The Nicobar Islands
The Shompen
by George Weber
|
|
Great Nicobar and its populations
reddish area: cocentration of Nicobari population in the 1990s red dots: main Indian settlements black dots: Shompen settlements in the 1990s black circles: abandoned Shompen settlements in the 1990s black line: road |
The Shompen are the "other Nicobaris", an enigmatic tribe living in the densely forested interior of Great Nicobar. There number has been roughly estimated at 300 in 2001. Very little is known about them. Recent unpublished genetic studies have indicated that the Shompen have different origins from the "ordinary" Nicobaris, although both groups have Mongolid ancestry. The ancestral Shompen came to Great Nicobar from Sumatra, more (maybe much more) than 10,000 years ago. The Nicobaris, on the other hand, came from the east, from mainland southeast Asia many thousands of years later. There is some genetic and linguistic evidence that the two groups mixed to a limited extent. Earlier suspected links to Negrito populations, however, have not been found. A peculiarity of the Shompen discovered in 1967 was that all of 55 individuals then screened turned out to have blood group O in the ABO system.
While the Nicobaris were seafarers and traders and were in contact with th eoutside world, the Shompen, at least after the Nicobaris had arrived, were inland people, living hidden lives in the dense jungles of their island with limited contact to the outside world. Certainly, this was the situation when the first western scentific investigators arrived in the 19th century. The Shompen were never numerous and there is genetic evidence of inbreeding and population bottlenecks among them. That the Shompens' isolation was not complete is proven by the presence of Portuguese and Malay loan words in their language. The Shompen language is thought to belong to the same language family as Nicobarese (i.e. the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austro-Asiatic family) and that it is related to Nicobarese - but is a separate language.
The earliest reference to the existence of the Shompen dates from 1831 and the first recorded visit of an outsider to them of 1846.
The Nicobaris living on Great Nicobar call the Shompen Shamhap. Indeed, "Shompen" may be a British mispronounciation of that name. The Shompen have no common name for themselves: those living on the western side of the island call themselves Kalay, those in the eastern part Keyet - with each group calling the other Buavela.
Their way of life in the interior of their island has protected the Shompen to some extent from the Tsunami of 26 December 2005 - unlike the mostly coastal Nicobari and Indian populations who suffered terrible losses.
Except for the photographs from 1886, the photographs below are courtesy Dr. S.N.H. Rizvi, The Shompen, Seagull Books, Calcutta 1990.
|
|
A mixed Shompen group, 1886. |
|
|
A Shompen group, 1886. Note the different hair forms present - one possible indication of genetic mixing. |
|
|
A Shompen family outside their hut, 1980s. |
|
|
Shompen woman wearing ornaments (ahav strips of bamboo worn on the ear, geegap armlaces, and naigaak bead necklaces), 1980s. |
|
|
Two Shompen hunters with their weapons and tools, 1980s.
Below:
|
|
|
Firemaking with a fire drill the Shompen way. 1980s. |
|
|
Shompen canoe with outrigger on the Dagmar river. The canoe carries pandanus. |
|
|
Shompen housing ranges from extremely simple huts ... |
|
|
... to villages of raised huts... |
|
|
... to fairly elaborate raised structures. |
|
|
The interior of most Shompen huts remains very similar. |
[ Go to HOME
] [ Go to HEAD
OF NICOBAR CHAPTER
]
Last changed 21 August 2005
