Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/301

 The Religion of the Andaman Islanders. 261

monsoon is not an accidental, but an essential, part of the myth.

Throughout the Great Andaman wind, rain, storm, thunder, and lightning are associated with Biliku, or with Biliku and Tarai. Storms and rain are signs of the anger of Biliku. Lightning is often explained as a fire- brand flung by Biliku across the sky. In the south they say, when it thunders, — " Puluga is snoring." There is complete unanimity through all the groups, on this point, that bad weather is the result of Biliku's anger.

There is also complete unanimity as to the things which make Biliku angry. There are three of these: — (i) Melting or burning beeswax. (2) Cutting, digging up, or in any way interfering with a certain number of plants, particularly during a certain period of the year. (3) Killing a cicada, or making a noise during the time the cicadae are singing at morning or evening. Every Andamanese child knows exactly what are the actions which will offend Biliku and cause rain, and there is no variation in these beliefs from one end of the Great Andaman to the other.

If we now turn to the various legends about Biliku, we shall find that amid many differences there are certain important similarities in the legends of different groups. The Andamanese have a number of legends about the "ancestors," that is the people who first inhabited the Andamanese world, and from whom the Andamanese themselves are descended. I do not propose to deal with those legends now, except such as refer to the relations of the ancestors to Biliku.

I will begin with a story told me by the Puchikwar people. I obtained the same story, with hardly any differences of detail, from three different individuals on different occasions.

" The first of the Andamanese was named Ta Patie.^

^Ta = Mr. ; Patie is the Monitor lizard {Varanus sahiator). Another legend tells how Patie made himself a wife out of wood and by her had children.