The Nicobarese, Island People of the Bay of Bengal

On the tropical islands of the Nicobar archipelago in the Bay of Bengal live the Nicobarese, the principal indigenous people of the islands. Unlike the ancient hunter-gatherers of the neighbouring Andamans, they are an Austroasiatic horticultural people, cultivators of the coconut and keepers of pigs, whose language links them to the distant Mon-Khmer world of Southeast Asia.

Organised in the joint families they call tuhet, famed for their coconut groves, their great pig feasts, and their outrigger canoe-races, and today largely Christian, the Nicobarese have preserved a strong island identity even through the catastrophe of the 2004 tsunami. This article traces their origins, language, homeland, society, religion, and traditions, and the story of the islanders of the Nicobars.