CHAPTER X KACHAL AND OTHER ISLANDS Heavy Surf-Teressa-Bompoka-A Native Legend-Hamilton-ChauraWizardry-Pottery-Kachal Typical of the Tropics-Nicobarese DressWest Bay-Lagoon-Mangroves-Whimbrel-Formation of KachalBirds- Visitors to the Schooner Fever - Chinese Junks - ThatchRelics The Reef - Megapodes - Monkeys - Full-dressed Natives Medicine-A Death Ceremony-Talismans-Fish and Fishing-Geology. FOR some hours after we left Dring the breeze was very faint, but at midday a heavy squall with rain overtook us and carried us onward, so that we were soon sailing along the southern shore of Teressa. The island of Bompoka, which lies but a short distance from its south-east end, is high, with a central tableland, whence the ground slopes gently downwards in every direction, and is covered with forest and grass. Seen from a distance, Teressa looks like two islands, for it is elevated at either end: the northern part is covered with forest; the southern end is all grass-land, save for a fringe of scrub and large coco-palm groves along the coast. This portion of the shore is very rocky in places, and numerous points of off-lying reefs project from the water. A heavy swell was running from the south-west, and rank on rank of breakers-10 feet or so in height-were rolling shorewards, throwing up clouds of smoke-like foam. It would have been impossible to land without danger of losing guns, camera, etc., so we decided not to make the attempt, and therefore put about for Kachal, with the less regret in that the locality did not seem to hold out much promise as a collecting ground. There is no harbour on its coasts, for the shores of the island, which is crescent-shaped, are almost unbroken. We afterwards heard that, two or three months previously, a Chinese junk, whose crew all reached the shore, had been wrecked on the reefs fronting this part of the island. In their customs, style of architecture, and in the more general absence of talismans and demon-exorcising regalia, the people of Teressa and Bompoka are said to resemble those of Kar Nicobar, but their language possesses great dialectical variation. Teressa is 34 square miles in area, and rises in the north to nearly 900 feet. The bed rock is serpentine, covered with sandstone, and there is a fringe of recent coralline alluvium round the shore, while beds of coral on the high land of the interior indicate upheaval since the formation of the older alluvium. The soil of the grass-lands is of an igneous clay formationmagnesian clay, formed by disintegration of the plutonic rocks, whose upheaval in two successive stages brought the Nicobars into existence. Overlying it in many places are the beds of coral, and to these formations the grassy downs of the island are confined-lallang, with occasional screw-pines, a bracken-like fern (Gleichenia dichotoma), delicate ground orchids, and various scrubby plants (Kydia calycina), which point to the occurrence of annual fires. The transition from grass-land to high forest, which appears on the sandstone, is very sudden. The graceful Nicobar palm (Ptychoraphis augusta) is common in the jungle. Whole groves of this beautiful tree fill the moister ravines, and give a characteristic appearance to the forest. Nearly equally conspicuous are large numbers of Sterculia campanulata. Fruit and vegetables are the same as are found on Kar Nicobar, with the addition of tobacco, of which several small fields have been raised from seed imported from the west coast of India. The census returns of 1901 give the population of Teressa as 624, making the number of inhabitants 50 more than in 1886. Bompoka, having the appearance of a truncated cone, and 634 feet high, is an oblong-shaped island, about 4 square miles in area, separated from Teressa by a channel 50 fathoms in depth, and scarcely more than 2 miles wide. Its inhabitants, who number less than a hundred, and the people of Teressa, have an interesting legend to account for the formation of the island. Once upon a time a vessel, having a prince for its captain, visited Teressa, where he, on landing, was murdered by the inhabitants. His wife was taken on shore and treated with the greatest respect; but, since the spot on which her husband's blood was shed was always before her eyes, she was very miserable. One night, however, she was advised in a dream, by her mother, to remove the bloody spot from Teressa if she would be happy. This she did, and Bompoka was thus separated from that island.* The geological formation and the vegetation are similar to those of Teressa. The inhabitants have good plantations of fruit-trees-papaya, plantains, and limes-neatly fenced to keep out the pigs. At Poahat, on the west coast, good water is to be obtained from a stream at the back of the village. These two islands, with perhaps Chaura, seem those referred to by Hamilton as the Somerera Islands, so called because "on the south end of the largest island is a hill that resembles the top of an umbrella or somerera. They are fine champaign ground, and, all but one, well inhabited. The island Somerera lies about 8 leagues to the northward of Ning and Goury (the Nankauri group), and is well inhabited for the number of villages that show themselves as we sail along the shores. The people, like those of Ning and Goury, are very courteous, and bring the product of their island aboard of ships to exchange for commodities. Silver nor gold they neither have nor care for, so the root of all evil can never send out branches of misery, or bear fruit to poison their happiness! The men's clothing is a bit of string round the middle, and about 1 feet of cloth, Vide Père Barbe, Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, vol. xv. 6 inches broad, tucked before and behind, within that line. The women have a petticoat from the navel to the knee, and their hair close shaved; but the men have their hair left on the upper part of the head and below the crown, but cut so short that it hardly comes to their ears." Chaura, which lies 7 miles north-westward of Teressa, has an area of about 3 square miles only. It is generally low, and the only jungle it possesses is a little at the south end, where it rises almost perpendicularly in a rocky pinnacle to a height of about 350 feet, having the appearance, with the contiguous low portion, of a broad-brimmed hat. It was on this account termed Sombrero by the Portuguese navigators of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who were probably the first Europeans to have any commercial dealings with the Nicobarese. The people are very well off, on account of their trade in canoes and pottery: but to obtain the articles imported by the traders, canoe voyages are made to other islands, as the anchorage at Chaura is exceedingly precarious, and after the native requirements are provided for there are but few nuts to spare for trade, so that vessels are hardly ever known to call. The island is the best cultivated in the group, and besides abounding in oranges, limes, and other fruit, is covered with coconuts; and toddy being common, drunkenness is fairly prevalent. One of the institutions of the place is the door mat; for a large flat sponge, which is found in numbers on the reefs, is placed at the bottom of every house-ladder, for the natives to wipe their feet on! Although the smallest, it is at the same time the most densely populated of the islands, for, in spite of decreasing numbers, which may perhaps be due to emigration, the people of Chaura number (January 1901) some 522 in all; in 1886 the population fell only a few short of 700. We were told that they are taller, more powerful, and darker-skinned than the other Nicobarese, and also dolichocephalic. Through an exaggerated reputation for magic, they are greatly feared throughout the group, and have for this reason CHAURA POTTERY 107 developed a most independent and overbearing demeanour. Various circumstances assist the cultivation of these traitsthe value in which their canoes are held throughout the Archipelago, for one; but the most important of all is the monopoly + which the island of Chaura possesses in the manufacture of pottery. Throughout the Nicobars there is an inherent belief that should anyone-other than a native of Chaura in Chauraattempt to make a vessel of clay, he is doomed to almost immediate destruction. This fate was formerly supposed to follow the act of even eating food cooked in any pottery other than manufactured on the island, but this part of the superstition is now losing force, and the Nicobarese freely provide themselves with pots made at Port Blair. The women of Chaura-for the men take no part in the construction of the pots-cleanse and prepare the clay, by washing out the rougher particles and kneading it with fine sand. The operator seats herself on the ground by a slab of wood, on which she lays a ring of coco-palm pinnæ neatly bound together. Upon this ring she sets a shallow dish, neatly lined with a circular piece of plantain leaf. With a lump of clay, the bottom of the vessel to be constructed is moulded in the dish, and upon this basis, by means of ropes of clay, the work is built up, the operator turning the pot round and round, and shaping it with her eye and hand. The vessel is set aside on a platform under the hut for a day or so, to dry: only the * These are all imported, many in order to sell to Kar Nicobarese. + Père Barbe (Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, 1847) mentions other monopolies : lime might only be burnt at Kar Nicobar, boats built only at Nankauri, and to the same island was restricted the sowing of paddy. (The last a possible evidence of local Malay immigration.) With reference to this note, Mr E. H. Man writes :- "Lime (by burning certain sea-shells) can be made only in the southern group, Kachal, all villages inside Nankauri Harbour-except Ong-yúang, also the villages in Dring and Expedition harbours. "Lime (made by burning coral) can be made only at Kar Nicobar. 66 Canoes (large and small) are made in the central and southern groups where suitable trees are plentiful. "Canoes (small) are made at Kar Nicobar, Teressa, and Bompoka." |