Note 38 — Chapter VI · THE INTERPRETATION OF ANDAMANESE CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS: MYTHS AND LEGENDS

It is obvious that the Andaman Islander cannot regard the ancestors as being persons exactly like himself, for they were responsible for the establishment of the social order to which he merely conforms and of which he has the advantage. He says, therefore, that they were bigger men than himself, meaning by this that they were bigger mentally or spiritually, rather than physically, that they were endowed with powers much greater than those even of the medicine-men of the present time. This explains the magical powers that are attributed to many, or indeed to all, of the ancestors; the belief in the existence in the past of men or beings endowed with what we may almost call supernatural powers is the inevitable result of the way in which the man of to-day feels towards the men of the past on whose inventions and discoveries he is dependent for his daily nourishment38.