Nicobarese - Sociopolitical Organization

Village heads are chosen from among the joint-family heads. Headship is an achieved position, but it tends to remain in a single family for several generations. One of the village heads will serve as island head. Women are assumed to be fully as qualified for headship as men, but they are less frequently motivated to act as such. Village and island councils, formed of family and village heads, once had the sole formal authority to judge and punish offenses and only met to adjudicate specific problems. Today, serious crimes are no longer handled on the local level but are turned over to government representatives headquartered on Car Nicobar. Today, punishments are usually laid on in terms of fines (to be paid in pigs), or corporal punishment (caning).