472 CARNI 



Carnicobar. active, and in general healthy. Their complexion 

 ^-^Y*** is of a copper colour, and their features have a re- 

 semblance to those of the Malays, excepting that 

 their noses are not so flat. They have large mouths, 

 and irregular teeth, which the practice of chewing 

 betel renders black and disgusting. The men have 

 their hair cut .short, while the women have their 

 heads shaved quite bare. Both sexes get their ears 

 pierced when very young, and contrive, by squeezing 

 large pieces of wood into the holes, and suspending 

 heavy weights from them, to render them hideously 

 wide, and very disgusting to the eye. From the ac- 

 counts which have been given of them, it would ap- 

 pear that their countenance is far from being handsome 

 or elegant. The women, in particular, Mr Hamilton 

 says, are extremely ugly. Lord Valentia, however, 

 tells us, that their features, though the very reverse 

 of beautiful, have a pleasing expression. Though 

 fond of European apparel when they can get it, their 

 native dress has all the simplicity of savage life in a 

 warm climate. The men wear nothing but a narrow 

 strip of cloth wrapped close and tight about the 

 middle. The women have only a short petticoat 

 made of rushes, or dry grass, reaching half way down 

 the thigh, and hanging round them like the thatch- 

 ing of a house. They speak a mixture of broken 

 English and barbarous Portuguese, which Lord Va- 

 lentia tells us prevented him from having any diffi- 

 culty in communicating with them. But their ori- 

 ginal tongue is that of Pegu, from which the Nico- 

 bar islands were peopled ; though their frequent in- 

 tercourse with strangers has made them in a great 

 measure renounce or forget it. They have this pe- 

 culiarity in their utterance, which is the principal 

 feature that they have retained of their native lan- 

 guage, that they pronounce their words with a sort 

 of stop or catch in the throat, at every syllable. 



In eating and drinking, they go to great excess. 

 Their favourite food is pork, which, with them, is 

 remarkably fat, and of which they devour immense 

 quantities at their village feasts. They like to sit at 

 table with Europeans; and they eat every thing 

 that is set before them with the most voracious and 

 ^discriminating appetite. As might be expected, 

 they are by no means nice in the cooking of their 

 victuals. Their pork gets nothing more than a hasty 

 grill over a quick fire, and is swallowed by them al- 

 most raw. Their method of roasting a fowl, is by 

 running a wooden spit through it, and holding it 

 Over a brisk fire till all the feathers are burnt off, when 

 it is quite prepared to their taste. They also make use 

 of small shell fish, of which they have great plenty, 

 and which they kill by means of lances, with wonder- 

 ful dexterity. Their drink consists of cocoa-nut 

 milk, and a liquor called xoura. The soura is a juice 

 which exudes from the cocoa-nut tree, after cutting 

 off the young sprouts or flowers, and, being allowed 

 to ferment, acquires an intoxicating quality. This 

 they suck slowly through a small straw, which method 

 of taking it, increases its power of inebriation. They 

 are also very fond of arrack, which they obtain in 

 presents or by barter. They will continue drinking 

 bumpers of it till they are completely drunk. Be- 

 sides feasting, in which they take great pleasure, 

 *Jierr chief amusement re dancing. After eating, 



COBAR. 



the young men and women, fancifully dressed with Carnico&ar. 

 leaves, engage in this exercise ; while the old people """" *"Y"*^ 

 sit around them, smoking tobacco and drinking soura.. 

 The only musical instrument which they have on 

 such occasions, is made of a hollow bamboo, about 

 2|- feet long, and 3 inches in diameter, along the 

 outside of which, from end to end., a single string^ 

 made of the threads of a split cane, is stretched, with 

 a hollow groove immediately under it, to prevent it 

 from touching. The instrument is played on like a 

 guitar. It has of course but few notes. The per- 

 former, however, improves its effect by accompany- 

 ing it with his voice; and the whole is said to be to- 

 lerably agreeable, as the dancers all the while sing 

 tunes, which are not destitute of harmony, and to 

 which they move in exact time. 



The Carnicobarians have no notion of a God ; or 

 rather their god is the devil, in whose existence they 

 firmly believe, and to whom they pay a most servile 

 worship. They have assigned him the best habita- 

 tion in the place, in the front of which they have 

 suspended offerings of various kinds. On the ap- 

 proach of a storm, or of any similar calamity in which 

 they recognise the immediate agency of the evil spi- 

 rit, they perform many superstitious ceremonies, 

 such as marching round the boundaries 'of their re- 

 spective villages, and fixing up at different intervals 

 small sticks split at the top, into which they inserted 

 a piece of cocoa nut, a wisp of tobacco, and the leaf 

 of a certain plant. It is difficult to determine whe- 

 ther these are intended to propitiate the object of 

 their fear, or to frighten him away, It appears, how-r 

 ever, that in every village a high pole is erected with 

 strings of ground-rattans hanging from it, and that, 

 in their opinion, this pole has virtue sufficient to keep 

 him at a distance. Indeed, they seem to place much 

 confidence in charms of this sort ; for Lord Valentia 

 tells us, that near the shore he saw a range of small 

 cleft sticks, with a piece of flesh stuck in each, 

 which served as a talisman to keep off death that had 

 visited them most destructively in the form of the 

 small-pox. In the moral character of the Carnico- 

 barians, there are some respectable qualities, which 

 place them far above many tribes in the same stage 

 of society. In their intercourse with strangers who 

 visit them, they are at first shy and suspicious, pro- 

 bably from the experience or the tradition of some acts 

 of treachery; and this suspicion they shew by ap- 

 pearing every one of them with some weapon in his 

 hand, which he never quits for a moment ; but as soon 

 as they see that there is no ground for jealousy, their 

 apprehensions are easily dispelled, and they appear 

 frank and good natured, civil and inoffensive. Their 

 aversion to dishonesty is remarkable. Theft or rob- 

 bery very seldom occurs among them ; is so rare, in- 

 deed, that a man when he goes from home never 

 thinks of using the ordinary precautions for securing 

 his property, having no fear of any depredations being 

 committed by his neighbour. Nor is it alleged, so 

 far as we know, that their conduct in this respect is 

 in any degree different in the intercourse and dealings 

 which they have with those strangers, by whom they 

 are frequently visited. It is to be observed, too, that 

 their ideas of property are sufficiently strict ; for 

 though they are very willing to impart to one another, 



