Nicobarese

Clans and Kinship

The Nicobarese live in very large joint families: a household may include a married couple, their children, the couple's brothers and sisters with their families, and cousins and uncles, up to about a hundred people in a cluster of neighbouring houses (Encyclopedia of World Cultures). There are no clans, and no endogamous or exogamous groups beyond the nuclear family; cousins of any kind may marry. After marriage a couple joins whichever of their two joint families has fewer members. Land belongs to the joint family under its head. Village heads are chosen from among the heads of joint families, and one of them serves as head of the island; women are held to be as fit for headship as men.

The Encyclopedia of World Cultures records no clans or exogamous groups among the Nicobarese beyond the nuclear family.

In the Official Lists

• Scheduled Tribe

  Andaman and Nicobar Islands

  Listed as: Nicobarese

Checked against the Census 2011 table and Wikipedia's compilation of the order. The Shompen of Great Nicobar are a separate Scheduled Tribe and are not covered here.

Checked on 2026-11-07 against the sources below. The lists are amended from time to time and can differ by district; for a certificate, the current order or the state's list is what counts.

Name and Origin

Tradition and the evidence of language point to an origin in Myanmar (Gratton, in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures). Big Laputi village on Car Nicobar is held to be the parent village from which all other Nicobarese settlements came. The first certain mention of the islands is the Chola inscription of 1050 at Thanjavur, which calls them Nakkavaram.

History

Jesuit, Danish, Austrian, British and French missionaries tried without success to convert the Nicobarese. The British took the islands in 1869 and held them until 1947. Christianity spread on Car Nicobar through the respect felt for Bishop John Richardson, a Nicobarese whose courage during the Japanese occupation of 1942 to 1945 led whole villages to follow him. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation of 1956 restricts the entry of outsiders into tribal areas and regulates trade (Encyclopedia of World Cultures).

Faith and Worship

Traditional Nicobarese belief deals with the spirits of nature and of the dead. Ritual specialists and healers, menluana, of whom the most respected come from Chowra, treat illness by dealing with the spirits that cause it. Christianity has spread widely, above all on Car Nicobar (Encyclopedia of World Cultures).

Customs

Nicobarese choose their own partners. Settlements stand on the coast, with houses on stilts around a sand-covered ground for dancing and sport. The largest ceremony, held every two or three years when the village heads agree there are pigs enough, is the ossuary feast honouring the dead, shared by several villages; canoe races are a favourite sport. Chowra islanders make the pottery and canoes used by all (Encyclopedia of World Cultures).

Festivals