Note 6 — Chapter V · THE INTERPRETATION OF ANDAMANESE CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS: CEREMONIAL

The incident of the shooting of the three arrows is of some interest as giving us an idea of how the Andamanese think of chance or luck. Arrows, it must be remembered, are regarded as being possessed of magical power. Further, the ancestors themselves possessed powers that do not belong to living men, as is shown repeatedly in the legends. The ancestor shoots an arrow, and, by reason of his power and that of the arrow, it strikes an important object and leads him to a discovery. The mere striking of the object by the arrow seems to give him a certain degree of power over the object, whereby he forces it to reveal its name. (We have already seen, by a reference to this very story, that there is an important connection between the name of an object and its social value6.) Thus, in common with other primitive peoples, the Andaman Islanders regard what we call luck or chance as due to the action of the magical powers possessed by objects and by human beings.