PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
35 
rally provides himself with a wife ! The marriage expenses of the Coorumbers, 
unlike those of other Eastern races in general, being very inexpensive, the whole 
affair is gone through with an outlay of 96 pice. The habits of these people are 
very primitive, and their actions appear to be guided chiefly by natural instinct. In 
their native jungles they generally fly at the sight of an European, so completely 
uncivilized are the race ; but we are trying to get them in now. The Coorumbers 
do not appear to be sociable in their tastes, as they are rarely to be found in a num¬ 
ber together, each small community consisting entirely of near relatives. The Coo¬ 
rumbers evince no care for the morrow, looking only for the present, and their wants 
are so few as to be easily supplied ; for they live chiefly upon certain roots, yams, 
&c., and some particular creepers, to be found in their jungles, rarely tasting rice save 
at the harvest time. Their offensive and defensive weapons are the bow and arrow, 
which they handle with great dexterity, and wherewith they shoot with admirable 
precision. The power of the Wynaad bow is very great, indeed. The late Major 
Bevan, in his amusing work, relates an anecdote of a poor Ryot who had lost one 
of his buffaloes, which was killed by a tiger. The Coorumber, determined on wreak¬ 
ing his vengeance, lay in ambush behind a slight screen near the carcase. The tiger 
came, as expected, to make a second meal; and the Coorumber, bending his bow, 
discharged an arrow with such force and so right an aim as to pierce the tiger’s heart. 
The monster, when struck, bounded into the air, and fell stone dead on the remains of 
his victim, to the great pride and satisfaction of the Coorumber, who received a re¬ 
ward of 10 pagodas for his skill and prowess, which sum enabled him to make up 
more than the loss. The same writer mentions that at an exhibition of archery in 
presence of the Right Honourable S. R. Lushington, then governor of Madras, the 
Coorumber seldom failed in hitting a rupee at a distance of from 60 to 100 yards, 
and never failed to strike the mark within the space of a man’s body at that distance. 
Their skill with the axe is very great, and they are thus of very great use to the 
coffee planters in clearing their grounds. 
It might be expected that the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, situated at 
some distance eastwards of Ceylon, would resemble the Veddahs; but you will at 
once see from the following recent description of them that they are evidently too 
Papuan in their character to bear any resemblance. 
They seldom exceed five feet in height, with protuberant stomachs and dispropor¬ 
tionate and small limbs, they have the short curly hair of the negro, flat noses, thick 
lips, and small red eyes, their skin is sooty black, and their countenances exhibit the 
extreme of wretchedness, want, and ferocity. They live in a state of nudity, and 
besmear themselves with a thick covering of mud, to preserve themselves from the 
bites of desperate insects. Their implements of husbandry and war are of the 
rudest kinds. Their lines for fishing are made of the bark of trees, their hooks of 
burnt wood and fish bones. Their bows are four or five feet long, made from the 
fibres of a tree on slips of bamboo, and arrows of reed, tipped with fish bone or wood 
hardened by fire. Their spears are made of the same material, and their shields are 
made from the bark of trees. Their fishing-boats are made from the trunks, and 
their nets from the bark of trees. Fish is very abundant in the bays and creeks of 
the islands. The variety and number of cattle is small. A few diminutive sized 
swine are found on the skirts of the forests. Though fish is the principal food of 
the inhabitants, they eagerly grasp at whatever nature provides—birds, rats, and 
insects are eagerly devoured by them, and often in a half cooked condition. The 
birds found in the islands are the hawk, paraquet, kingfisher, and quail. The edible 
bird’s nest is also found in the rocky crags. The fruit of the mangrove steeped in 
mud has been found in their huts, and this, with sundry roots and leaves in a raw 
state, constitute their vegetable diet. They do not even possess the cocoa-nut. 
The only animals they have, besides those mentioned above, are rats, the ichneumon, 
with snakes and scorpions in great variety. The trees are, the guava, the banyan, 
almond, the oil, and wood trees. Iron wood is in abundance. Parasites of almost 
every hue and kind abound. The red wood is almost equal to mahogany. The 
rains are very heavy, 98 inches fell in seven months, and the hurricanes which 
pass over the islands are represented as terrific. 
That the people are cannibals there can be no doubt, and the only ornaments they wear 
are the teeth and skulls of their enemies or those who have fallen a prey to their ferocity. 
