Note 39 — Chapter VI · THE INTERPRETATION OF ANDAMANESE CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS: MYTHS AND LEGENDS (continued 2)

The part played in the legends by any particular animal is determined either immediately or indirectly by its observable characteristics. Thus the connection of the kingfisher with fire is due to the fact that he is a fish-eating bird, and that he has a patch of bright red feathers, red being, in the Andamanese mind, always associated with fire. The other birds that are mentioned in the different versions of the fire legend either possess remarkable plumage (as the dove, and the parrot) or are fish-eating birds. The Andamanese regard fish as the fundamental human food, having only one word for “food” and “fish,” and they never eat their fish raw as the kingfisher does. In the Akar-Bale story of the origin of the animals the tree lizard is characterised by his quarrelsomeness, and by the fact that he is very difficult to catch hold of; these are both actual characteristics of the animal itself. The crab appears in the same legend as a person with a very powerful grip, and with a hard shell to his body. The monitor lizard has his place in the legends determined by the fact that he can climb trees, run on the ground and swim in the water, and is thus equally at home at the top of the trees, on the ground, or in the creek. I have already given this as one of the reasons why he is chosen as the first ancestor of all the animals and of human beings. The lizard also seems to be regarded by the Andamanese as a particularly libidinous animal, and is therefore regarded as the inventor of sexual intercourse and of procreation. Why he should have this sexual reputation I do not know39. The tale of how the lizard invented scarification depends on the fact that the marks on the lizard’s skin bear a strong resemblance to the marks that the natives make on their own skins with sharp fragments of quartz. The position of the Paradoxurus or civet-cat in the stories in which she appears is due to the fact that while she can live in the trees or on the ground she cannot swim; hence, when the flood came, she fled from the water and climbed a steep hill and thus kept the fire alight. In the light of these examples we are justified, I think, in assuming that in all cases, even when the meaning is not clear, the part played by any animal in the legends is due to some actual characteristic of it.