Note 11 — Chapter IV · MYTHS AND LEGENDS

There is some doubt about the translation of the word kara-duku. It is an Aka-Bea word, although it was used as given above, by an A-Pučikwar man. Mr Man translates it “cachalot.” Mr Portman says that kara-duku is “crocodile,” but that the cachalot, the proper name of which is biriga-ta, is also sometimes called kara-duku11. The only authority for the existence of crocodiles in the Andamans is the statement of Mr Portman, who says that the natives killed one in the Middle Andaman and brought the bones to him. Although I was in many of the creeks of the Andamans at different times I never saw a crocodile, and none of the other officers of the Settlement, who have repeatedly explored a large part of the islands, ever seems to have seen one, so that the one recorded by Mr Portman may possibly have been a single one that had come oversea from the mainland of Asia.