xxii Report on the 'Zoological Survey of India 



illustrating the ethnography of the hill tribes of Assam and of the 

 islands of the Bay of Bengal. He also prepared illustrated guide books 

 to the exhibits of musical instruments and of the ethnography of the 

 tribes already mentioned. Although these pamphlets have been sold 

 at considerably below cost price, there has been practically no sale for 

 them. Chained copies have, however, been placed beside the exhibits 

 in the galleries, and, to judge from their condition after a few months, 

 have been duly appreciated by the public, at any rate so far as the 

 illustrations are concerned. I reproduce here one of the plates (plate 

 E) on which an interesting Nicobarese work of art is reproduced. Dr. 

 Meerwarth's explanation of it is as follows : 



" The drawings are arranged in six rows and are surmounted by the 

 sun represented in the conventional form of an eight-spiked wheel. 

 The central standing figure with the quaint dress in the first row from 

 the top is probably a reminiscence of missionary teaching. It represents 

 the Creator, called " Dense " from the Latin " deus, " and the name 

 together with the idea has probably been given to the Nicobarese by 

 the Portuguese missionaries in the 16th century. The other drawings 

 in this row show : a knife, a " homyahla " (the attribute of authority 

 of a chief), a three-pronged fishing spear, an oar, a pig-spear, two British 

 soldiers drinking rum — this picture is de riyueur on all medicine-boards ; 

 above the first soldier there is a pair of cocoanut water-vessels. The 

 balls arranged in an arc are stars. The second row depicts a house 

 and garden. It consists of a pandanus tree, a cocoanut-palm, a dwelling- 

 hut and a cooking-hut with a Union Jack between them — rather a neat 

 compliment to the power of the British Empire ; then comes an areca 

 palm and again a pandanus tree. The third row shows the domestic 

 animals of the Nicobarese : — cock, dog, two pigs, with a woman to look 

 after them, a monkey and a hen. The fourth row is filled with a dancing 

 scene, in which men and women take part. The fifth row contains 

 three sailing ships, a Chinese junk, a Malay prow and a British brig. 

 The lowest row depicts the fauna of river and sea ; eel, hawk's bill turtle, 

 lobster, shark, dugong, crocodile, sting-ray, another dugong and shark, 

 eagle-ray and finally a creature of fancy, the merman. There is a cer- 

 tain amount of crude realism in these drawings and the attitude of the 

 two red-jackets behind the rum-bottle is distinctly humorous." 



I may point out, however, that the flag shown in the original is 

 clearly Danish and that, therefore, the specimen was probably made 

 before the British assumed nominal possession of the Nicobars. I 

 regret that this fact did not strike me before the publication of the 

 pamphlet. 



The fact, to which I have already alluded, that the people from the 

 hills of Assam live in very diverse states of culture has made the exhibit 

 of their clothing, implements, arms and utensils very instructive from 

 a comparative point of view. Dr. Meerwarth in his guide-book has 

 laid special stress on one point which is particularly well illustrated, viz., 

 the differences in the esthetic sense displayed by lhe different tribes, 

 and the fact that the development of this sense is by no means always 

 correlated with a high type of civilization. The implements and 

 u;ensils of the Andamanese, foi' example, are profusely decorated, 



