Note 1 — Chapter I · THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION

The meanings or derivations of some of the tribal names have not been ascertained with certainty. The name Aka-Čari is derived from the word čari meaning “salt water,” and therefore means “the salt-water language.” Similarly the name Aka-J̌eru is derived from ǰeru, a species of Sterculia from which canoes are made. In the Northern languages the word ot-bo means “the back” of anything, and oŋ-ko̱ra means “the hand.” It is possible that the names Aka-Bo and Aka-Ko̱ra are derived from these stems (the ot- and the oŋ- being prefixes), but there is no evidence that they are associated with them in the minds of the natives of the present day. Among the Southern tribes the name Akar-Bale is derived from a word meaning “the other side” of a creek or strait, thus referring to their position in the Archipelago. The name A-Pučik-war (of which the Aka-Bea equivalent is Aka-Boǰig-yab) means “those who speak our own language,” from a stem pučik (Aka-Bea, boǰig) which means “belonging to ourselves” as opposed to strangers of the same race. Mr Portman1 gives the following meanings of the other tribal names of the South and Middle Andaman, but the derivations are somewhat doubtful.