Great Nicobar Island (A Study in Human Ecology)

Intrdocution The main function of the party was to collect as much data as possible within a period of two months on the cultural and the physical characteristics of the Nicobarese as well as the Shompen tribes about whom only very scanty information is available. While Dr M. K. Nag concentrated his study on the social and political organisation, habits, manners and customs of the people of Great Nicobar, I studied the interrelationship between man and his physical and cultural enviroment as they act react upon each other. I was specially interested to know how the people of Great Nicobar obtain their food in the hunting and gathering economy and in the absence of any agriculture. The estimation of the feeding capacity of the land resources was another aspect of my investigation. The Nico- barese living along the seacoast are sedentary fruit gatherers having sufficient number of coconut and pandanus gardens, while the Shompen of the interior forest regions are semi- nomadic, living upon hunting, fishing and gathering of wild variety of pandanus along with a few plantations of banana, taro, tapioca.

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