Whether to Eat or not to Eat? An Enquiry into the Food Foraging Tactics of the Jarawas of Andamans

Abstract

This paper is one of the most pioneering anthropological researches on the Jarawas- one of the Negrito hunter-gatherer communities of the world, inhabiting the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. In addition, the author is also one of the few early anthropologists to have done fieldwork among them; and thus, got the initial opportunity to peep inside the daily life of the Jarawas from so close quarters. The Jarawas are very sparsely distributed in the tropical rainforests along the western coast of Middle and South Andaman. An attempt has been made in this paper to explore the economic pursuits carried out by a band of the Jarawa tribe that revolve round foraging of various kinds of terrestrial and aquatic food sources that are seasonally available in and around their habitat. Food is the primary biological necessity of human kind. The food intake of a group greatly depends upon the food habit with which the group feels closely affiliated with each of the biotic as well as a-biotic thing in its surrounding, which ultimately organises the whole process of economic behaviour of the group. As one of the forest dwelling band-communities of the Andamans, the Jarawas have been still maintaining their foraging mode of subsistence since time immemorial It is assumed that their social and economic critetia of food selection and rejections are the outcomes of ecological adaptation in strict biological terms. This means, they are expected to modify their food foraging behaviour in ways that maximise inclusive fitness under specific ecological condition. Since all living organisms require energy to function, it is hypothesized that selection of food resources generally help the Jarawas to maximise the rale of energy acquisition while foraging at any given time and space. Two formal evolutionary biological models: Optimal Diet Breadth and Patch Choice have been applied as theoretical base to understand the food foraging strategy of the Jarawas. It has been observed that the Jarawas are enormously opportunistic in their response to changing social and ecological circumstances, depending upon fitness-cost (efforts investment) and benefits (returns obtained). In this way they adjust the cost (efforts investment) and benefit (energy returns) with alternative resource and foraging sites. As optimal foragers, the Jarawas do continue foraging expedition till net energy-return fulfils their needs. As a result their diet consists of more varieties of natural resources during the dry season than other seasons of the year.