1870.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 21 



The customs now prevalent among the Andamanese islanders, 

 may help us to explain this scarcity of human bones during the 

 stone-age in Europe. The reverence paid by the Andamanese to 

 the dead seems to be the only expression which approaches to any- 

 thing like a religious view. In case of death the body is buried, and 

 after a year or so dug out, and the bones are divided among the near- 

 est relations. If a married man, the widow, or one of the children, 

 receives the skull, which is painted over with red earth and carried 

 about in a net work, tied with strings round the waist or neck. For 

 this reason it is very difficult to procure a perfect skeleton, and we 

 can hardly expect to obtain human remains of their own tribe in the 

 mounds. — It is just possible that similar customs may have pre- 

 vailed during ancient times in Europe, for here the occurrence of 

 human bones with implements and other remains is known to be 

 always of extreme rarity. 



The Nicobarese, (or Najbars, as they are called by the most 

 ancient Muhammadan travellers, vide Jour. Asiat. Soc, Bengal, 

 V, p. 467), treat their dead in a very similar manner, but whether 

 they brought this custom with them when they spread over the 

 Nieobar islands, or whether they accepted it from the aboriginal 

 islanders which they seem to have nearly exterminated, it is diffi- 

 cult to prove. I don't think there can be a doubt that the present 

 Nicobarese are descendants of the Malays, and they certainly 

 must have immigrated before the Muhammadan creed was spread 

 over the neighbouring islands, which took place in Sumatra as 

 well as in Malacca, &c. &c, before the close of the thirteenth cen- 

 tury.* But a comparison of the present very deficient social state 

 of the Nicobarese with the advanced political and social arrange- 

 ments of the Malays on Sumatra, &c. &c, during the 11th and 12th 

 centuries indicates that their separation is very probably of a much 

 older date. The study of the languages! of those different insular 

 tribes is probably best adapted in approximately deciphering the 

 data, and I only allude to them here because the immigration of 

 the Malay Nicobarese appears to have had a great influence 

 upon the Andamanese themselves. 



* Vide Reinaud's Geograph. d'Aboulfeda, I, p. CDXXII jMarsden's 

 History of Sumatra, p. 344, &c, &c. 



t Mr. B 1 o c h in a n n informs mo tliat he has not been able to find any dis- 

 tinct admixture of Arabic words in the Nicobarese language, judging of course 

 from the very imperfect vocabularies we possess of it. 



