98 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



Malays who are norm all j as piratical and bloodthirsty as the 

 Nicobarese are peaceful and hospitable. 



The great bulk of the people, even in the central group, alto- 

 gether disapproved of this robbery and murder, which is 

 utterly foreign to their character ; but in consequence of their 

 peculiar social disorganization there was no one who could 

 interfere to stop it. 



There are no persons whatsoever possessing any authority 

 amongst the Nicobarese, Entire absence of subordination is 

 the one salient feature of their social polity. There are no 

 headmen of villages, no man who can say to any other, (( You 

 must do this or that/' Husbands have no authority over their 

 wives, parents over their children ; everybody, big and little, 

 rich and poor, male and female, stands on an altogether inde- 

 pendent footing. 



There are no rights in the soil. Any man, Nicobarese or even, 

 as far as I could learn, foreigner, may plant a tree anywhere, 

 and once planted it belongs, so long as it lives, to him and his 

 people after him, and this property is strictly respected. The 

 state of affairs must be understood. No man has any need to 

 work. They have everything they want at their doors. Cocoa- 

 nut trees bearing ten times as much fruit as they can consume, 

 the surplus of which, when bartered, yields them rum and 

 tobacco, silver spoons and black beaver hats (luxuries they 

 greatly affect), and any other clothes they may fancy. The 

 screw pines (Pandanus) yield them a large fruit, miscalled locally 

 the bread-fruit ; the}- have pigs hanging in cages about then- 

 houses, and flocks of poultry shut up in pens below (rather a 

 reversal of our modes of dealing with these !) and they have 

 fish and shell-fish to any extent. There is absolutely no struggle 

 for existence. A child five or six years of age can provide its 

 own sustenance ; no one need be dependent on any one for any- 

 thing ; even the materials for their very neat and comfortable 

 houses are on the ground, or within twenty yards of the ground, 

 where they are built. 



No man has, except in regard to cocoanut trees, any heir ; every 

 scrap of property he possesses, even to the billets of fire-wood 

 he has collected, is taken to his grave with him ; even of his 

 cocoanut trees a certain number are cut down to supply his neces- 

 sities in a future state. 



From all this it has resulted that authority is a thing un- 

 known amongst them. There doubtless are leading men, 

 like Captains (they all call themselves Captains J Johnson, 

 England, London, but these are only so far leaders that, having 



