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The Andaman Islands are a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal, and are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory of India. Port Blair is the chief community on the islands, and the administrative center of the Union Territory. The Andaman Islands form a single administrative district within the Union Territory, the Andaman district (the Nicobar district was separated and established as a new district in 1974). The population of the Andamans was 314,084 in 2001.

Geology

The Andaman Islands and the Nicobar Islands to the south form part of a range of submarine mountains, 1130 km long, running from Cape Negrais in the Arakan Yoma range of Burma, to Achin Head in Sumatra. This range separates the Bay of Bengal from the Andaman Sea, and it contains much that is geologically characteristic of the Arakan Yoma. The older rocks are early Tertiary or late Cretaceous. The newer rocks are in Ritchie's Archipelago chiefly, and contain fossils of radiolarians and foraminifera. There is coral along the coasts everywhere, and the Sentinel Islands are composed of the newer rocks with a superstructure of coral. A theory of a still continuing subsidence of the islands was formed by Kurz in 1866 and confirmed by Oldham in 1884. Signs of its continuance are found on the east coast in several places.

Climate

The climate of the Andamans themselves may be described as normal for tropical islands of similar latitude. It is always warm, but with sea-breezes; very hot when the sun is northing; irregular rainfall, but usually dry during the north-east, and very wet during the south-west monsoon. Not only does the rainfall at one place vary from year to year, but there is an extraordinary difference for places quite close to one another. The Islands are barely affected by the often disastrous cyclones that come up the Bay of Bengal, though they are within the influence of practically every one. The Andamans thus were once of great importance for monitoring weather in the region for the benefit of the Indian mainland and ships at sea in the Indian Ocean. A meteorological station was established at Port Blair in 1868.

Flora

A section of the Forest Department of India was established in the Andamans in 1883, and in the neighbourhood of Port Blair 400 km² were set apart for regular forest operations to be carried on by convict labour. The chief timber of indigenous growth is padouk (Pterocarpus dalbergioides) used for buildings, boats, furniture, fine joinery and all purposes to which teak, mahogany, hickory, oak and ash are applied. This tree was widespread and formed a valuable export to European markets. Other first-class timbers are koko (Albizzia lebbek), white chuglam (Terminalia bialata), black chugiam (Myristica irya), marble or zebra wood (Diospyros kurzii) and satin-wood (Murraya exotica), which differs from the satin-wood of Ceylon (Chloroxylon swietenia.) All of these timbers are used for furniture and similar fine purposes, but many are now endangered. In addition there are a number of second- and third-class timbers, which are used locally and for export to Calcutta. Gangaw (Messua ferrea) the Assam iron-wood, is suitable for railway sleepers; and didu (Bombax insigne) is used for tea-boxes and packing-cases.

Among the introduced flora are tea, Siberian coffee, cocoa, Ceará rubber (which has not done well), Manila hemp, teak, cocoanut and a number of ornamental trees, fruit-trees, vegetables and garden plants. Tea is grown in considerable quantities and the cultivation was once under a department of the penal settlement. The general character of the forests is Burmese with an admixture of Malay types. Great mangrove swamps supply unlimited fire-wood of the best quality. The great peculiarity of Andaman flora is that, with the exception of the Cocos islands, no coconut palms are found in the archipelago.

Fauna

The Andamans are home to a wide variety of bird, animal and marine life, with many species endemic to the islands, or even locations on the islands, to a large degree owing to the islands' relative isolation from nearby landmasses. Several of these species are also to be found in the Nicobar islands, whilst others are found only in one or the other island groups.

Endemic bird species include the Nicobar scrubfowl (Megapodius nicobariensis, a type of megapode), Nicobar green imperial pigeon (Ducula aenea nicobarica), and the Nicobar emerald dove (Chancophaps indica augusta).

Reptilian species include the saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porusus) which nests in estuarine regions. Several species of endangered Sea turtle (family Cheloniidae) are also found in the islands' waters, such as Hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata), Leatherback Sea Turtles (Dermochelys coriacea), and Olive Ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea). Terrestrial- and arboreal-dwelling reptiles include several species of lizard, such as the Bay Island forest lizard (Coryphophylax subcristatus), a species from the Agamidae Family of lizards.

Marine mammals include Dugong (Dugong dugon), Finless porpoise (Neophocaena hocaenoides), and Blainville's Beaked Whale (Mesoplodon densirostris), a wide-ranging but non-migratory species of mesoplodont whales. Rich fish and invertebrate faunas exist on the reefs; fish families include Labridae, Pomacentridae, Scaridae, and Blenniidae. Nine species of seagrass are also present.

Fish are very numerous and many species are endemic to the Andaman seas. Turtles are abundant and supply the Calcutta market. Of imported animals, cattle, goats, asses and dogs thrive well, ponies and horses indifferently, and sheep badly, though some success has been achieved in breeding them.

History

It is uncertain whether any of the names of the islands given by Ptolemy ought to be attached to the Andamans; yet it is probable that his name itself is traceable in the Alexandrian geographer. Andaman first appears distinctly in the Arab notices of the 9th century, already quoted. But it seems possible that the tradition of marine nomenclature had never perished; that the Agathou daimonos nesos was really a misunderstanding of some form like Agdaman, while Nesoi Baroussai survived as Lanka Balus, the name applied by the Arabs to the Nicobar Islands. The islands are briefly noticed by Marco Polo, who may have seen them without visiting, under the name Angamanain, seemingly an Arabic dual, "the two Angamans", with the exaggerated picture of the natives as dog-faced anthropophagi.

Another notice occurs in the story of Nicolo Conti (c. 1440), who explains the name to mean Island of Gold, and speaks of a lake with peculiar virtues as existing in it. The name is probably derived from the Malay Handuman, coming from the ancient Hanuman (monkey god). Later travellers repeat the stories, too well founded, of the "ferocious hostility" of the people; of whom we may instance Cesare Federici (1569), whose narrative is given in Ramusio, vol. iii. (only in the later editions), and in Purchas. A good deal is also told of them in the vulgar and gossiping but useful work of Captain A. Hamilton (1727).

In 1788-1789 the government of Bengal sought to establish in the Andamans a penal colony, associated with a harbour of refuge. Two officers, Colebrooke of the Bengal Engineers, and Blair of the sea service, were sent to survey and report. In the sequel the settlement was established by Captain Blair, in September 1789, on Chatham Island, in the southeast bay of the Great Andaman, now called Port Blair, but then Port Cornwallis. There was much sickness, and after two years, urged by Admiral Cornwallis, the government transferred the colony to the northeast part of Great Andaman, where a naval arsenal was to be established. With the colony the name also of Port Cornwallis was transferred to this new locality. The scheme did ill; and in 1796 the government put an end to it, owing to the great mortality and the embarrassments of maintenance. The settlers were finally removed in May 1796.

In 1824 Port Cornwallis was the rendezvous of the fleet carrying the army to the first Burmese war. In 1839, Dr Helfer, a German savant employed by the Indian government, having landed in the islands, was attacked and killed. In 1844 the troop-ships Briton and Runnymede were driven ashore here, almost close together. The natives showed hostility, killing all stragglers. Outrages on shipwrecked crews continued so rife that the question of occupation had to be taken up again; and in 1855 a project was formed for such a settlement, embracing a convict establishment. This was interrupted by the Indian Mutiny of 1857, but as soon as the neck of that revolt was broken, it became more urgent than ever to provide such a resource, on account of the great number of prisoners falling into British hands. Lord Canning, therefore, in November 1857, sent a commission, headed by Dr F. Mouat, to examine and report. The commission reported favourably, selecting as a site Blair's original Port Cornwallis, but pointing out and avoiding the vicinity of a salt swamp which seemed to have been pernicious to the old colony. To avoid confusion, the name of Port Blair was given to the new settlement.

For some time sickness and mortality were excessively large, but the reclamation of swamp and clearance of jungle on an extensive scale by Colonel Henry Man when in charge (1868-1870), had a most beneficial effect, and the health of the settlement has since been notable. The Andaman colony obtained a tragical notoriety from the murder of the viceroy, the earl of Mayo, by a Muslim convict, when on a visit to the settlement on February 8, 1872. In the same year the two groups, Andaman and Nicobar, the occupation of the latter also having been forced on the British government (in 1869) by the continuance of outrage upon vessels, were united under a chief commissioner residing at Port Blair.

The Andaman islands were later occupied by Japan during World War II. The islands were nominally put under the authority of the Arzi Hukumate Azad Hind of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Netaji visited the islands during the war, and renamed them as Shaheed (Martyr) & Swaraj (Self-rule). General Loganathan of the Indian National Army , was Governor of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands which had been annexed to the Provisional Government. After the end of the war they briefly returned to British control, before becoming part of the newly independent state of India.

On 26 December 2004 the coast of the Andaman Islands was devastated by a 10 metre high tsunami following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

On 22nd July 2006, 36 scouts from Hertfordshire, England are going to the islands to assist with the rebuilding of Port Blair, which was struck by the devastating tsunami of December 2004.

Penal Settlement

The point of enduring interest as regards the Andamans is the penal colony, the object of which is to turn the life-sentence and few long-sentence convicts, who alone are sent to the settlement, into honest, self-respecting men and women, by leading them along a continuous course of practice in self-help and self-restraint, and by offering them every inducement to take advantage of that practice. After ten years' graduated labour the convict is given a ticket-of-leave and becomes self-supporting. He can farm, keep cattle, and marry or send for his family, but he cannot leave the settlement or be idle. With approved conduct, however, he may be absolutely released after twenty to twenty-five years in the settlement; and throughout that time, though possessing no civil rights, a quasi-judicial procedure controls all punishments inflicted upon him, and he is as secure of obtaining justice as if free. There is an unlimited variety of work for the labouring convicts, and some of the establishments are on a large scale. Very few experts are employed in supervision; practically everything is directed by the officials, who themselves have first to learn each trade. Under the chief commissioner, who is the supreme head of the settlement, are a deputy and a staff of assistant superintendents and overseers, almost all Europeans, and sub-overseers, who are natives of India. All the petty supervising establishments are composed of convicts.

The garrison consists of 140 British and 300 Indian troops, with a few local European volunteers. The police are organized as a military battalion 643 strong. The number of convicts has somewhat diminished of late years and in 1901 stood at 11,947. The total population of the settlement, consisting of convicts, their guards, the supervising, clerical and departmental staff, with the families of the latter, also a certain number of ex-convicts and trading settlers and their families, numbered 16,106. The labouring convicts are distributed among four jails and nineteen stations; the self-supporters in thirty-eight villages. The elementary education of the convicts' children is compulsory. There are four hospitals, each under a resident medical officer, under the general supervision of a senior officer of the Indian medical service, and medical aid is given free to the whole population. The net annual cost of the settlement to the government is about six pounds per convict. The harbour of Port Blair is well supplied with buoys and harbour lights, and is crossed by ferries at fixed intervals, while there are several launches for hauling local traffic. On Ross Island there is a lighthouse visible for 19 miles. A complete system of signalling by night and day on the Morse system is worked by the police. Local posts are frequent, but there is no telegraph and the mails are irregular.

The above accounts, written while Britain still controlled India, may leave the impression that these settlements were a model of progressive penal reform. Indian accounts, however, paint a different picture. From the time of its development in 1858 under the direction of James Pattison Walker, and in response to the mutiny and rebellion of the previous year, the settlement was first and foremost a repository for political prisoners. The Cellular Jail at Port Blair when completed in 1910 included 698 cells designed to better accommodate solitary confinement; each cell measured 4.5 by 2.7 metres with a single ventilation window 3 metres above the floor. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar had been one of the illustrious prisoners there. The Viper Chain Gang Jail on Viper Island was reserved for troublemakers, and was also the site of hangings. In the 20th century it became a convenient place to house India's freedom fighters, and it was here that on December 30, 1943 during Japanese occupation, that Subhas Chandra Bose first raised the flag of Indian independence.

At the close of the Second World War the British government announced its intention to abolish the penal settlement. The government proposed to employ former inmates in an initiative to develop the island's fisheries, timber, and agricultural resources. In exchange inmates would be granted return passage to the Indian mainland, or the right to settle on the islands. The penal colony was eventually closed on August 15, 1947 when India gained its freedom. It has since served as a museum to the freedom fighters.

Demographics

The population of the Andaman Islands has increased rapidly, from roughly 2000 in 1901 to 157,821 in 1981, 241,453 in 1991, and 314,239 in 2001. These increases are mostly attributable to migration from the Indian mainland. It is estimated that less than ten percent of the population of the Andaman Islands is indigenous Andamanese including in 2005, only 99 Onge, 250 Sentinelese, 39 Andamanese and 350 Jarawas.

Indigenous Andamanese

The various indigenous Andamanese peoples subsisted mostly as hunter-gatherer communities, supplemented by fishing and limited agricultural practices. The Sentinelese, Önge, and Jarawa peoples continue in this way of life in the southern part of the archipelago.

The indigenous Andamanese are slightly built, dark-skinned, with tightly-curled hair, and physically resemble the Semang of the Malay Peninsula and the Aeta of the Philippines. The Andamanese, Semang, and Aeta are probably descendants of a people who were more widespread in Southeast Asia before they were displaced or assimilated by the ancestors of today's Austronesian-speakers.

Their antiquity is attested by the remains found in their kitchen-middens. These are of great age, and rise sometimes to a height exceeding 5 metres. The fossil shells, pottery and primitive stone implements, found alike at the base and at the surface of these middens, show that the habits of the islanders have varied little since the remote past, and lead to the belief that the Andamans were settled by their present inhabitants some time during the Pleistocene period, and certainly no later than the Neolithic age. The oldest archaeological evidence for occupation yet obtained is dated to 2,200 years ago; however, the investigations which have been made are not extensive, and it is most likely that much earlier dates will be attested.

The Andamans may have been linked to Myanmar by a land bridge during the ice ages, and it is possible that the ancestors of the Andamanese reached the islands without crossing the sea. Whether an original sea-crossing was required or not, linguistic and genetic studies indicate that the Andamanese peoples have lived in almost complete isolation for 30,000 to 70,000 years. For example, a report in the journal "Science" by Thangaraj et al. identifies M31 and M32 mtDNA types among indigenous Andamanese, which show that these populations became genetically isolated about 50,000 to 70,000 years ago, apparently after their initial migration from Africa.

The indigenous Andamanese spoke several related languages, the Andamanese languages, a distinct language family unrelated to languages found outside the islands. Of the 13 languages spoken at the beginning of the century, nine are now extinct. The extinct languages were spoken on Great Andaman, and the Great Andamanese now mostly speak Hindi. The Jarawa, Önge, and Sentinelese mostly speak their own languages, and limit their contact with outsiders.

The earliest European notice of the Andamanese is in a remarkable collection of early Arab notes on India and China from the year 851 which influenced the view of this people until modern times. The traditional charge of cannibalism has persisted; but the islanders themselves deny it now and it probably always has been untrue. They doubtlessly massacred shipwrecked crews, but the policy of conciliation has secured a friendly reception for shipwrecked crews at any port of the islands.

The historic population of the islands is difficult to estimate, but it has probably always been small. The estimated total at a census taken in 1901 was only 2,000. Though all descended from one stock, there are twelve distinct tribes of the Andamanese, each with its own clearly-defined locality, its own distinct variety of the one fundamental language and to a certain extent its own separate habits. Every tribe is divided into fairly well defined septs. The tribal feeling may be expressed as friendly within the tribe, courteous to other Andamanese if known, hostile to every stranger, Andamanese or other.

The Andaman languages are extremely interesting from the philological standpoint. They are agglutinative in nature, show hardly any signs of syntactical growth though every indication of long etymological growth, give expression to only the most direct and the simplest thought, and are purely colloquial and wanting in the modifications always necessary for communication by writing. The sense is largely eked out by manner and action. Mincopie is the first word in Colebrooke's vocabulary for "Andaman Island, or native country", and the term - though probably a mishearing on Colebrooke's part for Mongebe ("I am an Onge", i.e. a member of the Onge tribe) - has thus become a persistent book-name for the people.

Another division of the natives is into Aryauto or long-shore-men, and the Eremtaga or jungle-dwellers. The habits and capacities of these two differ, owing to surroundings, irrespectively of tribe. Yet again the Andamanese can be grouped according to certain salient characteristics: the forms of the bows and arrows, of the canoes, of ornaments and utensils, of tattooing and of language.

The average height of males is 149 cm; of females, 137 cm. The only artificial deformity is a depression of the skull, chiefly among one of the southern tribes, caused by the pressure of a strap used for carrying loads.

The women's heads are shaved entirely and the men's into fantastic patterns. Yellow and red ochre mixed with grease are coarsely smeared over the bodies, grey in coarse patterns and white in fine patterns resembling tattoo marks. Tattooing is of two distinct varieties. In the south the body is slightly cut by women with small flakes of glass or quartz in zigzag or lineal patterns downwards. In the north it is deeply cut by men with pig-arrows in lines across the body.

The male is said to reach adulthood when about fifteen years of age, typically marries when about twenty-six, and lives onto sixty or sixty-five if he reaches old age. Except as to the marrying age, these figures fairly apply to women. Before marriage, free intercourse between the sexes is the rule, though certain conventional precautions are taken to prevent it. Marriages rarely produce more than three children and often none at all. Divorce is rare, unfaithfulness after marriage uncommon and incest virtually unknown.

By preference the Andamanese are exogamous as regards sept and endogamous as regards tribe.

There is no idea of government, but in each sept there is a head, who has attained that position by degrees on account of some tacitly admitted superiority and commands a limited respect and some obedience. The young are deferential to their elders. Offences are punished by the aggrieved party. Property is communal and theft is only recognized as to things of absolute necessity, such as arrows, pork and fire. Fire is the one thing they are really careful about, not knowing how to renew it. A very rude barter exists between tribes of the same group in regard to articles not locally obtainable.

The religion consists of beliefs in spirits of the wood, the sea, disease and ancestors, and of avoidance of acts traditionally displeasing to them. There is neither worship nor propitiation. An anthropomorphic deity, Puluga, is the cause of all things, but it is not necessary to propitiate him. There is an idea that the "soul" will go somewhere after death, but there is no heaven nor hell, nor idea of a corporeal resurrection. There is much faith in dreams, and in the utterances of certain "wise men", who practise an embryonic magic and witchcraft.

The great amusement of the Andamanese is a formal night dance, but they are also fond of games. The bows differ altogether with each group, but the same two kinds of arrows are in general use: (1) long and ordinary for fishing and other purposes; (2) short with a detachable head fastened to the shaft by a thong, which quickly brings pigs up short when shot in the thick jungle. Bark provides material for string, while baskets and mats are neatly and stoutly made from canes and buckets out of bamboo and wood.

None of the tribes ever ventures out of sight of land, and they have no idea of steering by sun or stars. Their canoes are simply hollowed out of trunks with the adze and in no other way, and it is the smaller ones that are outrigged; they do not last long and are not good sea-boats. The story of raids on Car Nicobar, out of sight across a stormy and sea-rippled channel, must be discredited.

Honour is shown to an adult when he dies by wrapping him in a cloth and placing him on a platform in a tree instead of burying him. At such a time the encampment is deserted for three months.

Air Transport

There is a small airport in Port Blair (IXZ). Flights are available to the mainland Indian cities of Kolkata (CCU) and Chennai (MAA)

Due to the long distance of these flights and the lack of airlines that fly to the islands, flights are generally rather expensive.

Jet Airways (9W) has a daily return from Chennai, and Indian Airline’s Alliance Air (CD) and Air Deccan have flights to Port Blair from Kolkata and Chennai.

Reference

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

• Photos from Andaman Islands 100 photos taken by an Andaman's lover
• Snaps of Andaman and Nicobar Islands Snaps of Andaman Islands taken by Mahendra Pratap Singh, S/o Shri R.P.Singh
• The Andaman Association, Lonely Islands: The Andamanese

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• Ecoregions
• Ecoregions of India
• Archipelagoes
• Regions of India
• Islands of India
• Andaman and Nicobar Islands
• Indomalaya
• Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests