The Monkey-Race of the Ramayana

The monkey-race of "the Ramayana" has been identified by Portman with the Andaman islanders, a possible corruption of Hanuman, the monkey-general in the Epic. They are natives of the volcanic Andaman islands, in the Bay of Bengal, and are described by Arab and early European voyagers as Dog-faced man-eaters. Hence it is easy to see why in the Epic age they were called "Monkeys." As late as 1855 some English officers who had landed on their island to make a settlement, found themselves surrounded by naked cannibals, whose sole conception of a god was a demon, an evil spirit who spread disease and death among them. For five years they repulsed with showers of telling arrows every effort of foreigners to make a settlement, but they were finally brought to a better state of feeling when "the white devils" built sheds for the poor creatures along the coast, where they could find shelter, food, and medicine.