The Nicobarese are from the Nicobar Islands which are a chain of 19 islands in the Bay of Bengal. Only 12 of the 19 islands are inhabited, the largest and main island is Great Nicobar. The term Nicobarese refers to the dominant tribes of the Nicobar Islands. On each island, the people have specific names, but together they are the Nicobarese. They call themselves Holchu, which means friend.
The Nicobarese may not have been the first people to live in the islands, they appear to have shared the islands with those of Malay descent and then as years passed the Shompen came to the islands. The islands have been under the power of Asia, in the 1500’s, Great Britain, from 1869-1947, and then in 1947 they were under power of India. Today they are administered by India as part of the UnionTerritory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The Nicobarese are part of the Austro-Asiatic language family. All of the different islands speak different dialects of the Nicobarese language. The separate islands are categorized into four groups, although most of the people understand the Car dialect.
On the Nicobar Islands, men and women have approximate equal status. The women have a lot to do with their own choice of husbands, and after marriage they are free to live with either of the couples parents. The Nicobarese men value the women economically because they not only take care of household duties, but also tend to the plantations and gardens.
The villages on the islands consist of sporadically placed huts strewn about in designated. The huts are normally round with dome shaped roofs. They are typically lifted up from the ground and they have ladders that they climb up to get into the huts that they bring in at night.
Most of the people of the islands are of the Christian religion, which was taught to them by a man named John Richardson who translated the New Testament into Nicobarese. Besides Christianity, other Nicobarese follow the traditional religion of the islands, which is animistic in nature. They believe in spirits, ghosts, and the existence of the soul. A person becomes a ghost after their death when their soul leaves their body and the ghosts of all the Nicobarese are all around the islands. They believe that the spirits are responsible for all of the occurrences on the island, Shaman are called upon to handle to bad spirits.
The Nicobarese have a traditionally horticultural economy, they base their monetary existence on the growing of coconuts, pandanus, areca palms, bananas, mangoes, and other fruits. They also hunt, fish, raise pigs, make pottery, and make canoes. Many of the older Nicobarese are illiterate, however today the younger Nicobarese receive free education through the government. As more Nicobarese become educated they receive jobs as teachers and clerks, among other occupations.
REFERENCES:
Justin A. The Nicobarese. Calcutta: Seagull Books on behalf of the Anthropological Survey of India, 1967.
Mathur, Kaushal K. Nicobar Islands. New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1967.
Nandan, Anshu Prokash. The Nicobarese of Great Nicobar; An Ethnography. Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 1993.
Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life. Cleveland, Ohio: Eastwood Publishing Development Inc., 1998.
Written by Courtney Lovgren, 2003