1884.] 
A Nicobar tale. 
25 
the transmission of historical narrative. By a strict rule which has all the 
sanction of Nicobar superstition, no man’s name may be mentioned after 
his death ! To such a length is this carried that when, as very frequent¬ 
ly happens, the man rejoiced in the name of “ Fowl,” “ Hat,” “ Fire,” 
“ Road” &c., in its Nicobarese equivalent, the use of these words is care¬ 
fully eschewed for the future, not only as being the personal designation 
of the deceased, but even as the names of the common things they repre¬ 
sent ; the words die out of the language, and either new vocables are 
coined to express the thing intended, or a substitute for the disused word 
is found in other Nicobarese dialects or in some foreign tongue. This 
extraordinary custom not only adds an element of instability to the lan¬ 
guage, but destroys the continuity of political life, and renders the record 
of past events precarious and vague if not impossible. We must not 
therefore expect to glean much from these tales as to the past history of 
the people. Still they are, as a rule, worth preserving, for they exhibit 
traces of religious ideas which prevailed in former times, of bitter con¬ 
flicts, and of Nicobar humour. The most popular of these tales I here 
subjoin ; and I hope to prepare others hereafter. 
The Nicobar text, reproduced as literally as possible in the English 
translation in the parallel column, consists of short abrupt sentences, 
devoid of any poetic flight whatever. The language of this people is 
naturally, one had almost said necessarily, abrupt, their teeth being so 
thickly coated over with betel and lime as to keep the lips thrust wide 
open, whilst quids of the same generally occupy their mouths. A fluent 
utterance under these circumstances would be physically difficult and a 
slow speech broken into short sentences is the inevitable result. To enter 
into the spirit of the narrative it is necessary to picture to oneself the 
raconteur, usually an old man, his jaws ever and anon at work chewing 
the indispensible quid of pan, betel, and lime. His auditors, generally 
the youthful members of the community, are grouped around him. 
Having refreshed his memory with copious draughts of toddy he com¬ 
mences his story. It has often been heard before, and as the disjointed 
sentences are uttered with slow deliberation a running commentary is 
maintained by the audience, the young people, anxious to show that they 
know what is coming, shouting out the cue of the part about to be related. 
The jerky character of the diction, therefore, as it appears in the English 
translation faithfully reproduces the condition of the Nicobarese text 
with as little sacrifice as possible of the original colouring, the interjected 
observations of the elders, and the precocious promptings of the juvenile 
listeners being left to the imagination of the reader to fill in, if he would 
have a good idea of the narration as it flourishes in the homesteads of 
the people—the pages of a book cannot adequately convey it. 
D 
