Note 26 — Chapter VI · THE INTERPRETATION OF ANDAMANESE CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS: MYTHS AND LEGENDS

In some of the other legends we find the same motive. Thus in an Aka-J̌eru legend26 the flood is said to have been caused by one of the ancestors breaking firewood while the cicada was singing. In an Aka-Kede version27 this part of the story is further elaborated, and a reason is given for this action on the part of the ancestor. Ko̱po-tera-wat was angry with the rest of the ancestors because they refused to give him any of the honey they had collected, and he therefore deliberately performed the action that brought the storm. The purpose of these elements of the legend is to explain how the great flood came about, by tracing it to the anti-social action of some one or more of the ancestors, just as the night is supposed to have been produced by an ancestor who performed a forbidden action. In the Aka-Kede version and also, as we shall see, in the Akar-Bale story, the matter is traced still further back and the anti-social action of the ancestor is explained as being caused by his anger which had been aroused by a disagreement with the ancestors. The origin of the catastrophe that separated the once united ancestors into animals and human beings is thus traced to the fact that they could not live together sociably and in harmony.