PREFACE

This book contains some part of the results of anthropological research carried out in the Andaman Islands in the years 1906 to 1908, under the terms of the Anthony Wilkin Studentship in Ethnology of the University of Cambridge. The funds supplied by the studentship were supplemented by grants from the Royal Society and from the government of India. In its original form the monograph was presented as a fellowship thesis at Trinity College. The work of rewriting it was interrupted by absence from England and was only completed in 1914. There has since been a long delay in publication as a result of the war.

The book deals with the social institutions of the tribes of the Great Andaman. These had previously been studied by Mr E. H. Man to whose work I have been obliged to make many references in order that my account may be as complete as possible. I should have preferred to devote my attention almost exclusively to the natives of the Little Andaman, about whom very little is known. I found, however, that it was not possible in the time at my disposal to do any satisfactory work amongst these people owing to the difficulty of language. The natives of the Little Andaman know no language but their own, and that is so little related to the languages of the Great Andaman that even a thorough knowledge of the latter is of almost no use in an attempt to learn the former. I spent nearly three months camped with natives of the Little Andaman, giving most of the time to learning their language. No one who has not actually made the attempt to learn the language of a savage people without the help of an interpreter, can form an adequate idea of the difficulties of the task. At the end of three months I found that at the same rate of progress it would take me two or three years to learn to speak the language sufficiently well to begin to question the natives about their customs and beliefs and understand their answers. I was therefore regretfully compelled to give up the idea of making a study of the people of the Little Andaman, and devoted the remainder of my time to the study of the tribes of the Great Andaman, particularly those of the North Andaman among whom Mr Man had not worked. I kept one boy from the Little Andaman with me for some months in the hope that he would learn sufficient Hindustani to act as an interpreter and so enable any future investigator to begin work with the great advantage that I had lacked.

In my work amongst the natives of the Great Andaman I at first made use of Hindustani, which the younger men and women all speak more or less imperfectly, and gradually acquired a knowledge of the dialects of the North Andaman. Towards the end of my stay in the islands I was able to obtain the services as interpreter of a man of the Akar-Bale tribe who spoke English well and was of considerable intelligence. He is shown in the photographs of Plates V and XIII. With his help I was able to do some work with the Akar-Bale and A-Pučikwar tribes, and I found that with such an interpreter I was able to obtain much fuller and more reliable results than I could by using my own knowledge of the native language supplemented by Hindustani. If I had had his services from the outset my work would have been much easier and more thorough.

The results of my researches on the physical anthropology of the Andaman Islanders have not been published. I hoped to be able to obtain the services of some one more competent in such matters than myself to assist or direct me in the measurement and study of the collection of skulls and skeletons that I brought to England and that is now in the Anthropological Museum at Cambridge. In this I was disappointed, and absence from England has prevented me from completing my work in this branch of research.

Of the many imperfections of the book I am, I think, only too well aware. It is indeed an apprentice work, for it was through my work in the Andamans that I really learnt anthropology. However good may be his preliminary training (and mine under Drs Haddon, Rivers and Duckworth at Cambridge was, I think, as thorough as possible) it is only by actually living with and working amongst a primitive people that the social anthropologist can acquire his real training. Naturally work done while learning how to do it must necessarily be faulty.

It is very late now to place on record my obligations to the officers of the settlement of Port Blair, particularly to Colonel Herbert and Colonel Browning, the successive chief commissioners, for their kindness and help during my stay in the islands.

To Dr Haddon and Dr Rivers I am obliged for reading the proofs and for many helpful suggestions.

A. R. BROWN.

University of Cape Town, January 1922.

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