People, but they have rendered their faces
ugly by the habit of chewing betel with lime until they have destroyed
their teeth by incrustations of lime, so that they cannot close their lips
properly.
I think it is a mistake to class the Nicobarese as Rakshasas or demons, a
term that would apply in Indian parlance more properly to the Andamanese.
The Nicobarese are all one race, including the Shom Pen, for long a
mysterious tribe in the centre of Great Nicobar, but now well known. They
speak dialects of one language, though the dialects as spoken are mutually
unintelligible. There is no Negrito tribe in the Nicobars. A detailed
grammar of the language will be found in the Census Report, pp. 255-284.
The Nicobarese have long been pirates, and one of the reasons for the
occupation of their islands by the Indian Government was to put down the
piracy which had become dangerous to general navigation, but which now no
longer exists.
P. 309. - The great article of trade is the cocoanut, of which a detailed
account will be found in the Census Report, pp. 169-174, 219-220, 243. I
would suggest the recasting of the remarks on the products of the Nicobars
in your note on p. 309 in view of the statements made in those pages of
the Report, bearing in mind that the details of the Nicobar Islands are
now practically as well known as those relating to any other part of the
East.
