Experiencing Anthropology in the Nicobar Archipelago

Vijoy S Sahay

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367539825
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000170115
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Kultur- & Sozialanthropologie

This book explores the discipline of social-cultural anthropology through an extensive study of the Nicobarese people in one of the remotest human settlements of the Indian Ocean. It examines the social, cultural, economic, political and magico-religious beliefs of the Nicobarese, and traces their ritualistic upbringing from conception till after death. The book also discusses the nature-man-spirit complex observed in the life of the Nicobarese.

The author further utilises this study to examine the complex role of anthropologists in maintaining objectivity and authenticity in ethnographic accounts, and discusses several critical epistemological issues concerning social-cultural anthropology as a field of study today.

Based upon extensive field research by the author conducted over four decades, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of sociology and social-cultural anthropology, human geography, social sciences, minority studies, as well as South Asian studies.

1 My admittance to the discipline of anthropology

Most of the anthropologists I have ever met or have known became anthropologists by ‘chance,’ not by ‘choice.’ They wanted to become something else, but accidentally, as if a U-turn took place in their lives, they became anthropologists. This is not at all to belittle the valuable contributions of any such anthropologist. However, for example, even Franz Boas, before turning to anthropology, studied physics and geography, and Malinowski’s background was in mathematics and physics. Raymond Firth’s background was in economics, moral science, and psychology, and Edmund Leach’s in engineering. Even the background of the Father of Indian Ethnography/Anthropology, Rai Bahadur Sarat Chandra Roy, was in English literature and law. My guru, the late Professor L.P. Vidyarthi, had an earlier background in geography (Sahay, 1988, 2001).

In this context, my case is different. I had felt the sparks of the discipline in my heart, even before completing my schooling. While still in my matriculation, one day, one of our neighbors came to our house with a weighing machine, anthropometer, sliding caliper, and spreading caliper to take somatometric measurements of our family members. All the apparatus attracted my attention so much that I watched him taking measurements. As an inquisitive young boy, I asked him what it was all about. He told me that he was doing an MA in anthropology, and it was part of his practical assignment. For reasons not known to me, the moment I heard the word ‘anthropology,’ it appeared very pleasing to my ears. I did not know the meaning of it, nor did I ask my neighbor to explain its meaning, but it had sufficiently aroused my interest and curiosity in the discipline.

After matriculating, I took admission in Ranchi College, Ranchi, India, in 1964. I could not study anthropology then; for the teaching of the discipline started only in the Second Year. Nevertheless, whenever I passed through the corridor of the Department of Anthropology, I never missed peeping inside the practical-cum-classroom of the department. And when I saw the human skulls and other bones or some prehistoric stone tools in the hands of the students or spread on the tables, and the students intently taking their measurements, my excitement knew no bounds. As soon as I was admitted in the Second Year, I offered anthropology as one of my optional papers and was very happy to do so.

In the Third Year, I opted for an Honors course in anthropology. The teachers who had an impact on me in the classes during the Honors course were Mrinal Roy, A.B. Saran, and Narayan Mishra. Mrinal Roy taught us prehistory with all his ‘metallic voice’ at his command. Still echoing in my ears is how he pronounced ‘Magdalenian Culture.’ A.B. Saran was a very good teacher. Very slowly and softly, he delivered his lectures on physical anthropology. After his lecture on any topic, he dictated us notes too. It appears that he had perhaps mugged up all the sentences, as one could hardly find any difference between his lecture and the notes on the same topic that he dictated to us. I still remember some of his oft repeated sentences, such as ‘Archaeology is the science of excavation,’ or ‘Geology is the study of different strata layers of earth.’ Narayan Mishra taught us research methodology. He delivered his lectures very quickly and repeated some sentences or definitions so many times that I still remember, for example, ‘Observation is the examination of the phenomena without altering them’ or ‘Science begins with observation and ultimately returns to observation for its final validation.’

The other teachers during the Honors course were K.N. Sahay, V.S. Upadhyaya, A.R.N. Srivastava, Purnima Verma, and Md. Israel (lab-in-charge). K.N. Sahay always commanded my utmost respect because of his ‘child-like-inquisitiveness’ to know or to learn anything. However, his classes in social anthropology were so monotonous that I could hardly understand then what ‘Nadal’ or ‘Murdock’ said about ‘Social Structure.’ In the absence of Mrinal Roy (who had left for the United States), V.S. Upadhyaya taught us prehistory. Purnima Verma was very young, beautiful, and charming. She also engaged the classes of physical anthropology. A.R.N. Srivastava taught us Vidyarthi’s concept of ‘Nature-Man-Spirit Complex.’ Md. Israel was a very kind and gentle soul. He engaged our classes of physical anthropology practical. He was doing PhD work in dental anthropology. I was very sad when I learned that he died of train accident near Kolkata while on an anthropological trip with students. May his soul rest in peace!

First fieldwork

Fifteen days of fieldwork was compulsory in the Honors course in anthropology. In September–October 1967, I did my first fieldwork in anthropology under the supervision of A.R.N. Srivastaava at Palkot, 160 kilometers southwest of Ranchi. Palkot was then quite a small, sleepy, rural, multiethnic kasba (a kasba is bigger than a village but smaller than even a small town). The ethnic groups that lived there consisted of the Oraons, the Kharias, and the Mahalis among the tribesmen. Among the castes were the Oriya speaking Brahmins (priests), the Rajputs (land owning class), the Banias (traders), the Thatheras (metal pot makers), the Nais (barbers, i.e., hair cutters and dressers), the Kumhars (earthen pot makers), and the Lohars (blacksmiths). A small Muslim population belonging to the weaver community also lived in Palkot.

About three to four hundred years before, Palkot was the seat of the ancient Nagbanshi (cobra dynasty) rulers of Chotanagpur. Their ancestral garh (palace or fort), now almost dilapidated, is still there just at the foot of the Palkot hills. Some of the members of the ancient ruler’s family still live there, as their Kul Devi (family deity) has been situated there. Palkot hill abound in igneous rocks; therefore, a number of small and big natural caves have been formed. Several springs of sweet water flow year-around from the bottom of many such caves. I presume that, in the past, this place must have been inhabited by prehistoric people. Geologically, this region is considered part of Gondwanaland, which is the oldest landmass on earth. All the necessary and ideal prerequisites for prehistoric people to live and survive, such as caves for shelter, water resources, dense forest with rich flora and fauna for gathering leaves, fruits, and roots and also for hunting wild game, suitable stones for making stone tools, and the like, are found in abundance here. I am sure explorations along these lines in Palkot would yield fruitful results. At the top of the hill is a small pond amid thick forest. Wildlife was very much present there when we worked. Our team had been put up in a small school hostel, hardly a furlong away from the bottom of the hill and the garh. Every evening we heard the roars of tigers. We never went out of the hostel premises at night. There was no electricity or even any streetlight. Soon after dusk, the entire population of Palkot appeared to have retired to bed.

Weather during these months remains very pleasant in this part of the country. Dust-free air and sky throughout the day and night, bright sunshine during the day, dense woods, and green paddy fields all around the undulating hilly tracts, all added beauty to the greenery in and around Palkot. Monday was market day. On this day, a lot of activities took place in this otherwise sleepy kasba. People, tribal and nontribal, came to Palkot from faraway and distant places on foot, by bicycle, on bullock carts, on horseback, or by other means, either to purchase something for their domestic use or to sell domestic items, such as green vegetables, earthen pots, brooms, baskets made of bamboo, forest products such as mahua (Madhuca longifolia), a variety of jungle fruits such as tamarind (Tamarindus indica) and wild mango (Mangifera indica), and the like.

An intertribal market in India is an interesting topic for anthropological research. More than economic, it has its social and cultural meanings and significance. People of varied age groups throng to the marketplace every week for various reasons. Granted, a large number of persons come either to purchase or to sell domestic items and utensils. But equally large numbers of people come for various other reasons, such as meeting friends and relatives, organizing political or religious meetings, or settling marriages of their children with the members of different villages and clans of their respective caste or tribe. Young boys and girls of the same or the other villages can be found meeting at such marketplaces because otherwise they do not get enough of a chance to meet one another in the same village for fear of being seen by their parents and seniors. Thus, in a tribal market of Palkot type, not only economic but a lot of social, religious, and political activities also take place. D.P. Sinha (1968) has studied such a tribal market.

My topic of fieldwork was demography. I was told by the field supervisor to collect as many as fifty genealogies; the variables included name, sex, age, caste/tribe, clan, literacy, marriage, marriage age, marriage distance and direction, birth, death, age at the time of death, and migration. After collecting four to five genealogies in detail every day, I mostly spent time in climbing hills and visiting caves, and I enjoyed gossiping and basking in the prewinter sun throughout the day with some of my teammates. In the evening, we prepared a daily report, and duly got it signed by the supervisor.

Knowing Vidyarthi

I joined the MA course in anthropology in Ranchi University in 1970. Until then, all I had heard about Vidyarthi that he was an internationally known professor of anthropology. I had the first glimpse of him in the classroom. Though I had not previously created any precise image of him in my mind, when I first saw him, I was disappointed. I had expected that the force of personality of an internationally known professor of anthropology would be taller in all respects than any stretch of my imagination could conjure up. But lo! Here was a professor, short in stature, with brushed-back hair, without any trace of foreign accent in his lectures, neither anglicized nor Americanized but rather as simply accented as any Indian would speak English. However, within a week of his classes, I began to realize that he was a very good teacher. He took up the classes of anthropological theories and history and the development of Indian anthropology. In every class before he proceeded further on the topic, he would ask the most simple and short questions to every student present in the class, and all the questions would be related to his previous class. Therefore, everyone who attended his class came prepared to answer his very short but anthropologically very pertinent questions, at least from what he had delivered in the last lecture. My interest in anthropological theory developed in Vidyarthi’s classes. He taught us evolutionism, diffusionism, and culture and personality. He took great interest in delivering lectures on Morgan, Tylor, Henry Maine, McLennan, Bachofen, Adolf Bastian, Ratzel, Father Wilhelm Schmidt, Leslie White, V. Gordon Child, Julian Steward, Franz Boas, Alfred Louis Kroeber, and Robert Redfield. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Linton, Kardiner, and Cora-du-Bois were also his favorites. His interest in Ratzel and Franz Boas was perhaps because of his own background in geography. Leslie White was his very favorite too. Julian Steward wrote the Foreword of his first book, The Maler: A Study in Nature-Man-Spirit Complex (1963).

He ensured that every student must remember Tylor’s (1871) definition of culture: “Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa and Growing Up in New Guinea must have impressed him very much. He took great delight in lecturing on the ‘Basic Personality Structure’ of Linton and Kardiner and the ‘Pattern of Culture’ of Ruth Benedict. Benedict’s ‘Apollonian’ and ‘Dionysian’ patterns of culture were very dear to him. He derived similar delight in discussing the ‘Modal Personality’ of Cora-du-Bois. He also taught us the development of anthropology in India. Borrowing the framework from T. K. Penniman’s book Hundred Years of Anthropology (1935), he lectured with great delight how Indian anthropology had also passed through Formulatory, Constructive, Analytical and Critical Periods, starting from the establishment of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal by Sir William Jones in 1784.

My rapport with him began to develop in Saturday seminars, and the more it developed, the more I began to realize that behind his calm, simple, and ordinary disposition was hidden his extraordinarily tall stature in anthropology. Another teacher during my postgraduation made any impact on me: B.K. Srivastava, who had obtained a PhD from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the United States. He taught us economic anthropology. His lectures on Marcel Mauss’s ‘principle of reciprocity’ and Durkheim’s ‘social fact,’ ‘social solidarity,’ and ‘society sui generis’ are still fresh in my mind.

Saturday seminars

As long as Vidyarthi was alive, Saturday seminars remained a special feature of the department. Every student was required to present at least two papers in a year on such seminars: one a synopsis of fieldwork before going to the field, and another on findings on the topic after returning from the field. If no student was prepared to present a paper, then any of the research scholars was asked to present one relating to his or her topic of research. Every PhD viva voce examination was followed by a presentation of the methodologies and findings of the research by the candidate obtaining the doctoral degree. In addition, ‘extraordinary’ seminars were held when any scholar/professor visited the department on one occasion or another. During such extraordinary seminars, we heard C. Von Feurer Haimendorf, A. Ayappan, B.K. Roy Burman, Kumar Suresh Singh, Victor Turner, and many others. Once, even a chief of the Gond tribe of Madhya Pradesh addressed our seminar. A few weeks before her death in 1978, Margaret Mead was also scheduled to visit the department, but apparently her health did not allow her to undertake the journey.

I took great interest in such seminars by asking questions and taking part in the discussion. Besides the routine papers on my fieldwork, I presented two more papers during my postgraduation. The first was ‘Penalty for Generations: The Descendants of the Convicts at Kalapani.’ This paper I presented after my return from Andaman and Nicobar in 1971. While in Port Blair, I had observed that those who were called ‘local’ in Andaman were in fact the descendants of the convicts who were the earliest settlers from the mainland of India in Andamans. They had a somewhat distinct identity and personality. It appeared to me that they suffered from complexities. Whenever I interacted with them, I found them at first shy and reserved and then a little aggressive. Their eyes appeared reddish. Their language, a mixture of Hindi and Urdu, was also typical. They called it Hindustani. On whatever topic one talked to them, ultimately, they expressed their grudge with bitterness that because they were the descendants of convicts, no one cared for them, neither the government nor the mainlanders. The mainlanders did not absorb them in their mainstream of social and cultural life. In exceptional cases, one or two local girls were married to the mainlanders, but in no case did the mainlanders give their girls in marriage to any local person. The reasons were obvious. In terms of ‘purity and pollution,’ the mainlanders considered themselves superior to the locals in the caste hierarchy.

A number of such locals had become my good friends even during this short visit, such as Indernath, Anand, Virendranath, Shyamsunder, among others. What struck me first was the absence of any ‘title’ in their names. One could not make out from their names what caste they belonged to. Indernath invited me several times for lunch or dinner. I mixed with his family also, and I began to like them very much. They were a simple people, very honest, and without any trace of caste or communal feelings. Initially shy and reserve, but after ‘rapport’ was established, they were very eager to meet and interact with me. Upon probing more deeply, I could understand their grudge. I learned that the deportation of convicts from the mainland Indian subcontinent for penal settlement that first began during the last quarter of the 18th century (precisely, 1789), was shortly abandoned for the fatal climatic condition, and then resumed thereafter from the 1860s. The number of women convicts was always lower than the number of male convicts.

In 1789, the settlement began in Port Blair, but for some unknown reasons, it was shifted to Port Cornwallis in the North Andaman, which was eventually abandoned in 1796 because of the very high mortality rate of the convicts due to the climate. The convicts were sent to Penang, and the British officers returned to Calcutta. Thus. the initial attempts to colonize the Islands proved to be a fiasco.

However, after the First War of Independence (according to the British, the Mutiny of 1857), the jails in the Indian subcontinent were overcrowded. Therefore, the British thought to revive the penal settlement in Andamans. And thus, the first ship carrying the convicts from the mainland arrived in 1858. Thereafter, it continued till the 1930s. Initially, the convicts were kept under confinement and strict surveillance. But based upon their good conduct, some of them were allowed to live a free life in the island, but under strict monitoring of the jail administration. Tradition has it that a group of men and women, whose conduct was regarded as satisfactory, were set free near the adjacent woods to select their partners and then settle together. That area where they were left is even today known as Shadipur, meaning thereby; the village where the marriages took place. Despite the fact that the ratio of women among the locals in Port Blair in those early days was always low, polyandry never emerged here. However, neither the Hindus nor the Muslims could perpetuate the caste hierarchy in Andamans. In fact, in those early days, there was little choice of spouses within one’s own caste. The marriages were very common between a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl, and vice versa. In one family, wife and husband could be found following their respective religions and living in complete harmony without any strife. Thus, a society of ‘mixed-caste-and-religion’ emerged in Andamans. It is said that when Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first President of the Republic of India, visited the Andamans in 1956, he was so impressed to see the society and culture of people in Port Blair that he considered it as the ‘ideal’ one and termed it as ‘mini India.’

As long as there had not been the influx of the mainlanders in Andamans, the so-called locals lived in complete peace and harmony. They easily got jobs in different departments of the adminis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue
• 1 My admittance to the discipline of anthropology
• 2 My initiation into the discipline in the land of wizards
• 3 Living the life of a Nancowrian
• 4 Nature: the coconut and forest economy
• 5 Nature: the sea economy
• 6 Man: the tribe, the lineage, the village
• 7 Man: the family
• 8 Man: The life cycle: A Nicobarese—‘At the axis of self’
• 9 Spirit-world and the sacred complex of the Nicobarese
• Epilogue
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index