Andaman Isles ... "the natives had not the faintest knowledge of even the neighbouring coast of Burmah, much less the world at large .... The few voyagers who from time to time ventured near their shores were regarded as deceased ancestors who, by some dispensation, had been permitted to revisit the earth .... In confirmation of this may be cited the name by which the natives of India are to this day called, viz. chawgala (literally, departed spirits)."

XREF: Connects to isolation/contact anthropology — how small societies interpret outsiders. Resonates with first-contact narratives in exploration literature.

XREF: Connects to classic anthropological literature on first-contact perception of outsiders as supernatural beings, echoed in other colonial-era accounts of isolated groups.

Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 45