LEGENDS OF ORIGIN 229 



consonantal and thirty-five vowel sounds (it possesses a peculiar 

 double series of nasal vowels) — is polysyllabic, and untoned, like 

 the Malayo-Polynesian, and the type seems to resemble the 

 Oceanic more than the Continental Mongol subdivision." * 



This is the theory of the Kar Nicobarese with regard to their 

 origin : — 



A certain man, from some unknown country, arrived at the 

 Nicobars on a flat, with a pet female dog, and settled in Kar 

 Nicobar. In course of time he espoused the bitch, and begot a 

 son. When this son was grown up, he concealed his mother by 

 covering her with a ngong, a kind of petticoat made of coco-palm 

 leaves, and, after killing his father in the jungle, took his mother 

 to wife. From such parents the Nicobarese believe they originated, 

 and it is their progeny who now people the island. 



The two-horned head-dress — td-chdkla — worn by all males, 

 they consider symbolic of their mother's ears ; the end of the 

 loin-cloth that dangles behind, they call her tail ; and the piece 

 of cotton reaching to the women's knees only, they compare 

 with the ngong petticoat, which was her first dress. 



Until comparatively recently, this ngong — a thick fringe of 

 palm leaf about 15 inches deep, inserted in a band — was in 

 universal wear (see Koeping, Hamilton, Lancaster, and others) 

 and, even now, it is worn sometimes by the women when working 

 in the plantations. It is also worn at Teressa, and still more 

 at Chaura. f 



Another version of the legend varies somewhat, making the 

 father a dog and the mother a woman. It is owing to this 

 belief that the natives say they are sons of a dog, and for this 

 reason they treat their dogs very kindly, and never beat them : 

 they quiet them by simply saying " Hush ! hush ! " 



There is another tradition amongst the Nicobarese, to the 



effect that the first stranger who came to their islands, seeing 



something moving on the sand, perceived small people the size of 



* Professor A. H. Keane, "Man, Past and Present," Camb. Geog. Series, 

 1899. 



t Vide plate facing 248. 



