These practices and beliefs, which it would be incorrect to class together under the name of religion, are not accompanied by any moral element. Their code of ethics has no connection whatever with the form of malevolent spiritualism which they entertain, but is entirely an affair of public opinion and social convention.
The cult of the natives as it exists in the south, with its multiplicity of charms, "medicine," and demon-scaring figures and objects, is probably only an isolated case of a practice widely spread throughout the Malayan Archipelago--in Sumatra, Borneo, and other islands, and even amongst the Papuans still further east.[157]
On the other hand, it is not at all impossible, in view of the natives' acquisitiveness of foreign ideas, that most of their practices arise from a corrupted interpretation of the, in other respects, futile teachings of the numerous missionaries who have laboured in vain in the islands, complicated by an additional jumble of tenets adopted from other strangers with whom they have come into contact, while, in particular, the figures, pictures, and charms of many localities may be to some extent merely a degraded survival of the religious paraphernalia of the Jesuit missionaries.
One might adduce in support of this theory the fact that superstition and its accessories thrive most strongly in the places where the missionaries as a rule establish themselves--Kar Nicobar and Nankauri Harbour.
Fever, colic, coughs, rheumatism, and sore and inflamed eyes, are not unfrequent ailments. Syphilis also occurs, and has probably been introduced by the traders, or by the Nicobarese who have visited Calcutta and Moulmein in their vessels.
Itch (_tinea circinata tropica_) is in some localities very prevalent among the natives, who are also liable to attacks of a mild form of elephantiasis throughout the Archipelago. It is said that in Chaura from one-third to one-half the population are so diseased in one way or the other. Cases of yaws occur from time to time among children.
Eno's fruit salt, camphor, castor-oil, turpentine, and quinine, are the principal features of the Nicobarese pharmacopoeia.
Eno's fruit salt mixed with water, with a little powdered camphor and turpentine added, is given twice a day for colic. For fever, a little quinine is added to the same mixture.