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12. HUNTING, GATHERING, EATING


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, 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 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 your 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 work 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 dogless.

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:

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. 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 the Sentinelese were used to. 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.

Higher still than the pig 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 still more difficult to catch. If caught - usually in nets - it provided enough meat for a huge party. A decorated dugong hung up in the lucky hunter's hut reminded him of his proudest moment made his most prestigious trophy.

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 locating the position of the animal surfacing for air from the sound of its breathing or in the light of the moon since around the Andamans the animals do not approach the land in daytime. Traditionally nets were used to ensnare turtles but this practice fell into disuse and harpoons were used exclusively from the late 19th century.


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