60 Scientific American, April 2020
I
t was a November midNight, year 2000 , oN NaNcowry, oNe of the Nicobar
Islands in the Bay of Bengal. One of us (Singh) waited in the pitch-black
darkness, listening to the roar of waves crashing on the shore some
20 meters away, the stars brilliant in the sky above. Soon villagers appeared
carrying dried-leaf torches. Chacho, a shaman, had died in July, and to night
was the culmination of the Tanoing festival commemorating her death. All
day family and friends had ritually expressed their grief by sacrificing pigs
they had raised and smashing beautiful objects they had spent hours or days crafting. (To the
Nicobarese, something that took time and effort to create represents wealth, and its destruction
signifies detachment from the material world.) They had decorated Chacho’s home elaborately
and feasted on pandanus (a starchy fruit), pork and other delicacies. Now they arrived in proces-
sion, led by Chacho’s brother Yehad, a minluana (spirit healer) named Tinfus and a few other
elders, followed by dozens of men, women and children, all in a celebratory mood.
Yehad and his companions carried Chacho’s possessions—her
tools, baskets and other things that she had treasured. Some they
hung on a nearby tree; the remainder they placed on a bamboo
platform at the head of the grave. Then the elders festooned the
grave, wrapping meters of colorful cloth around the pole that
marked the site until it resembled a standing mummy. Everyone
was steadily getting tipsy from the toddy (the sap tapped from
coconut palms) being passed around in coconut shells, and teen-
agers were flirting. A few beautifully dressed girls offered the
guests tobacco and betel leaves from decorated baskets.
After the elders had finished the rites, the crowd returned to
Chacho’s home, laughing and joking. Tinfus installed a delicate
winged figure representing her spirit, which he had carved and
painted, inside the house. The mourners began singing and sway-
ing, entering an ecstatic collective trance as they consumed more
and more toddy. The joyous mood continued for most of the next
day: the shaman had transitioned to the spirit world, where she
would live on and protect the community.
In the Nicobarese worldview, death is the continuation of life in
another form. All their ceremonies involve the veneration and cel-
ebration of ancestral and natural spirits channeled through carved
and painted statues. These objects are regarded as living beings who
guard the home, the village and the community. No one ever really
dies. If any society has the cultural and psychological resources to
cope with the staggering trauma of sudden mass death from a nat-
ural disaster, it is the indigenous peoples of these remote islands.
early iN the morNiNg on December 26, 2004, the Indian conti-
nental plate slid under the Burma microplate at a depth of 30
kilometers off the western coast of northern Sumatra. The result-
ing magnitude 9.1 earthquake triggered a tsunami—the deadli-
est in recorded history. The Nicobar archipelago, comprising 22
islands with a combined landmass of only 1,841 square kilome-
ters, lay along the fault line and very close to the earthquake’s
epicenter. Waves more than 15 meters high hit several times,
washing clean over the smaller islands and taking with them
Ajay Saini is an assistant professor at the Indian
Institute of Technology Delhi. He works with remote
indigenous communities.
Simron J. Singh is an associate professor at the
University of Waterloo in Ontario. He studies sustainable
resource use on small island states or jurisdictions
threatened by climate change.
IN BRIEF
The devastating tsunami of December 2004
prompted a massive relief and rehabilitation effort,
with nongovernmental organizations raising and
governments committing unprecedented resources.
Culturally inappropriate aid inundated the indige-
nous peoples of the Nicobar Islands, who previously
enjoyed a self-sufficient economy. The assistance
ruptured community ties and fostered consumerism.
Fifteen years later the Nicobarese have acquired a
taste for consumer goods that they lack the means to
satisfy. They are plagued by lifestyle diseases such as
diabetes and suffer from depression and alcoholism.
© 2020 Scientific American
