Wrestling is a favourite pursuit of the boys. There is no science or cunning displayed, and the rounds are very short, one or the other combatant going down at once.
Pig processions are a pastime indulged in by young men. A pig is tied beneath a pole, and, with one of their number seated astride of it, is borne, with songs, about the village by a party of youths in the evening.
In such villages as are situated near the calmer waters of harbours, little children amuse themselves by sailing models of canoes and junks.
The Nicobarese have no writing or pictography, and their attempts at ornamental work on articles of general utility are confined to the finials of the houses, the stem and stern posts of their canoes, and a little decorative carving on their wooden dishes.[183] Nevertheless, in the charms and talismans connected with their superstitious cult they betray a certain artistic ability, and their pictures, screens, and figures of birds, men, and animals, show not only good powers of observation, but a capacity and skill of no mean order, in interpreting and reproducing whatever may present itself to them.
As concerns metals, it appears that 200 years ago Jesuit missionaries discovered tin on Great Nicobar. Having regard to the proximity of the rich deposits of this metal in Sumatra and the Malayan Peninsula, it seems not improbable that the statement will some day be verified. At Kar Nicobar small quantities of iron pyrites are found. The art of working in iron is almost confined to Chaura, where the _meráhtas_ and the best spear-heads are manufactured. The latter are, however, made at the other islands as well. Of weaving they have no knowledge, and prior to the introduction of cotton and cloth garments they clothed themselves in _tapa_ or cloth made of the beaten bark of a tree at present believed to be the _Ficus brevicuspis_, also with girdles of split coconut leaves.
They are, however, expert basketmakers, and many-shaped baskets for various purposes are manufactured in different patterns of mesh, entirely out of the strips of rattan, or of the bark of the _Maranta dichotoma_.
What the sago is to the Papuan, the pandanus is to the Nicobarese, and its luxuriant natural growth renders unnecessary any extensive agricultural labour on his part. The other great support of life--the coconut--once planted, thrives without further attention, and for the rest, his fruits, bananas, and yams, require but the slightest amount of cultivation. The implement used in all cases seems to be the _dáo_ only.
