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ABSTRACT
The account of my second visit to the Nicobar Islands with special reference to the Island of Chowra was earlier published under the title "Experiencing Anthropology in the Nicobar Archipelago" in the journal the Eastern Anthropologist (Sahay 2007); and later, the same article appeared in the book Anthropology in India edited by Srivastava and Saxena (2010). In my third visit to the Nicobar archipelago, I concentrated on the central group of islands that consists of the islands of Nancowrie, Kamorta, Trinket, and Katchall, which is also called the Nancowrie group of islands. This visit was different than the earlier one in the sense that in Chowra, I was all alone, completely cut off from the outside world. In Nancowrie, for the first 45 days, I assisted a team of postgraduate students of the Department of Anthropology of Ranchi University in data collection for their fieldwork on different topics. After the departure of the team, I lived there alone in the hut of one of my key informants, Gabriel. The experiences during this tenure of fieldwork suggest, first, that there are respective advantages and disadvantages to conducting fieldwork with a team and to doing it alone, and secondly, that an anthropologist has to be extremely cautious in his interaction with the group, even after having established the best of rapport with his informants. His one mistake may completely jeopardise his conduct of fieldwork.
INTRODUCTION
During the 1970s, the Department of Anthropology, Ranchi University, had focused its attention on studying the Bay Islands. In 1971, I visited the islands with the late Professor L. P. Vidyarthi while completing an M.A. course in Anthropology. As a Junior Research Fellow of the University Grant Commission (UGC), I studied the Nicobarese in 1974 and 1975 for my PhD. In 1975, a team of postgraduate students were also sent by the department to the Nicobar Islands for six weeks for their fieldwork. As I was well acquainted with the situations in these islands, I was told by the Head of the Department Professor Vidyarthi to assist the team; and thus, it was my third trip to the Nicobar Islands.
In the third week of December 1974, we left Ranchi for Kolkata by train. After a stay of a day...