'the aboriginal inhabitants*of the mountains of Arfak, are,
.according, toi these writers, very similar-to the Australians..
Section II.— O f the Puny Negroes o f the Indian Seas.
These-. races have been confounded with the Papuas, from
whom they are in many particulars, if I am not mistaken, to
be distinguished. Puny Negro races are found- in many
distant places in the islands ^scattered through the Indian
Seas. The first tribe that I shall describe are in the-Bay of
Bengal. They inhabit the Andaman Islands. . Perhaps they
exist also in some of the Nicobar Islands. In the latter at
least it is said that there is an unknown and barbarous tribe.
I shall abstract seme brief notices- of . these grottpes of islands
andctheir inhabitants from some papers .on them in the Asiatic
Researched!
Paragraph 1.—Natives of the Andaman andkNieobar
Islands.ni? §|
The Nicobar and the Andaman Islands appear to be a pro*
longation of the central mountain-chain of the great island
of Sumatra towards th e north-west: they lie in one continuous
line with the direction of that chain. The natural productions
of these islands are few. They were probably dissevered
from a more extensive mainland by some ancient incursion of
the ocean. At present they contain two races of people,
whose description presents some points of particular interest.
One of these belongs to the same type as the insular nations
of Sumatra: the other is a Negro or black and woolly-haired
tribe.
The natives of the Nicobar Islands are said to be the
people whose singular dress gave rise to the story of men
with tails which was laid hold of by the eccentric Lord
Monboddo. One Keoping, a- Swedish traveller, who went
to the east in 1647 on board a Dutch ship, which anchored
off the Nicobar Islands, related that he discovered them tp
be ainhabifed bymen having : tails like' those of cats, which
theysmbfe# in thes same manners These people were supposed
to have devoured a qiart of the crew sent on shore,
whose bones were found strewed on the sea-coast. Fontana,
who described- the samd> pedple after a better acquaintance
with them, found their dress to be a long narrow cloth of
coco-nut bark round their waist; and hanging • down behind,
and*be supposes this to -have- given origin-toi the relation of
These 'islands are but thinly peppledpand some of them
are-desert. The^- natives tlivfe®hiefly in small villages on the
sea-shore except in the Great-Nicobar Island, where a race
of men is supposed' to live in the* interior*different from the
others- in? colour sand habits : ! these are5 supposed to be the
abBriginwi They are unknown in ‘otbeBcespe'etS!.* ! It is not
improbable-that they may be of ttheisame* description as the
natives of the Andaman Islands, to whom we shalipresently
advert. They are said to be ferocious barbarians and to
commit depredations on the natives of the plains.
The Ni&bar people,' known* to foreigners,-are said to be of
the same complexion as the Malays. According to Fontana
“ they are of a copper colour, with small eyes obliquely cut,
what in. ours iswhite» beic%un i!theii* yelowishgt with small
flat hoses, larg^ mouths, thick lips* and-black . teeth; well-
proportioned in their bodies, rather short than tall, with:-large
ears ; they have black) stronghair; the menhavelittleor no
beard; the hinder part of their leaff/is flat and compressed;
they never g cut their nails, but they shave their eyebrows.
They wear round their waist a cloth made of the barks- of a
tree,1 with one end hanging down behind, a peculiarity which
doubtless gave rise to the report of a race -. of tailed* men in
these islands.”| |
Dampier described the people of thfe, Nicobar Isles somewhat
differchtly. He sayst they are tall iwell-limbed men
with hahdsoma'vfeaturee' of.ea dark copper nr,-. Their
language was different from, all others he had heard, but
contained some Malayan: words.
Fontana says their language»* is a corrupt Malayan. He
gives a vocabulary, which, however, seems to be in a great