Note 9 — INTRODUCTION

Extracts of Master Caesar Frederike: his Eighteene Yeeres’ Indian Observations, Purchas: his Pilgrimes, London, 1625; Vol. II, p. 1710. In spite of the repeated descriptions of the Andamanese by early writers as ferocious cannibals, there is good reason to think that they have not deserved quite so evil a reputation. If they had ever been cannibals they had certainly abandoned the custom by the time the islands were occupied in 1858. It is improbable that such inveterate man-eaters, as they are supposed to have been, would have entirely altered their ways in the course of a century or two. The legend probably had its origin in the fact that the Andamanese attacked all strangers who landed on their coasts, and (in the North Andaman, at any rate) often disposed of the bodies of slain enemies by cutting them in pieces and burning them on a fire. ↑