420 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
recently arrived from a remote part of the jungle, and having had 
no previous intercourse with white people. The Andamanese resi- < 
dent here are of no use for the purpose of ascertaining their primitive 
mental condition. They all have — especially the lads at school — 
undergone such a considerable mental enlargement, as I will instance 
in the case of a boy presently. The following brief statement of 
their views on some abstract ideas I obtained from a new arrival. 
Apparently some have no, and others the vaguest, conception of a 
deity or of departed spirits. By Pulloga they express the power 
which seems to have arranged natural objects as they now stand. 
They have a dim idea that some evil spirit or influence (no word to 
express that abstraction) sends disease among them, and that the 
latter is especially likely if they go into water after having rubbed 
on turtle fat ! They have a vague fear of going about in the jungle 
when it is dark. This would seem to point to their recognition of 
some malign influence which is then liable to assail them. My in- 
formants could specialise no further on these matters, either from 
never having thought about the subject at all, or from want of 
words to answer such unusual inquiries. 
In their dialect identical sounds would seem to have their mean- 
ing altered by the tone or key in which they are uttered. The 
result is that when speaking rapidly and consecutively, the voice 
modulates up and down in a manner not unlike a person speaking 
rapidly while humming a chant of three or four notes. The dialects 
of these islands are remarkable from their variety. The following 
are some : — 
(1.) Bojengijida, or South Andaman (spoken here). 
(2.) Balawada, or Andaman Archipelago. 
(8.) Bojigiabda, or South Middle Andaman. 
(4.) Akakolda, or East Middle Andaman. 
(5.) Awkojawaida, or West Middle Andaman. 
(6. ) Akakede, or Interview Island. 
Some of these are widely different, and the tribes living within 
twenty miles can often barely understand each other, those more 
remote being quite mutually unintelligible. 
They are conservative in their language, and generally prefer to 
invent a new word for a previously unnamed object than to borrow 
it. A certain number of English and Hindostani words are now 
