The people of these islands employ in everyday life far more clothing than the Kar Nicobarese, and a great proportion of them wear some other garment--trousers or jacket--in addition to their national apparel. Formerly, they wore the white palm-leaf head-dress, but it was given up when imported garments became common.
A custom of partially exhuming the bodies of the dead exists here, and whenever celebrated is the occasion of a special feast (_Koruâk_). In the Northern Islands the entire remains are disinterred, carefully cleaned, wrapped up once more, and reburied; here, the skull and jawbone only are retained.
The local population greatly deprecates the method of their northern countrymen.
It would appear, by the way, that the present custom is no degradation of the past, for more than a century ago the head only was disinterred and cleansed.
"On the anniversary of the festival--if it can be so called--their houses are decorated with garlands of flowers, fruit, and branches of trees. The people of each village assemble, dressed in their best attire, at the principal house in the place, where they spend the day in a convivial manner. The men sitting apart from the women, smoke tobacco and intoxicate themselves, while the latter are nursing the children, and employed in preparation for the mournful business of the night. At a certain hour of the afternoon, announced by striking the _goung_ (an instrument of brass somewhat like the _gurry_ of Bengal--it sounds more hollow), the women set up the most dismal howls and lamentations, which they continue without intermission till about sunset, when the whole party gets up and walks in procession to the burying-ground. Arrived at the place, they form a circle round one of the graves, when a stake, planted exactly over the head of a corpse, is pulled up. The woman who is nearest of kin to the deceased steps out from the crowd, digs up the skull and draws it up in her hands. (The office is always performed by the women, whichever sex the skull belongs to. A man in a fantastic garb officiates as priest.) At sight of the bones her strength seems to fail her; she shrieks, she sobs, and tears of anguish abundantly fall on the mouldering object of her pious care. She cleans it from the earth, scrapes off the festering flesh, and laves it plentifully with the milk of fresh coconuts, supplied by the bystanders; after which, she rubs it over with an infusion of saffron, and wraps it carefully up in a piece of new cloth. It is then deposited in the earth, and covered up; the stake is replanted, and hung with the various trappings and implements belonging to the deceased. They proceed then to the other graves; and the whole night is spent in repetitions of these dismal and disgustful rites.