15. Hunting, Gathering, Eating

by George Weber

Whenever a group of Andamanese males was taken to Calcutta during the 19th century, they pretended not to be impressed or even interested in the many new things they were shown. It was play-acting, a reluctance to let the curious onlookers know what they really thought.

Before the awesome sight of a pen full of huge, fat Chinese pigs, however, M.V. Portman reported, Andamanese self-control slipped when

they were taken to see the great piggeries [near Calcutta] which, as I had expected, threw them into raptures

and when

they saw a number of very fat Chinese pigs in some crates on a truck in the [Penang] station, and from which I could scarcely tear them away.

Just how determined Andamanese males, including youngsters living in the Andamanese Homes and strongly influenced by the outsiders' way of life, were to hunt and eat pig is described in the following account of 1883:

It would seem that an Andamanese boy's thoughts of earthly bliss all revolve round 'pig.' To get from the Officer in charge the indent upon the Commissariat Department for a pig, and to go to the mainland, fetch it home in triumph, and kill and eat it, is the one great happiness of our Andamanese boys. But to hunt it in the jungle with all the wild excitement of the chase, is to them, I believe a vision of happiness only to be realized in dreams. In illustration the following incident is given. On the 12th July the Parawala reported to me that all the Orphanage boys except two had run away. Two boys from Aberdeen had come over to Ross [island] about 5:30 in the evening; during the temporary absence of the Parawala they had won over the Orphanage boys to a project to have a good time of it in the jungle. Our boys had been provided with a Nicobarese canoe with which to amuse themselves on the sea, fishing etc., the paddles being kept in the Parsonage. The boys, who freely circulate about the Parsonage whenever they like, went off with the paddles without any suspicion of their intention being aroused, and starting immediately, rowed without stopping 25 miles to the northward till they found themselves among friends somewhere in the Middle Straits. They remained away till the 4th of August, when they were brought back by adult Andamanese from the Home, who had been dispatched after them. On returning the only explanation they offered of their flight was the one magic syllable 'pig.'

In a simple society, food is the main source of the joy and excitement that makes life worth living. The absence of food means hunger and depression, its presence happiness and elation. Food cannot not be stored for more than a day or two. Every day is a new gamble and famine is never far away.

The hunt for the popular animal was simplicity itself, carried out at the lowest imaginable level of technological sophistication. No stratagems, traps, ambushes or any other complications were employed. Hunting pig was simply a matter of finding it and then trying to hit it with an arrow. Tracking down a pig in the old days did challenge the considerable Andamanese power of observation. The shooting also involved some skill. The Andamanese were not breathtakingly accurate marksmen with their primitive, unfeathered arrows. Often they did not kill their prey outright. At the climatic stage of the hunt, their most advanced piece of technical sophistication came into play: their pig hunting arrows had detachable barbed points that remained connected to the body of the arrow by a piece of string. The injured animal could not run far before the arrow with its lose string and point got tangled up in the underbrush nor could it help squealing in agony, thereby betraying its position. After the 1860s on Great Andaman, tracking the prey and running it to ground became the dogs' work. They did this more efficiently than their human masters but left the latter with little to do besides aiming their arrows in the right direction. In the old days proud hunters had kept the decorated skulls of pigs as trophies in their huts. Once even the most incompetent bumblers could effortlessly accumulate pig skulls, the custom fell into abeyance. Today it is still alive among Jarawas and Sentinelis, both groups being dog-less.

It is hardly surprising that such an important staple food as the pig should be surrounded by traditions, rules and ritual. Certain spirits of the air were thought to be offended by the roasting of pork and this made eating the meat dangerous. Despite the danger (or perhaps also because of it?), everybody ate and relished roasted pork as often as they could get hold of it.

We have already discussed the ways pigs were killed but once killed the meat had to be cut in a prescribed way or, it was believed, it would turn bad and could not be eaten. M.V. Portman reports:

When a pig has been killed it may be tied up and carried to the camp on the shoulders of one of the hunters, or a fire may be lighted then and there and the pig eviscerated and roasted. A cut is made in the abdomen and the viscera removed. The cavity is filled with leaves, the joints of the legs are half severed and the carcass is placed on the fire and turned over and shifted until every part is evenly roasted. It is then removed from the fire, the burnt skin is scraped clean and the meat is cut up. Meanwhile intestines or some of the internal organs are cooked and eaten by the hunters. The meat is tied up in leaves and is carried to the camp. If the pig is carried home whole the process of roasting it and cutting it up is performed in exactly the same way at the public cooking place of the camp, the meat being distributed only after it has been thus partially cooked.

The Sentinelis have provided us with an exception to this general aboriginal enthusiasm for eating pig. Piles of pig skulls have been seen near Sentineli huts so that there can be no question about their hunting prowess with pigs. Nevertheless, when an Indian visiting party in 1974 left trussed-up live pigs on the beach along with other gifts, the other gifts were taken but the pigs were killed immediately and buried in the sand. We do not know why. Perhaps the Yorkshire breed used was too different from the pigs living on North Sentinel island. Traditional Andamanese are suspicious of new foods and of new animals. The spotted deer introduced from the Indian mainland in the 1920s has become a pest in many parts of Great Andaman but it is not hunted or eaten by the Jarawas, despite its excellent meat.

Highest of all in the traditional hierarchy of food animals stands the dugong, a sea cow of the order sirenia. This huge aquatic animal is seldom seen, difficult to find and even more difficult to catch. If caught - usually in nets - it provides huge amounts of meat for large parties. A decorated dugong hung up in the lucky hunter's hut reminded his family, neighbours and visitors of his prowess and his proudest moment.

Also widely kept as trophies were the skulls of that other high-ranking food animal, the turtle. Turtle was, and still is, hunted mostly at night from dug-out canoes. The hunter locates the position of the animal surfacing for air from the sound of its breathing or in the light of the moon. In the Andamans, sea animals do not approach land in daytime. Traditionally nets were used to ensnare turtles but this practice has fallen into disuse and harpoons are used exclusively since the late 19th century. 

A male North Great Andamanese group fishing with bow and arrow. (photograph from A. R- Brown, ca. 1906)

Traditional Andamanese graded their food animals in a hierarchy based on the individual animal's food value and the degree of difficulty in catching it: The ranking of food animals has also been called the 'social value' of a food. Vegetables, roots, fruit, nuts and seeds do not fit into this scheme but were held in lower esteem than meat. Turtle eggs, on the other hand, were highly prized.

Rank	Animal	Difficulty of catching	Available to		Food value of one animal	Frequency of catch
			Aryoto (shore dwelling groups)	Eremtaga (jungle dwelling groups)
1	dugong (sea cow)	very high	X		extremely high	very rare
2	turtle	high	X		very high	rare
3	pig	medium	X	X	high	often (staple)
4	large fish	medium	X		high	occasionally
5	small fish	low	X	X	small	often
6	crustaceans (shrimp, crabs, etc)	low	X	X	small	often
7	civet cats, rats and other small mammals	low	X	X	low	only in times of need
8	monitor lizards and other reptiles	low	X	X	medium	only in times of need
9	birds	high to medium	X	X	medium to low	very rare
10	mussels, clams and other bivalves	very low	X	X	very low	only in times of dire need

Fishing was a widely popular activity of all shore-dwelling groups. The forest-dwellers also appreciated the protein of fish and crustaceans but could only get at the small fry and shrimps of inland creeks and freshwater brooks. To them, crustaceans were never more than a welcome but marginal supplement to their diet of pork.

Small fish was caught in nets by women, larger ones were hunted by men with multi-pronged harpoons or with bow and arrows, often with special multi-pronged fishing arrows (in effect arrow-harpoons). Among Onge harpoons were unknown until recently but they are widely used now. Instead, in the old days the Onge used large nets of considerable sophistication to catch large fish, turtle and dugong.

Fish lines, fish hooks and fish traps were unknown, nor did the Andamanese know or use poisons. There was a method of flushing out and stunning small fish in pools by throwing certain crushed seeds into the water, but the method had fallen into disuse by the late 19th century.

Eggs of all kinds, but especially turtle eggs, were a favourite treat. Turtle eggs were searched out so avidly by man and beast alike that one observer thought no clutch laid on Little Andaman could possibly have a chance of surviving. The Onge even took to visiting the small islands between Little and Great Andaman such as the Brothers, Sisters and Cinque islands as well as South Sentinel and Passage island. Even if this improved their chances to find such eggs, it remained a rare and special treat. The Andamanese regarded any eggs as edible at any stage of development; if an embryo was already developing it was regarded as delicious. Undeveloped eggs were boiled and the yellow eaten (the white of turtle eggs does not congeal however long it is boiled) but sometimes entire eggs were eaten raw.

Mussels, collected by women were so low on the ranking of food animals that their very mention was enough to bring up thoughts of famine and hunger. The Andamanese only touched them when there really was nothing else to eat. Something like that also seems to have happened to birds, snakes, frogs, rats and monitor lizards, all of which were eaten only during times of famine.

There were considerable differences between the groups: the Jarawa occasionally eat monitor lizard while the Onge never do; the Great Andamanese accepted eel as food while the Onge do not. Birds, despite their abundance, are very rarely eaten by any group, probably for religious reasons. Edible birds' nests and trepang (the sea cucumber) have attracted Malay, Chinese and Burmese collectors to the islands for centuries but they were not eaten by the locals. The Onge have been reported to be quite keen on collecting birds' nests on behalf of outside collectors but not for their own consumption.

It is sometimes alleged that the Andamanese eat raw meat and even that the very concept of cooking had been alien to them until recently. No doubt this fits the popular image of the Andamanese as "living like animals" and of being urgently in need of outside help to survive. It is nevertheless incorrect. Archaeological evidence from kitchen midden shows clearly that the Andamanese knew how to cook at least 2000 years ago. Nor do they ever eat meat that has in any way gone bad. The misconception may have arisen from the fact that cooking was often done in two stages - half-cooked or uncooked meat was distributed to individual families for storage and consumption at leisure while the rest was cooked for immediate eating. As if to counter-balance this uncharacteristic regard for hygiene and food safety, the Andamanese drank water from pools in which carcasses of dead animals were rotting, apparently without ill effects. The local climate even at the best of times does not allow food to be stored for more than a short time before going bad. Andamanese cooks, however, are not fastidious about storage as long as the meat itself does not go off. Left-over pieces of meat were (and still are) hung up wrapped in leaves or sometimes unprotected, quite heedless of the dust, insects and spiders' webs.

The amount of fatty meat consumed daily during the rainy season when pork was at its fattest was large and could on occasions rise to the truly gargantuan. People with an average adult body weight of around 40 kg (88 lb.) could, on occasion, eat up to 1.8 kg (4 lb.) of food. This could rise to a staggering 4.5 kg (10 lb.) during a 24-hour period on special occasions. At major feasts , during colossal honey-and-pork orgies, participants stuffed themselves to bursting point, leaving everyone barely able to walk and with severe indigestion for days. Such "food pig-outs" are known from many primitive societies that are precariously dependent on an insecure food supply. Comparable "pig-outs" involving intoxicating beverages are also known in rather more advanced societies. In a hunter-gatherer group, a single day's unsuccessful hunt could lead to a night on short rations, while a failure lasting for more than three days could be the beginning of a life-threatening famine. An attitude of let-us-enjoy-when-and-what-we-can is understandable in such circumstances.

A diet rich in animal fats together with the occasional over-indulgence cried out for a counter-balance in the form of starchy roots, vegetables and fruit. These were available throughout the year but most abundant during the dry season. Gathering the unglamorous but necessary supplements was left to the women. If an all-male hunting party, especially an unsuccessful one, happened to come across such items, they might stoop to gather and bring them home. We may suspect a form of hunters' re-insurance against hurtful wifely comments on inadequate hunting prowess and related matters. The following description of a normal day in camp has been left to us by one of the last qualified eyewitness observers to have seen a traditional routine day:

The provision of the vegetable food of the community is the work of the women, who must also supply the camp with firewood and water. While the men are away hunting the women, attended by the children, cut and carry the firewood, and either remain in the camp making baskets or nets or other objects, or else go into the forest to look for fruits and seeds. Thus by midday the camp may be quite deserted, save perhaps for one or two old men and women, and a few of the children.

In the afternoon the women return with what food they have obtained and then the men come in with their provision. The camp, unless the hunters have been unsuccessful, is then busy with the preparation of the evening meal, which is the chief meal of the day. If a pig has been brought home whole it is cooked at the public cooking place and is then cut up. The meat is distributed amongst the members of the community and the woman of each family then proceeds to cook the family meal. The pork, after it has been roasted and cut up, is further cooked by being boiled. The family meal is prepared at the fire that each family has in its hut. The meal is a family one, partaken by a man and his wife and children. The bachelors cook and eat their own meal, and the unmarried women also eat by themselves.

After the meal is over, darkness having by this time fallen, the men may spend an hour or two in dancing to the accompaniment of a song sung by one of them with the help of a chorus of women. In that case they would probably eat another meal after the dance was over. Another favourite amusement for the evening is what may be called "yarning." A man sits down with a few listeners and tells them, with few words, and with many dramatic gestures, how he killed a pig. The same man may go on with tale after tale, till, by the time he finishes he has killed twenty or thirty pigs. Finally the whole camp retires to rest and nothing is to be seen but the dim light of the little fires burning in each hut or in each of the family quarters. On a day when there is plenty of food left from the day before, or on a day of stormy weather even when the food is not too plentiful, the men may remain in camp instead of going hunting. They busy themselves with making weapons and implements, such as bows, arrows, adzes, etc.

On occasions when game is not very plentiful a party of hunters may stay away from the camp for a few days, not returning till they have been successful in obtaining a fair supply of food. The women and children and old men, with perhaps a few of the able bodied men also, remain at home and provide for themselves as well as they can, the women devoting their time to collecting what vegetables are in season.

Honey was another major food and during the short time it is available in abundance life centred around it. Both men and women were involved in its collection: the men climbed trees to cut down honey-combs or to dig them out of cavities and the women extracted and stored it in a variety of bamboo and other vessels. Honey could be stored only for a short time because it soon fermented and was then no longer regarded as edible. The Andamanese knew two kinds of honey-bee: the larger yellow Apis dorsata is common all over India and southeast Asia; it hangs its hives on large branches of trees and produces a golden honey of excellent quality but not in large quantity. The other species, the smaller Apis nigrocinta is widespread from China to Indonesia and builds nests in rock cavities and in hollow trees, producing large quantities of a brownish honey that the Andamanese took and still take only if the high-quality yellow variety is not available.

Although going practically naked, the intrepid collectors were never stung by the bees whose hives they raided. They had a most effective bee-repellent in the chewed stem of a plant that was smeared all over their bodies. Some of the mash was also kept in their mouths to be blown at the angry bees. Tasteless and odourless to humans, the mash was highly and immediately effective in calming down aggressive bees.

We have seen in an earlier chapter that the Andamanese had nothing even remotely resembling agriculture. We have already seen, too, how unkindly they took and still take to outsiders' efforts to introduce them to the backbreaking joys of ploughing, planting and weeding.

For the digging up of roots and tubers, the women made use of the oldest tool of humanity, the digging stick. Fruits were pulled down with hooked poles and adzes were used to pry open shells and to cut up honeycombs. Seasonal and permanent camps were sited not far from where women and girls could gather edible vegetables, roots, tubers, fruit and seeds. The women also searched the shores regularly for whatever the sea might have washed up and to catch the small fish, shellfish and molluscs that provided a little variety to the standard Andamanese diet.

As early as 1885 a well-informed observer noted that

among the many erroneous statements regarding the habits of the islanders, none seem at the present day so devoid of foundation as that which declared that they are constantly reduced to want and even to starvation.

If the rains did not fail (which they rarely do on islands surrounded by a warm sea), food was plentiful, available in variety and not difficult to find. Only food storage was a constant source of worry, a problem that the Andamanese shared with all human societies prior to the invention of refrigeration. Thanks to the bountiful nature of their environment, traditional Andamanese ate well, on occasion almost too well, as long as the rains did not fail them.

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Last change 27 November 2005