In the Andamans and Nicobars: The Narrative of a Cruise in the Schooner "Terrapin"Kloss, C. Boden (Cecil Boden)
History
In the Andamans and Nicobars: The Narrative of a Cruise in the Schooner "Terrapin"
Kloss, C. Boden (Cecil Boden)
Andaman and Nicobar Islands (India) -- Description and travel; Natural history -- India -- Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Skipping a long period, we next come to the ninth century, and there
have the accounts of Arab travellers (A.D. 871), which, although of an
alarming description, are tolerably correct in some details. "The people
eat human flesh quite raw; their complexion is black, their hair
frizzled, their countenance and eyes frightful, their feet very large,
and almost a cubit in length, and they go quite naked." Those ships, the
story goes on to say, which have been set back by contrary winds, and
compelled to anchor for the sake of water, commonly lose some of their
men on these barbarous coasts, and it is fortunate that the natives have
no ships or other vessels, otherwise they would seize and devour all the
passengers.[92]
Reference to the Andamans in the thirteenth-century narrative of Marco
Polo is very much of a traveller's tale. "Angamanain is a very large
island. The people are without a king, and are idolaters, and no better
than wild beasts. All the men of this island have heads like dogs, and
teeth and eyes likewise; in fact, in face they are just like big mastiff
dogs! They have a quantity of spices; but they are a most cruel
generation, and eat everybody they can catch not of their own race. They
live on flesh, and rice and milk, and have fruits different from ours."
Colonel Yule suggests that Angamanain is an Arabic (oblique) dual,
indicating "The two Andamans," viz., "The Great and the Little."
In 1563, Master Cæsar Frederike set out on his travels, and returning
homeward three years later, passed near the Nicobars on his way from
Malacca to Goa. "From Nicobar to Pegu is, as it were, a row or chain of
islands, an infinite number, of which many are inhabited with wild
people; and they call those islands the Islands of Andemaon, and their
people savage or wild, because they eat one another. Also, these islands
have war one with another; for they have small barques, and with them
they take one another, and eat one another: and if by evil chance any
ship be lost on those islands, as many have been, there is not one man
of those ships that escapeth uneaten or unslain. These people have not
any acquaintance with any other people, neither have they trade with
any, but live only on such fruits as the islands yield."[93]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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