the dance. It is probable that here again the Andamanese practice shows us the earliest stage in the development of the song, that song and music at first had no independent existence but together with dancing formed one activity. It is reasonable to suppose that the song first came into general use in human society because it provides a means by which a number of persons can utter the same series of sounds together and as with one voice, this being made possible by the fixed rhythm and the fixed pitch of the whole song and of each part of it (i.e. by melody). Once the art of song was in existence its further development was doubtless largely dependent upon the esthetic pleasure that it is able to give. But in the Andamans the esthetic pleasure that the natives get from their simple and monotonous songs seems to me of quite secondary importance as compared with the value of the song as a joint social activity.

The movements of the ordinary Great Andaman dance do not seem to me to be in themselves expressive, or at any rate they are not obviously mimetic like the movements of the dances of many primitive folk. Their function seems to be to bring into activity as many of the muscles of the body as possible. The bending of the body at the hips and of the legs at the knees, with the slightly backward poise of the head and the common position of the arms held in line with the shoulders with the elbows crooked and the thumb and first finger of each hand clasping those of the other, produce a condition of tension of a great number of the muscles of the trunk and limbs. The attitude is one in which all the main joints of the body are between complete flexion and complete extension so that there is approximately an equal tension in the opposing groups of flexor and extensor muscles. Thus the whole body of the dancer is full of active forces balanced one against another, resulting in a condition of flexibility and alertness without strain.

While the dance thus brings into play the whole muscular system of the dancer it also requires the activity of the two chief senses, that of sight to guide the dancer in his movements amongst the others and that of hearing to enable him to keep time with the music. Thus the dancer is in a condition in which all the bodily and mental activities are harmoniously directed to one end.

First let us consider some of the effects of rhythm. Any marked rhythm exercises over those submitted to its influence a constraint, impelling them to yield to it and to permit it to direct and regulate the movements of the body and even those of the mind. If one does not yield to this constraining influence it produces a state of restlessness that may become markedly unpleasant. One who yields himself utterly to it, as does the dancer when he joins in the dance, still continues to feel the constraint, but so far from being unpleasant it now produces a pleasure of a quite distinct quality. The first point for us to note therefore is that through the effect of rhythm the dance affords an experience of a constraint or force of a peculiar kind acting upon the individual and inducing in him when he yields himself to it a pleasure of self-surrender. The peculiarity of the force in question is that it seems to act upon the individual both from without (since it is the sight of his friends dancing and the sound of the singing and marking time that occasions it), and also from within (since the impulse to yield himself to the constraining rhythm comes from his own organism).

There is yet a third most important effect of rhythm. Recent psychology shows that what are called the esthetic emotions are largely dependent upon motor images. We call a form beautiful when, through the movements of the eye in following it, we feel it as movement, and as movement of a particular kind which we can only describe at present by using such a word as ‘harmonious.’ Similarly our esthetic appreciation of music seems to be largely dependent on our feeling the music as movement, the sounds appealing not to the ear only but to stored-up unconscious motor memories. With regard to dancing, our pleasure in watching the graceful, rhythmical and harmonious movements of the dancer is an esthetic pleasure of similar nature to that obtained from the contemplation of beautiful shapes or listening to music. But when the individual is himself dancing it does not seem quite fitting to call his pleasure esthetic. Yet the dance, even the simple dance of the Andamans, does make, in the dancer himself, partly by the effect of rhythm, partly by the effect of the harmonious and balanced tension of the muscles, a direct appeal to that motor sense to which the contemplation of beautiful forms and movements makes only an indirect appeal. In other words the dancer actually feels within himself that harmonious action of balanced and directed forces which, in the contemplation of a beautiful form we feel as though it were in the object at which we look. Hence such dancing as that of the Andaman Islanders may be looked upon as an early step in the training of the esthetic sense, and to recognize all that the dance means we must make allowance for this fact that the mental state of the dancer is closely related to the mental state that we call esthetic enjoyment.

Let us now consider the effects of the dance as a social or collective activity. First, the dance affords an opportunity for the individual to exhibit before others his skill and agility and so to gratify his personal vanity. It is very easy to observe the action of this harmless vanity in the dancers, and particularly in the man who takes the place at the sounding-board and acts as soloist or leader of the chorus. The dancer seeks to feel, and does feel, that he is the object of the approbation and admiration of his friends. His self-regarding sentiments are pleasantly stimulated, so that he becomes conscious, in a state of self-satisfaction and elation, of his own personal value. This stimulation of the self-regarding sentiment is an important factor in the total effect produced by the dance.

Secondly, the dance, at the same time that it stimulates pleasantly the self-regarding sentiment, also affects the sentiments of the dancer towards his fellows. The pleasure that the dancer feels irradiates itself over everything around him and he is filled with geniality and good-will towards his companions. The sharing with others of an intense pleasure, or rather the sharing in a collective expression of pleasure, must ever incline us to such expansive feelings. It is certainly a readily observable fact that in the Andamans the dance does produce a condition of warm good-fellowship in those taking part in it. There is no need to enquire more closely into the mental mechanisms by which this is brought about.

The Andaman dance, then, is a complete activity of the whole community, in which every able-bodied adult takes some part, and is also an activity in which, so far as the dancer himself is concerned, the whole personality is involved, by the innervation of all the muscles of the body, by the concentration of attention required, and by its action on the personal sentiments. In the dance the individual submits to the action upon him of the community; he is constrained, by the immediate effect of rhythm as well as by custom, to join in, and he is required to conform in his own actions and movements to the needs of the common activity. The surrender of the individual to this constraint or obligation is not felt as painful, but on the contrary as highly pleasurable. As the dancer loses himself in the dance, as he becomes absorbed in the unified community, he reaches a state of elation in which he feels himself filled with energy or force immensely beyond his ordinary state, and so finds himself able to perform prodigies of exertion. This state of intoxication, as it might almost be called, is accompanied by a pleasant stimulation of the self-regarding sentiment, so that the dancer comes to feel a great increase in his personal force and value. And at the same time, finding himself in complete and ecstatic harmony with all the fellow-members of his community, experiences a great increase in his feelings of amity and attachment towards them.

In this way the dance produces a condition in which the unity, harmony and concord of the community are at a maximum, and in which they are intensely felt by every member. It is to produce this condition, I would maintain, that is the primary social function of the dance. The well-being, or indeed the existence, of the society depends on the unity and harmony that obtain in it, and the dance, by making that unity intensely felt, is a means of maintaining it. For the dance affords an opportunity for the direct action of the community upon the individual, and we have seen that it exercises in the individual those sentiments by which the social harmony is maintained.

It was formerly the custom, I was told, always to have a dance before setting out to a fight. The reason for this should now be clear. When a group engages in a fight with another it is to revenge some injury that has been done to the whole group. The group is to act as a group and not merely as a collection of individuals, and it is therefore necessary that the group should be conscious of its unity and solidarity. Now we have seen that the chief function of the dance is to arouse in the mind of every individual a sense of the unity of the social group of which he is a member, and its function before setting out to a fight is therefore apparent. A secondary effect of the dance before a fight is to intensify the collective anger against the hostile group, and thereby and in other ways to produce a state of excitement and elation which has an important influence on the fighting quality of the Andaman warrior.

An important feature of the social life of the Andamans in former times was the dance-meetings that were regularly held and at which two or more local groups met together for a few days. Each local group lived for the greater part of the year comparatively isolated from others. What little solidarity there was between neighbouring groups therefore tended to become weakened. Social relations between two groups were for the most part only kept up by visits of individuals from one group to another, but such visits did not constitute a relation between group and group. The function of the dance-meetings was therefore to bring the two groups into contact and renew the social relations between them and in that way to maintain the solidarity between them. Those meetings, apart from the provision of the necessary food, were entirely devoted to the exchange of presents and to dancing, the two or more parties of men and women joining together every night in a dance. We have already seen that the exchange of presents is a means of expressing solidarity or mutual good-will. It is now clear that the dance serves to unite the two or more groups into one body, and to make that unity felt by every individual, so creating for a few days a condition of close solidarity. The effects of the meeting would gradually wear out as months went by, and therefore it was necessary to repeat the meeting at suitable intervals.

Thus it appears that not only the ordinary dance, but also the war-dance, and the dance-meetings owe their place in the life of the Andaman Islanders to the fact that dancing is a means of uniting individuals into a harmonious whole and at the same time making them actually and intensely experience their relation to that unity of which they are the members. The special dances at initiation ceremonies and on other occasions will be dealt with later in the chapter, on the basis of the general explanation given above.

On the occasion of a dance, particularly if it be a dance of some importance, such as a war-dance, or a dance of two groups together, the dancers decorate themselves by putting on various ornaments and by painting their bodies with red paint and white clay. The explanation of the dance cannot therefore be regarded as complete till we have considered the meaning of this personal adornment connected with it.

If the Andaman Islander be asked why he adorns himself for the dance, his reply is invariably that he wishes to look well, to improve his personal appearance. In other words his conscious motive is personal vanity.

One of the features of the dance, and a not unimportant one, is that it offers an opportunity for the gratification of personal vanity. The dancer, painted, and hung over with ornaments, becomes pleasantly conscious of himself, of his own skill and agility, and of his striking or at least satisfactory appearance, and so he becomes also conscious of his relation to others, of their admiration, actual or possible, and of the approval and good-will that go with admiration. In brief, the ornamented dancer is pleasantly conscious of his own personal value. We may therefore say that the most important function of any such adorning of the body is to express or mark the personal value of the decorated individual.

This explanation only applies to certain bodily ornaments and to certain ways of painting the body. It applies to the painting of white clay, with or without red paint, that is adopted at dances and on other ceremonial occasions. It applies to such personal ornaments as those made of netting and Dentalium shell which constitute what may be called the ceremonial costume of the Andamanese. It is of these that the natives say that they use them in order to look well.

The occasions on which such personal decoration is used are strictly defined by custom. In other words the society dictates to the individual when and how he shall be permitted to express his own personal value. It is obvious that personal vanity is of great importance in directing the conduct of the individual in his dealings with his fellows, and much more amongst a primitive people such as the Andamanese than amongst ourselves, and it is therefore necessary that the society should have some means of controlling the sentiment and directing it towards social ends. We have seen that the dance is the expression of the unity and harmony of the society, and by permitting at the dance the free expression of personal vanity the society ensures that the individual shall learn to feel, even if only subconsciously, that his personal value depends upon the harmony between himself and his fellows.

The bride and bridegroom are painted with white clay, and wear ornaments of Dentalium shell on the day following their marriage. We have seen that marriage involves a change of social status, and we may say that it gives an increased social value to the married pair, the social position of a married man or woman being of greater importance and dignity than that of a bachelor or spinster. They are, after marriage, the objects of higher regard on the part of their fellows than they were before. It is therefore appropriate that the personal value of the bride and bridegroom should be expressed so that both they themselves and their fellows should have their attention drawn to it, and this is clearly the function of the painting and ornaments.

After the completion of any of the more important of the initiation ceremonies, such as the eating of turtle, the initiate is painted with white clay and red paint and wears ornaments of Dentalium shell. This is exactly parallel to the painting of the bride and bridegroom. The initiate, by reason of the ceremony he has been through, has acquired new dignity and importance, and by having fulfilled the requirements of custom has deserved the approval of his fellows. The decoration of his body after the ceremony is thus the expression of his increased social value.

A corpse, before burial, is decorated in the same manner as the body of a dancer. This, we may take it, is the means by which the surviving relatives and friends express their regard for the dead, i.e. their sense of his value. We need not suppose that they believe the dead man to be conscious of what they are doing. It is to satisfy themselves that they decorate the corpse, not to satisfy the spirit. When a man is painted he feels that he has the regard and good-will of his fellows, and those who see him, at any rate in the instance of a bridegroom or initiate, realise that he has deserved their regard. So, to express their regard for the dead man they paint the inanimate body. Hence it is that the greater the esteem in which the dead man or woman is held, the greater is the care bestowed on the last painting.

We may conclude therefore that the painting of the body with white clay and the wearing of ornaments of Dentalium shell is a rite or ceremony by which the value of the individual to the society is expressed on appropriate occasions. We shall find confirmation of this later in the chapter.

Before passing on to consider the meaning of other methods of decorating the body there is one matter that is worthy of mention. It is often assumed or stated that both personal ornament and dancing, amongst uncivilised peoples, are connected with sexual emotion. It is, of course, extremely difficult to disprove a statement of this sort. So far as the Andamanese are concerned I was unable to find any trace whatever of a definitely sexual element in either their dances or their personal adornment. It may be recalled that both men and women wear exactly the same ornaments on ceremonial occasions, and this is to some extent evidence that such have no sexual value. It is possible that some observers might see in the dance of the women (which is only performed on rare occasions) a suggestion of something of a sexual nature. I was unable to find that the natives themselves consider that there is anything suggestive of sex in either the dance of the men or that of the women. If it were true that the most important feature of the dance was that it appealed in some way to sexual feelings it is difficult to see how we are to explain the different occasions on which dancing takes place, as before a fight, at the end of mourning, etc., whereas these are adequately accounted for by the hypothesis that the dance is a method of expressing the unity and harmony of the society. Similarly the explanation of personal ornament as being connected with sexual feeling would fail to account for the occasions on which it is regarded as obligatory. There is therefore, I believe, no special connection between the dancing and personal ornament of the Andamanese and sexual feeling. It would still be possible to hold that there is a general connection of great importance between the affective dispositions underlying these and other customs and the complex affective disposition that we call the sex instinct. The nature of that connection, important as it is, lies outside the scope of this work.

I remarked above that the explanation which I have given of the meaning of personal ornament does not apply to all the objects that the Andaman Islanders wear on their body, but only to certain of them. If an Andaman Islander be asked why he paints himself with white clay, or why he wears a belt or necklace of Dentalium shell he replies that he does so in order to look well; but if he be asked why he wears a string of human bones round his head or neck or waist, he gives quite a different answer, to the effect that he does so in order to protect himself from dangers of a special kind. According to circumstances he will say either that he is wearing the bones to cure himself of illness, or else that he wears them as a protection against spirits. Thus while some things are worn on the body in order to improve the personal appearance, and consequently, as explained above, to give the individual a sense of his own value, others are worn because they are believed to have a protective power, and thereby arouse in the person a sense of security. Exactly the same sort of protective power is attributed to things that cannot be worn on the body, such as fire, and it will therefore be convenient to consider together all the things that afford this kind of protection, whether they can be worn on the body or not.

The interpretation here offered is that the customs connected with this belief in the protective power of objects of various kinds are means by which is expressed and thereby maintained at the necessary degree of energy a very important social sentiment, which, for lack of a better term, I shall call the sentiment of dependence. In such a primitive society as that of the Andamans one of the most powerful means of maintaining the cohesion of the society and of enforcing that conformity to custom and tradition without which social life is impossible, is the recognition by the individual that for his security and well-being he depends entirely upon the society. Now for the Andaman Islander the society is not sufficiently concrete and particular to act as the object of such a sentiment, and he therefore feels his dependence upon the society not directly but in a number of indirect ways. The particular way with which we are now concerned is that the individual experiences this feeling of dependence towards every important possession of the society, towards every object which for the society has constant and important uses.

The most prominent example of such an object is fire. It may be said to be the one object on which the society most of all depends for its well-being. It provides warmth on cold nights; it is the means whereby they prepare their food, for they eat nothing raw save a few fruits; it is a possession that has to be constantly guarded, for they have no means of producing it, and must therefore take care to keep it always alight; it is the first thing they think of carrying with them when they go on a journey by land or sea; it is the centre around which the social life moves, the family hearth being the centre of the family life, while the communal cooking place is the centre round which the men often gather after the day’s hunting is over. To the mind of the Andaman Islander, therefore, the social life of which his own life is a fragment, the social well-being which is the source of his own happiness, depend upon the possession of fire, without which the society could not exist. In this way it comes about that his dependence on the society appears in his consciousness as a sense of dependence upon fire and a belief that it possesses power to protect him from dangers of all kinds.

The belief in the protective power of fire is very strong. A man would never move even a few yards out of camp at night without a fire-stick. More than any other object fire is believed to keep away the spirits that cause disease and death. This belief, it is here maintained, is one of the ways in which the individual is made to feel his dependence upon the society.

Now this hypothesis is capable of being very strictly tested by the facts, for if it is true we must expect to find that the same protective power is attributed to every object on which the social life depends. An examination of the Andamanese beliefs shows that this is so, and thereby confirms the hypothesis.

In their daily life the Andamanese depend on the intrinsic qualities of the materials they use for their bows and arrows and harpoons and other hunting implements, and it can be shown that they do attribute to these implements and to the materials from which they are made powers of protection against evil. Moreover it is even possible to apply a quantitative test and show that the more important the place a thing occupies in the social life the greater is the degree of protective power attributed to it. Finally I shall be able to show that as different materials are used for special purposes so they are supposed to have certain special powers of protection against certain sorts of danger. Thus the hypothesis I have stated is capable of being as nearly demonstrated as is possible in such psychological enquiries as the one we are engaged in.

A man carrying his bow and arrows is supposed to be less likely to fall a victim to the spirits than one who has no weapons with him. One way of stopping a violent storm is to go into the sea (storms being supposed to be due to the spirits of the sea) and swish the water about with arrows. The natives sometimes wear a necklace formed of short lengths of the bamboo shaft of a fish-arrow. All the examples of such necklaces that I met with had been made from an old arrow. I asked a native to make one for me, and although he could readily have made one from bamboo that had never served as an arrow he did not do so, but used the shaft of one of his arrows. Such a necklace may therefore be described as an arrow in such a form that it can be worn round the neck and thus carried continually without trouble. The protective power of the bow is at first sight not quite so evident, but the material used for the string is regarded as possessing protective power, and to this I shall return shortly.

The best demonstration of the truth of the explanation offered is to be found by considering the different vegetable fibres of which use is made. The most important of these are the Anadendron paniculatum (used for bow-strings and for fine string), the Hibiscus tiliaceus (used for rope) and the Gnetum edule (used for string, and inferior to the Anadendron). All these fibres are believed to possess power to keep away dangers, but there is a sort of specialisation in their use.

The fibre of the Hibiscus is used mainly in the hunting of turtle and big fish. Consequently the tree itself from which the fibre is obtained is believed to possess the power of warding off all dangers connected with turtle and the sea. There is a custom that turtle flesh may only be cooked with wood of the Hibiscus, otherwise it will be uneatable. In the turtle-eating ceremony the initiate who, as we shall see later, is in a condition of danger by reason of having eaten turtle for the first time after a period of abstention, is seated on Hibiscus leaves and holds a bundle of the same leaves before him. At the same ceremony the leaves of this tree are used in the dance, and the initiate is given a skewer made from its wood with which to feed himself. If for any reason the leaves of the Hibiscus are not obtainable when the ceremony is performed those of the Myristica longifolia are used instead. Now this is the tree from which the natives always make their canoe paddles, which, like ropes of Hibiscus fibre, are used in hunting turtle. This specialisation is therefore easy to understand; the natives habitually make use of the Hibiscus and the Myristica in turtle-hunting; they use the intrinsic qualities of these trees in their actual struggles with turtle and large fish, and by means of these qualities they are able to succeed in overcoming their prey; they therefore come to believe that these trees possess special powers which not only enable them to conquer the turtle itself but also are able to protect them from the evil influences that they believe (for reasons to be explained later) result from the eating of its flesh.

This explanation is readily verified by considering an exactly parallel instance. In the pig-eating ceremony at initiation the leaves of the Hibiscus or the Myristica are not used, and are regarded as valueless. Paddles and ropes are of no use in hunting pigs. The leaves that are used in this ceremony are those of the Tetranthera lancæfolia. It is from this tree that are obtained the shafts of pig-arrows. Hence the relation of the tree to the pig is exactly parallel to that of the Hibiscus to turtle. It is by making use of the qualities of the wood that they are able to destroy the pig and so they believe that its leaves will enable them to destroy the dangers that result from the eating of the animal.

The leaves of the Tetranthera are also used, however, in the ceremony at a girl’s first menstruation, and I cannot pass over this without an explanation. It is to be found in the fact that pig-arrows are used in fighting, so that the tree comes to have a special relation to the shedding of blood. Plumes of shredded Tetranthera wood (made from an old arrow-shaft) must be worn by a homicide during the period of “purification” as a protection against the dangers that are believed to threaten him because he has shed blood. The same plumes were formerly always carried in a dance preceding a fight, and at such times the natives used to rub their bows with the shredded wood in order to ensure success in battle. Thus it is clear that there is a special connection between this tree and the shedding of blood, due to the fact that pig-arrows, of which the shafts are made from it, are used in fighting as well as for killing pigs and other animals. It is probable that this is the explanation of the use of the leaves during the ceremony at a girl’s first menstruation.

These examples afford a crucial test of the hypothesis here maintained. Not only is the protective power of these substances explicable by the fact that they are things on which the society depends in its daily life, but the special uses of each of them as amulets are only explicable when we consider the different uses to which they are put as materials.

The fibre of the Anadendron paniculatum is used for making thread, bow-strings, the cords of pig-arrows, and for binding the heads and barbs of harpoons and arrows. It has therefore no special relation to either pig or turtle. There is a belief, however, that the plant does possess special protective powers that make it efficacious against certain dangers coming from the sea. A piece of the plant tied round the neck or worn in the belt of a swimmer is believed to protect him from sharks and other dangerous fish. A piece of it crushed and placed in the sea is said to have stopped a violent storm on one occasion. Thus the Anadendron seems to possess a special power which makes it a source of protection against dangers from the sea. The same is true of the Gnetum edule, though, as this fibre is less valued than that of the Anadendron, it is not supposed to be so powerful in its effects. In regard to the specialisation in the use of these two plants as amulets it seems likely that it is due to a notion of opposition between the things of the forest and the things of the sea. The Andamanese live in a double environment; the jungle-dwellers live entirely in the forest and have dealings with forest things; they develop knowledge and powers that make them better woodsmen than the coast-dwellers. The latter live by the sea and are chiefly occupied with things of the sea, being skilled in the occupations of fishing and canoeing. There is thus a contrast or opposition between the life of the forest and the life of the shore that runs through all the social life, and I believe that it is this opposition which explains the belief that the Anadendron and the Gnetum, which are essentially forest things, are possessed of a quality that makes them contrary or opposed to all things of the sea.

Personal ornaments are made from the fibres that have been mentioned (Hibiscus, Anadendron, Gnetum), and we are justified, I think, in regarding such ornaments as being to some extent amulets. I purchased from a man in the Little Andaman a charm that was hanging round his neck, which he seemed to value highly. I imagined that it might contain a human bone, but when I had unwound the ornamental thread with which it was bound and opened out the covering of bark I found inside the parcel only a carefully folded length of rope made from Hibiscus fibre.

There is one fibre from which the natives of the Great Andaman make themselves ornaments, which they do not regularly use in any other way, namely that of the Ficus laccifera. We may perhaps regard this as a genuine and demonstrable example of a survival in custom. The natives of the Little Andaman, who, until their recent contact with those of the Great Andaman, did not know the use of the Anadendron, use the fibre of the Ficus for their bow-strings. We are justified in assuming, I believe, that the natives of the Great Andaman made a similar use of the same fibre before they had learnt to use the Anadendron. In those days much of the power that is now attributed to the Anadendron, because of its service as the material for bow-strings, must then have been attributed to the Ficus. When the substitution of the superior Anadendron fibre came about, the belief in the efficacy of the Ficus did not disappear, although the ground of the belief (if we may call it so) had ceased to exist. If this be so, then the present use of the Ficus fibre as an amulet is an example of survival. It may be noted that the qualities of the Ficus are supposed to be similar to those of the Anadendron. Thus while one medicine-man stopped a storm with Anadendron, another did the same thing on another occasion with Ficus.

The above examples are sufficient to justify the generalisation that the Andamanese attribute protective power to all those substances on the strength and other qualities of which they rely in order to obtain their food or overcome their enemies. There are one or two other positive instances that have not been mentioned. Bees’-wax, which is used for waxing thread and bow-strings, is believed to have power to keep spirits away and to cure sickness. Cane, which is used by the natives for many different purposes, seems also to have its use as an amulet, for belts and other personal ornaments are made of pieces of cane attached to a length of rope.

Negative instances are more difficult to discover. When I was in the Andamans I had not formulated the explanation that is offered here, and I therefore did not make any search for negative instances that might have afforded a means of testing the value of the hypothesis. I have no satisfactory evidence that protective power is attributed to iron, or to the shells that were formerly used, as iron now is, for the heads and barbs of arrows, but it is quite possible that I may have overlooked evidence that was really there. I do not think that any particular protective properties are attributed to such things as the materials from which baskets are made and the clay that is used for pottery. These things, however, may be regarded as luxuries rather than necessities; they are not of the same immediate service to the society in its fundamental activity (that of providing food) as are weapons and the materials used in them.

There are still two important kinds of amulets that remain to be considered. First, protective power is attributed to the bones of animals, which are made into personal ornaments; these cannot be dealt with until we have considered some of the beliefs relating to food. Secondly, a very high degree of protective power is attributed to human bones, but the discussion of this belief must wait till we have discovered the meaning of the funeral customs of the Andamanese.

To conclude the present argument, it would seem that the function of the belief in the protective power of such things as fire and the materials from which weapons are made is to maintain in the mind of the individual the feeling of his dependence upon the society; but viewed from another aspect the beliefs in question may be regarded as expressing the social value of the things to which they relate. This term—social value—will be used repeatedly in the later part of this chapter, and it is therefore necessary to give an exact definition. By the social value of anything I mean the way in which that thing affects or is capable of affecting the social life. Value may be either positive or negative, positive value being possessed by any thing that contributes to the well-being of the society, negative value by anything that can adversely affect that well-being.

The social value of a thing (such as fire) is a matter of immediate experience to every member of the society, but the individual does not of necessity consciously and directly realise that value. He is made to realise it indirectly through the belief, impressed upon him by tradition, that the thing in question affords protection against danger. A belief or sentiment which finds regular outlet in action is a very different thing from a belief which rarely or never influences conduct. Thus, though the Andaman Islander might have a vague realisation of the value of Hibiscus, for example, that would be something very different from the result on the mind of the individual of the regular use of the leaves of that tree in initiation ceremonies as a protection against unseen dangers. So that the protective uses of such things are really rites or ceremonies by means of which the individual is made to realise (1) his own dependence on the society and its possessions, and (2) the social value of the things in question.

I have had to postpone to the later parts of the chapter the consideration of some of the objects possessing protective power, but I venture to state here three propositions some part of the evidence for which has already been examined, and which will be sufficiently demonstrated, I hope, before the end of the chapter. They are as follows: (1) any object that contributes to the well-being of the society is believed to afford protection against evil; (2) the degree of protective power it is believed to possess depends on the importance of the services it actually renders to the society; (3) the kind of special protection it is supposed to afford is often related to the kind of special service that it does actually render.

We were led to the consideration of the protective power of objects through an attempt to understand the meaning of the methods of ornamenting the body in the Andamans. We have seen that some ornaments are worn in order to express the personal value of the individual, while others are worn for the sake of the protection they are believed to afford. We have also seen that one method of painting the body (with white clay) is a means of expressing the personal value of the painted individual. We will next consider the use of the clay called odu. This clay is painted on the body of a mourner and is the outward sign of mourning; it is used at certain stages of the initiation ceremonies; it is also regularly used for painting the body with the designs known as e̱ra-puli. According to the rule of method laid down at the beginning of the chapter we must seek some common explanation of these different uses of the same substance.

We may consider, first of all, the patterns (e̱ra-puli) that are made with this clay on the body and face after eating certain foods such as pork and turtle.

There are here two explanations of fundamentally different character. First the Andamanese practice of painting their bodies with clay is explained as having a purely utilitarian purpose, being intended to cool them when they are heated. In the second statement the explanation given is that the custom is intended to protect them from danger.

My own observations do not altogether agree with the statements of Mr Man. I found that the natives painted themselves just as much in the cold season as in the hot season. The principal, if not the sole, occasion on which the clay is used is after or immediately before a meal, and therefore generally in the late afternoon or evening when the heat of the day is past. I do not feel so satisfied as Mr Man appears to be, that the clay really has the effect of keeping a person cool, particularly when it is remembered that the painting may consist of a few lines each as broad as a finger. Moreover, Mr Man’s explanation does not afford any reason for the fact that the clay is always applied in some sort of pattern. If it were merely to keep himself cool, we should expect to see a man cover himself all over with a plain coating evenly spread over the body. Such an even coating is never used, in the Great Andaman tribes, except by persons mourning for the dead, and is the essential mark of a mourner.

It is easy to explain how Mr Man has fallen into an error in this matter. On many occasions, when I questioned the natives as to their reason for painting themselves with clay I received the answer, “When we have eaten pork or turtle or dugong, we become ot-kimil and so we take clay and paint ourselves.” Now the word ot-kimil in the Aka-J̌eru language is the word that the natives use to express what we mean by the word “hot.” But while “hot” may always be translated by ot-kimil or er-kimil, the latter word cannot always be adequately rendered in English by the word “hot.” Mr Man seems to have supposed that when an Andaman Islander says “hot” he means by the word only what we mean, whereas he really means a great deal more.

Let us examine briefly the word in question. In the languages of the North Andaman the stem is -kimil. With the prefix ot- or er- it is used to mean “hot” as in T’ot-kimil-bom, “I am hot,” or Ino ot-kimil bi or Ino er-kimil bi, “The water is hot.” Used by itself the stem kimil is the name of the latter part of the rainy season, when the weather is not hot but cool. A youth or girl who is passing through the initiation ceremonies is said to be aka-kimil, and is addressed or spoken of as Kimil, instead of by his or her proper name. The turtle-eating ceremony is called čokbi-kimil, or čokbi-ǰo or kimil-ǰo, čokbi meaning “turtle” and ǰo meaning “eating.” The word “hot” is used by the natives in several unusual ways when they are talking their own language or Hindustani. Thus a stormy or rough sea is said to be “hot,” and one native in describing to me (in Hindustani) the cessation of a cyclone said “the sea became cold.” A person who is ill is said to be hot, and getting well is expressed by the phrase “getting cool.”

In the Aka-Bea language the word “hot” is translated by Mr Portman by the stem uya. The stem kimil appears in the form gumul in only some of the uses it has in the Northern languages. Gumul is the name of the latter part of the rainy season. A youth passing through the initiation ceremonies is said to be aka-gumul and is addressed or spoken of as Guma. The turtle-eating ceremony is called gumul-le-ke, le-ke meaning “eating.” The word thus means “the gumul eating” and is the literal equivalent of the kimil-ǰo of the North.

The uses of the word kimil may be summarised as follows:

(1) to mean “hot” in the sense of the English word;

(2) in connection with illness;

(3) in speaking of stormy weather;

(4) as the name of the latter part of the rainy season;

(5) to denote the condition of a youth or girl who is passing through or has recently passed through the initiation ceremonies, and to denote the ceremonies themselves;

(6) to denote a condition in a person consequent on eating certain foods, and perhaps sometimes due to other causes, to remedy or obviate which the natives make use of clay painted in patterns on their bodies.

It is probable, then, that when a native says that after eating food he is ot-kimil and therefore paints himself with clay he does not mean simply that he is hot. This will be still more evident when we consider the second explanation of the custom that is given by the natives. Many of those whom I questioned stated that after eating dugong, pork, turtle, etc., the body emits an odour, that this odour may attract the spirits of the jungle or the sea, and that to obviate this they paint themselves with clay. This agrees exactly with what Mr Man says in the second passage quoted above. It is confirmed by other customs. I was told that a man who has eaten dugong will not leave the camp until some time after the dugong meat is all finished, for fear that the spirits may smell him and do him harm. It is to be noted in passing that painting the body with clay does not by any means remove the odour that does actually characterise a native after he has been eating fat meat of any kind. We must be careful, in this instance also, not to assume that an Andaman Islander means by “smell” exactly what we mean by it and nothing more. It will be shown later in the chapter that the Andamanese identify the smell of an object with its active magical principle. One example may be given here to show this. The origin of rheumatism in the legs is explained by the natives as being the result of the common practice of preparing the fibre of the Anadendron paniculatum by scraping it on the thigh. During this process, they say, the “smell” of the plant enters the thigh and is the cause of rheumatic or sciatic pains.

The natives give yet a third statement of their reasons for using clay. On many occasions I asked them what would happen if they ate pork or turtle and did not paint themselves. In every case I received the reply that any man who did such a thing would almost certainly be ill.

When a number of persons give three different reasons for one and the same action, and are equally sincere throughout, it is to be presumed that the three different statements are so many different ways of saying one and the same thing. We may therefore conclude that the Andaman Islanders believe that there is a peculiar power in foods (or in some foods) which makes it dangerous to eat them. This danger may be expressed by saying that the person who has eaten food will, unless he takes certain precautions, be liable to be ill. Now sickness is believed to be caused by the spirits of the jungle and the sea, and therefore an alternative or equivalent statement of the same belief is that after a person has eaten food he is in danger from the spirits. We may therefore conclude that the word ot-kimil, when it is used to describe the condition of a person who has eaten food, denotes simply this condition of danger, and nothing more. For this we shall find ample confirmation later on. Subject to such later confirmation I will here state what has been maintained, which is (1) that the e̱ra-puli patterns are to be explained as being protective, (2) that the eating of food is regarded as dangerous, and (3) that this danger is associated in the minds of the natives with sickness and with the spirits. It will be convenient to leave the first of these three propositions for later discussion and take up the second, seeking to find the meaning of this belief in the dangerous properties of food.

Not all foods are equally dangerous. I was able to establish roughly a sort of scale. The most dangerous foods are dugong; the fish called komar; some of the snakes; the internal fat such as the kidney-fat or the intestinal fat of pig, turtle, monitor lizard and Paradoxurus; the liver of sharks, sting-rays and Plotosus; and honey. Next in order come the flesh of pigs, turtle, monitor lizard and Paradoxurus and of the fishes mentioned above; also the eggs of turtle. To these should perhaps be added the edible grubs and some vegetable foods such as the yams and the Artocarpus fruit and seed. Lowest in the scale, that is, least dangerous, are molluscs and the commoner sorts of fish and vegetable foods.

The principles underlying this grading of foods are two. Those foods that are difficult or dangerous to procure are considered more dangerous than others. Thus all the fishes that are thought most dangerous to eat are actually dangerous, such as the sharks, the sting-rays, the armed Plotosus, and the fish komar that has a powerful spike on its head with which it can inflict a dangerous wound. Secondly the foods that are most prized are regarded as being more dangerous than those that are less prized. The internal fat of animals is regarded as a great delicacy and therefore occupies a high place in the scale. It is this also that explains the position of honey and of the edible grubs. The dugong, which is of all foods the most difficult and dangerous to procure, and is at the same time more highly prized than any other, is regarded as more dangerous to eat than any other.

It is this difference in the danger attributed to different foods that gives the clue to the explanation of the beliefs relating to them. The hypothesis I wish to put forward is that the custom of painting the body after eating food is an expression of the social value of food.

In a simple community such as that of the Andaman Islands, in which the necessary food has to be provided from day to day, food occupies a predominant position, and is the chief source of those variations or oscillations between conditions of euphoria and dysphoria that constitute the emotional life of the society. Food is obtainable only by the expenditure of effort, and the effort is a communal one. The obtaining of food is the principal social activity and it is an activity in which every able-bodied member of the community is required by custom to join. A man’s first duty to the society may be defined as the duty of providing food for himself and others, and no one is looked on with more contempt than one who is lazy or careless in this respect. On the contrary the man who stands highest in the esteem of others is the skilful hunter who is generous in distributing to others the food he obtains. The food provides the community with its chief joys and sorrows. When food is scarce the whole community suffers. The men spend all their time in hunting but are disappointed. They have to fall back upon foods that are little relished, such as the commoner kinds of molluscs. On the contrary when there is plenty of food the whole society rejoices together. Every one has as much as he or she can eat. Hunting and fishing become pleasant sports instead of arduous labour.

Viewing the matter from its relation to the feelings of the individual we may say that it is particularly in connection with food that he is made to feel that he is a member of the community, sharing with others their joys and sorrows, taking part in a common activity, often dependent upon others for the satisfaction of his hunger, and obliged by custom to share with those others what he himself obtains. Thus food is, for the Andaman Islander, the one object above all others that serves to awaken in him day after day the feeling of his relation to his fellows. It is also the source of a very large proportion of his joys and sorrows, his excitements and disappointments. Thus it is that when the natives wish to amuse each other it is by tales of hunting that they do so, and a large proportion of their songs relate to the getting of food.

It is thus clear that food becomes an important secondary object of the fundamental affective dispositions that regulate the emotional attitude of the individual to the society to which he belongs. It is connected very closely with the feeling of moral obligation; the most valued moral qualities in the Andaman Islands are energy in providing food and generosity in distributing it; among the worst faults are laziness in hunting and meanness in giving to others. Similarly food is closely associated with the feeling of dependence. During childhood, particularly, the individual has to depend on others for his food; even later in life the food that a man eats is more often provided by others than by himself; he depends on the community even for his daily nourishment.

Different foods have different social values. Thus a dugong provides a large supply of a highly-prized delicacy, but on the other hand can only be obtained by strenuous and dangerous efforts of skilful hunters. At the other end of the scale the social value of shell-fish is very little. They are not relished and are only eaten when there is nothing better, while the labour of obtaining them is simply one of drudgery requiring little skill.

Finally it must be pointed out that the value of food is both positive and negative. It is the source of conditions of social euphoria when it is plentiful; while it is equally the source of social dysphoria when it is lacking. In other words, on different occasions it is the source of both pleasurable and painful states of the fundamental social sentiments.

All these experiences connected with food organise themselves around the notion that foods, or the animals that are used for food, are things to be treated carefully, with respect, or, in other words, with ritual precautions. The sense of the social value of food reveals itself as a belief that food may be a source of danger unless it is approached with circumspection, and this belief, translated into action, gives rise to the rite of painting the body after eating. This does not mean that when the Andaman Islander eats turtle he is actually in a state of fear; he feels that he would have reason to be afraid if it were not that the society has provided him with a means of avoiding the dangers of turtle eating. What he does feel, then, as I have tried to show, is not a fear of food but a sense of the value of food.

This interpretation will, I hope, be amply justified later, and the psychological processes assumed by it will be further illustrated. One point needs to be emphasised here, namely that the suggested interpretation affords, as no other would seem to do, an explanation of the fact that some foods are believed to be more dangerous than others, and that while it is obligatory to paint the body after eating the more dangerous foods, it is not necessary to do so after eating those that are less dangerous. If the rite is simply the expression of the social value of foods, it will follow that different food substances, having different social values, must be subject to differences in ritual treatment.

There are a few other customs connected with food, recorded in an earlier chapter, which show that in general food is regarded as something that may only be approached with ritual precautions. A turtle must be killed with its head towards the open sea, and must be cut up in one particular way, otherwise the meat would be “bad.” A pig must also be cut up in a particular way, and must be stuffed with certain leaves before it is roasted. A man will not eat certain foods when he is away from his own country, as he is afraid that to do so might make him ill. (This corresponds to the belief that there is less chance of illness in one’s own country than away from it, and that the spirits of a strange place are more dangerous than those that haunt the jungles and the waters of a man’s own home.) All these customs, I believe, are so many different expressions of the social value of food.

I have maintained earlier in the chapter that the sense of the social value of such things as fire and the materials used for weapons translates itself into the belief that these things afford protection against danger. This would seem, at first sight, to be contradicted by the explanation that I have just given of the belief in the danger of food. The apparent contradiction must be faced and resolved before we can proceed further.

First, it can be shown that the various things that are regarded as affording protection when used according to custom, are also believed to be dangerous, just in the same way that food is dangerous. One example of this will suffice. The fibre of the Anadendron paniculatum, which is used for bow-strings and other purposes, has been shown to possess a power which gives it efficacy against dangers of the sea such as sharks. This same power, however, may have injurious effects if the plant is handled without proper precautions. Thus, if a piece of the green creeper, or a person who has recently been handling it, should be in a canoe, it would be impossible to capture turtle from that canoe, as they would be driven away by the “smell” of the plant. If a piece of the creeper were burnt in the fire there would be a great storm, according to one statement, or all the turtle would be driven away from the vicinity, according to another. The handling of the plant in the preparation of the fibre, by scraping it on the thigh, is believed to be the cause of rheumatism. Turtle meat that might by accident come in contact with the plant would be dangerous and would therefore not be eaten. These different beliefs show us that while this plant possesses powers that make it of service to the society, both directly as a material for weapons, and indirectly as a magical protection against evil, it is also dangerous, i.e. it will produce undesirable effects unless treated with the proper ritual precautions.

Now just as materials such as the Anadendron are dangerous but may yet be used protectively, so it can be shown that the things used for food are also capable of affording protection against evil. It may be recalled that an important element of the treatment of sickness is by the use of special foods. Yams, honey, the fat of turtle and dugong and other foods are believed to possess curative properties. The flesh of the flying-fox is used as a remedy for rheumatism. But the clearest evidence is provided by the custom of wearing ornaments made of the bones of animals that have been eaten. These ornaments are believed to possess protective powers of the same kind as those attributed to human bones, but they are considered to be more particularly of value to the hunter when he is in the forest or on the sea. They are made chiefly from the bones of those animals that are believed to be most dangerous to eat. These animals are difficult and often dangerous to capture or kill. When obtained they become very important sources of well-being to the society. The Andamanese express their sense of the social value of these animals in the belief that it is necessary to adopt certain measures of ritual precaution in dealing with them. When these due precautions are taken, however, then the society is able to make use of the flesh to serve its own ends. So, when an animal has been eaten, and has thus been made to serve as a source of advantage, of strength, the bones, which are the permanent remains of the feast, acquire a symbolic value as evidence of past social well-being, and omens of future security. They are a visible proof of the ability of the society to protect itself and its members from the dangers that are believed to threaten the human being in the most important activity of his life, the obtaining and eating of food.

Formerly the Andamanese preserved the skulls of all large animals such as pigs, turtle and dugong. At the present day they no longer preserve the skulls of pigs, giving as their reason that owing to the dogs obtained from Europeans they now have little difficulty in killing pigs; but they still preserve the skulls of dugongs, and a fair proportion of the skulls of turtle. The J̌a̤rawa still seem to preserve with great care the skulls of all the pigs they kill, going to the pains of enclosing each one in a case of basket-work. These skulls, we must conclude, are more than mere trophies of the chase. As visible proofs of the ability of the society in the past to overcome the hostile powers of nature, they form, as it were, the guarantee of a similar ability in the future, and I believe that their preservation is regarded as a means of ensuring success in hunting as well as protection for the hunters. The turtle skulls that are often suspended under the forward platform of a canoe, are, I believe, intended both to protect the occupants of the canoe from the dangers of the sea and to help them to obtain a good catch.

The Andamanese belief in the power of the bones of animals to protect them from danger and to bring them luck, is therefore very similar to their belief in the protective power of the materials used for weapons and implements. The consideration of the apparent contradiction mentioned above has led us to a more exact statement of the real beliefs in these matters. They believe, we may say, that all the things from the jungle and the sea of which they make use as food or as materials, are dangerous unless approached with proper ritual precautions, but when so approached they become sources of strength and well-being and also of protection from unseen dangers.

To return to the main argument, which was concerned with the meaning of the patterns of clay painted on the body after eating the more dangerous foods, it would seem that this action is really a rite or ceremony, of the same general character as other ceremonial customs of the Andamans. It is an action required by custom, the performance of which on appropriate occasions serves to keep alive in the mind of the individual a certain system of sentiments necessary for the regulation of conduct in conformity to the needs of the society. By it the individual is made to feel (or to act as though he felt) that his life is one of continually repeated dangers from which he can only be preserved by conforming to the customs of the society as they have been handed down by tradition. He is made to feel that the eating of food is not merely the satisfaction of an animal appetite, but an act of communion, that the food itself is something “sacred” (if we may use that word in the sense of the original Latin “sacer”). It serves also, like any other rite in which all join, to make the individual feel the solidarity and unity of the community; all share in the common repast and the common danger, and each man sees on his neighbour the clay with which he himself is daubed.