CARNICOBAR. 



H^cotur. yet each has his own personal possessions, consisting 

 ,c stock, fishing-lances, hatchets, &c. to w!, 



t!ly acknowledged, ami which, if 

 with the design, at least with the h.j>py eilect of 

 preventing disputes among his surviving relations, 

 111 the same grave with himself. They 

 have an uncommon disregard for any thing like 

 ceremony or compliment. When travelling to any 

 distant place, on buciuess or for amusement, tley will 

 pass through many villages without speaking to a 

 single person, unless they are charged with some 

 special communication. If tired or hungry, they 

 go into the first house they come to, help themselves 

 freely to what they need, remain till thy are re- 

 fieshed for their journey, and then quietly take their 

 departure, without exchanging a word, or taking the 

 smallest notice of any of the family. They are 

 united, indeed, by a mutual and constant interchange 

 of good offices ; and neither feel, nor even show, any 

 of that deference which characterises the more re- 

 fined stages of civilization. No authority is claimed 

 by one over another, and no peculiar honour is paid 

 to any class of individuals except to the old, who, 

 merely on account of their age, are treated with a 

 little more respect than others. We are not inform- 

 ed in what light they regard the virtue of chastity. 

 But Mr Hamilton tells us, that polygamy is not 

 known among them ; and that they punish adultery 

 with so much severity, as to render that crime of rare 

 occurrence. The punishment consists in cutting off 

 a piece of the foreskin proportioned to the enormity 

 of th- offence, or to the frequency with which it has 

 been committed. 



The inhabitants of Carnicobar enjoy good health, 

 and meet with few accidents ; and their skill in me- 

 dicine and surgery is not greater than their need of 

 it. Their mode of curing the sting of a scorpion, 

 or centiped, is this : They take the under jaw of a 

 small fish, having two rows of teeth as sharp as 

 needles : these are forcibly struck with a piece of 

 wood by way of hammer, into the swelling, till it 

 bleed freely, and the diseased part is then 'bound up 

 v/ith certain leaves till the cure is completed. Mr 

 Hamilton mentions an instance of this mode of treat- 

 ment which he witnessed, being attended with perfect 

 success in the course of twenty- four hours. When a 

 man dies, all his moveables, as has been already stated, 

 are buried with him ; his death is mourned by the whole 

 village, and his wife, according to custom, must 

 either consent to have a joint of one of her fingers 

 amputated, or submit to have a deep notch cut in 

 one of the pillars of her hut. Mr Hamilton gives the 

 following account of the funeral of an old woman, at 

 which he was present. ** When we went into the 

 house, which had belonged to the deceased, we found 

 it full of her female relations ; some of them were 

 employed in wrapping up the corpse in leaves and 

 cloth, and others tearing in pieces all the cloth which 

 had belonged to her. In another house hard by, the 

 men of the village, with a great many others from 

 the neighbouring towns, were sitting drinking soura 

 and smoking tobacco. In the mean time, two stout 

 young fellows were busy digging a grave in the 

 sand near the house. When the women had done 

 with the corpse, they set up a most hideous howl, 



VOL V. PART II. 



upon which the people b'egan to assemble round the ' 



grave, and four men went up into the house to bri: ;; *"""" """*" 



tli,- h ,i\ ; . g this, they were much in- 



terrupted by a young roan, son to the deceased, who 

 endeavoured with all his might to prevent them, but 

 finding it in vain, lu- thing round the body, and wa 

 carried to the grave along with it ; there, after a 

 violent struggle, he was turned away and conduct- 

 ed back to the house. The corpse was now put 

 into the grave, and the lashings which bound the 

 legs and arms cut. All the live stock which had been 

 the property of the deceased, consisting of about halt 

 a dozen hogs, and as many fowls, was killed and 

 flung in above it. A man then approached with a 

 bunch of leaves stuck upon the end of a pole, which 

 he swept two or three times gently along the corpse, 

 and then the grave was filled up. During the cere- 

 mony the women continued to make the most hor- 

 rible vocal concert imaginable; the men said nothing. 

 A few days afterwards, a kind of monument wa 

 erected over the grave, with a pole upon it, to whick 

 long strips of cloth of different colours were hung." 

 Lord Valentia saw, around the village which he vi- 

 sited, tall pieces of bamboo stuck into the ground, 

 each of which, he was told, marked the spot where 

 a person had been interred. 



The Carnicobarians carry on some trade. Their 

 cocoa-nuts are reckoned the finest in that part of 

 India, and there is a regular demand for them from 

 Pegu, and various other quarters. The article* 

 which they require in return are cloth of different 

 colours, hatchets, and hanger blades. These last 

 they use in cutting down the nuts. They usually 

 purchase a greater quantity of cloth than is necessa- 

 ry for their own consumption, which they carry to 

 Chowry, a small island to the southward, and ex- 

 change it for canoes, which they cannot make for 

 themselves. For this purpose they send a large fleet 

 of boats every year in the month of November, and 

 these they navigate, not by a compass, of which they 

 know nothing, but by the help of the sun and stars. 

 They are very anxious to procure tobacco and ar- 

 rack ; but these, along with knives, handkerchiefs, 

 and other useful articles, they generally expect to 

 receive in presents. Lord Valentia says, that they 

 required money for the provisions which were ob- 

 tained from them. To the coin of other countries, 

 however, for they have none of their own, they do 

 not attach any value as a circulating medium. They 

 regard it merely as furnishing them with ornaments, 

 which they esteem beautiful : and this is corrobora- 

 ted by what his lordship adds respecting their pre- 

 ference for dollars ; strings of which, Mr Hamilton 

 informs us, are worn by the young women about 

 their necks. They are said to be good judges off 

 silver and gold, which they very readily distinguish 

 from the baser metals that are sometimes, in the 

 course of trade, attempted to be substituted in their 

 place. See Mr Hamilton's Short Description of 

 Carnicobar, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. it. p. 337, 

 el seq. Lord Valentia' s Voyages and Travel*, p. S3, 

 which is accompanied with a view by Mr Salt of ore 

 side of the island of Carnicobar. Mr Dalrymple, 

 in his Oriental Repertory, vol. i. p. 104, mentions, 

 that, in 1687, Captain Weldon surveyed the Nico- 

 3o 



