Andamanese

The Andamanese religion is the animism of the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, in which the worship of ancestors holds an important place. Their creator is Pūluga, who gave the first people his commands.

In one version recorded by later ethnographers, a happy time ended when a food taboo was broken by eating the forbidden vegetables in Pūluga's garden. When the people ignored his laws, Pūluga sent a great flood. Only four survived, two men and two women, and they had lost their fire; Pūluga made the plants and animals again but did not give it back.

The British colonial presence on the islands from 1789 brought epidemics of pneumonia, measles and influenza that struck down people with no immunity. Within four years the large Jarawa settlements of south-eastern South Andaman had suffered a massive loss of population.