A SURVEY SEASON IN THE NICOBAR ISLANDS. 
973 
the offspring of a man from an unknown country and liis. pet dog, and their 
present day dress is an attempt to imitate the canuie characters ; thus the 
two-horned head dress made of a strip of palm-leaf resembles the ears, 
the end of the loin cloth left hanging do\vn behind represents the tail. While 
the so-called loin-cloth (kissals) which is conical in shape and is made of red 
cloth, fits over the private parts and projects forwards as a blatant imitation 
of the dog’s penis.* * In the villages romid Nankauri Harbour, however, one 
seldom if ever sees a Nicobarese in his native costume. Communication 
with the outer world has introduced more civilized customs and 
it is only on rare occasions in their huts or in the jungle that one comes across 
individuals clad in only a scanty loin cloth. 
Each native habitation consists of two huts. The chief of these is of a 
bee-hive shape with domed roof capped by a projecting spike, while the other is 
rectangular with a sloping roof. This latter is referred to by Boden Kloss as the 
“kitchen” but in my experience it is used partly as a store house and partly 
as a dwelling : most, if not all, the cookmg is carried out on a 
clay fire-place in the larger bee-hive type of hut. Each hut is built 
on piles and underneath is a platform on which articles can be stored 
or on which the men sit and smoke during the heat of the day. Vil- 
lages are usually situated close down to the beach and just above high- 
water mark at the head of a small sandy bay, though one that I visited on Trm- 
kat Island, to the east of Camorta and just across Beresford Channel, stands 
back a little way and is almost completely hidden in trees. The selection 
of the site is dictated by the necessity of having a good landing place for the 
canoes. Occasionally the village is screened from view by an outlying man- 
grove swamp or by a small projecting promontory, but its position is always 
clearly indicated by the tall bamboos, decorated at intervals by bunches of leaves 
and grass, which are erected well out in the water in front of the village. The 
size of the village is roughly indicated by the number of such erections. There 
should be one bamboo for each family, but this is not always accurately car- 
ried out. Li certain other islands of the Nicobar group these bamboos seem to 
have a definite superstitious significance and are erected in the belief that they 
will bring good luck to the inhabitants of the village in their fishing ; but in Nan- 
kaimi Harbour they are regarded merely as land marks. True scare-devils 
of various kinds are, however, sometimes erected in the water in front of the vil- 
lages, though in Nankauri Harbour I only saw one where this was done. This 
was at Inuanga on the east shore of Spiteful Bay. Some of these scare-devils 
took the form of a rattan or piece of wood placed upright in the water and split 
at the top longitudinally, while below it was decorated with a bunch of leaves 
and grass. Others took the form of human heads, decorated below with palm- 
leaves and grass : these were erected in groups of three. In the group which I 
photographed the central figure wears a top-hat, while the two side figures are 
crowned with a head dress terminating above in two white pomts. 
Each Nicobarese family is the proud possessor of a certain number of domes- 
tic animals in addition to the dogs already mentioned. Fowls scratch up the 
sand and pick up what they can in the way of food, and below the dwelling house, 
on the platform mentioned above, one usually finds boxes and cane baskets 
in which the eggs are laid and there is usually at least one broody hen patiently 
hatching out a clutch. Pigs of all sizes, from full-grown sows to little “sqeakers”, 
root about in the neighbouring jimgle and fore-shore, picking up imeonsidered 
trifles, and occasionally make a dash for and in one gulp despatch a stray small 
chicken. In addition to what they glean for themselves the pigs are 
fed daily, their allowance being two cocoanuts apiece : each housewife knows 
** This costume is in its complete form best seen at the Northern Island of Car 
Nicobar. 
