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The Onkoboykwe [Onge religion; Andamanese mythology]

Little Andaman Island – or Gaubolambe, as it is called by the native Onge people – in the Indian Ocean is the centre of the universe. Above it, 6 layers of worlds exist, and 6 additional worlds exist below the island. Above these 13 worlds is an immaterial void, and below it lies the primordial ocean, Kwatannange, which is filled with turtles (note: I don’t entirely understand the religious significance of the turtles). This is, though a bit oversimplified, the universe of the native Onge religion.

Each of these world layers is inhabited by a kind of spirits. Though they are usually translated as ‘spirits’, it would be more accurate to call them otherworldly beings: they are not human, but they eat, work, reproduce and die of old age, just like humans. Nor are they immaterial or intangible.

The first layer above the island is the world of the Onkoboykwe, which are the most important of these beings. They created the shining disk that we call the sun, and they created the moon and stars as well. Onkoboykwe are considered to be kind and benevolent, and these spirits harbour no ill will towards humanity. Sadly, I found no description on what these beings look like.

It is important to note that in the Onge creation story, humanity descended from the Onkoboykwe: the first inhabitants of Little Andaman Island, Engigegi and his wife, had come from this strange world above ours. They built a house on the island and planted rows of trees. It is from these trees that the first humans grew.

Interestingly, it is said that if a human dies within the confines of a forest, his spirit will ascend to the world of the Onkoboykwe and become one of them. This is because in Onge religion, the circumstances of one’s death would determine what happened to the spirit.

Sources: Ganguly, P., 1975, The Negritos of Little Andaman Island: A Primitive People Facing Extinction, Indian Museum Bulletin, 10(1), pp. 7-27. Ganguly, P., 1987, Negrito Religions: Negritos of the Andaman Islands, in Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition, Lindsay Jones (editor), Volume 10, pp. 6455-6456. (image: native Onge people posing for a photo. I couldn’t find the original image source, sorry.)

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An Onge man and others like him from the Andaman Islands [...] carry some of the oldest genetic markers found outside Africa -- evidence that Homo sapiens [...] headed east from Africa as long as 70, 000 years ago.

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