Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/307

 The Religion of the Andaman Islanders. 267

thrown across the sky. For we must remember that the Andamanese always has several alternative explanations of the same phenomenon, all of which he believes equally.

But at any rate we clearly have Biliku associated with fire, through this explanation of lightning. The step to the legend of fire being stolen from her is a simple one, and we may presume that this was its origin.

Through the fire-legend Biliku is brought into personal contact with the ancestors, who form quite a different class of mythical beings. But Biliku's present abode is in the sky to the north-east. The legends do indeed represent her as living on earth, but they clearly mark the separation between her and the ancestors, and several of the legends tell how she left the earth to go and live in the sky.

This association wdth and separation from the ancestors explains, I think, how she comes to be sometimes regarded as the first human being. But for this latter position she has to compete with other legendary beings.

There are still two more points on which I must touch. I have many times wondered why, of these two beings Biliku and Tarai, the first should come to occupy so large a place in Andaman mythology compared with the other. What is particularly puzzling is that the S.W. monsoon is the rainy monsoon, and during the N.E. monsoon the weather is generally fine. I have not been able to find an explanation, and can only record the fact. There seem to be no legends whatever about Tarai, and in the south he is generally ignored, all storms being attributed to Puluga whether they come from the N.E. or the S.W.

The other point concerns the strange prohibitions, associated with Biliku, for which I wish to suggest an explanation. The theory I put forward is perhaps some- what hazardous, and I do not wish to attribute too much importance to it.

Let us take these prohibitions one at a time. Biliku is said to be very angry if anyone burns or melts bees-