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The Eaka are a class of ghostly beings in the folklore of the Onge tribe of Little Andaman Island.

The Onge are a highly endangered tribe. In the 2011 census, their population numbered just 101 individuals. Their society, culture, and language have been devastated by colonization and settlement of the islands. As a result, anthropological understanding of their traditional mythology and folklore is limited. What follows is based primarily on interviews conducted by the anthropologist Pranab Kumar Ganguly between 1953 and 1957.

In Onge mythology, there are thirteen planes of existence, six that lie above our world and six that lie below. The six higher planes have no ocean, only endless land. Each of the six lower planes consists of an island about the same size as Little Andaman, surrounded by an ocean. Even lower, beneath them all, is Kwatannange, the primordial ocean, which is full of turtles.

This entry covers the beings who live in the six planes of existence that lie below Little Andaman Island. The residents of the higher planes are discussed in the separate entry on the Onkoboykwe.

The plane directly beneath Little Andaman is inhabited by the Eaka. Like the Onge, they are black-skinned, but have large distended bellies and bald heads. Food is plentiful in their world. They eat fruits, tubers, edible roots, and pork, in addition to meat caught from the sea that surrounds their island: fish, turtles, and dugongs.

The Eaka sometimes come to the human plane and kidnap Onge under cover of darkness. When they catch a person, they bring him down below and turn him into another Eaka.

The Eaka themselves are the ghosts of humans — at least, some of them are.

The Onge believe that if a person dies a “normal” death (of illness or old age), then a few days after his body is buried, a tiny humanoid form called an Embekete emerges from his corpse. The Embekete digs itself down through the earth and dives into the sea below it. Then it swims across the ocean until it reaches the faraway land of the Inene, another class of spirits. At that point the Embekete transforms into one of the Inene, and proceeds to live a life in that form.

The day after the Embekete departs, a second spirit, this one an Eaka, emerges from the corpse. The Eaka digs himself slowly into the ground by wiggling back and forth until it drops through the bottom of the earth and into the lower plane. There, other Eakas come to greet it, and they offer it food and shelter.

Onge who die unnatural deaths have a different fate (see Onkoboykwe and Ingennangkwe).

Despite being ghosts, the Eaka are considered still to be mortal; the afterlife comes to an end eventually. In fact, this is true of the inhabitants of all the planes, both the higher and the lower.

The Taoere

Below the plane of the Eaka is the plane of the Taoere. The beings who dwell in this plane appear mostly human, but with reddish-brown skin. They subsist on seafood caught in the ocean surrounding their island. Their world has no jungle, and therefore no pigs; but they still have a taste for pork, so they sometimes travel two planes up to visit Little Andaman and hunt for pigs.

The Tege-ele

Below the plane of the Taoere is the plane of the Tege-ele. This world has both a sea surrounding it and a forest with wild pigs. Nevertheless, the Tege-ele sometimes come up to hunt for pigs in the human plane. The Tege-ele resemble the Onge, but they are uglier; they fear humans, and are considered harmless.

The Toranchu

Below the plane of the Tege-ele is the plane of the Toranchu, who are described as being in all respects similar to the Tege-ele.

The Burage

Below the plane of the Toranchu is the plane of the Burage. This world too has both a jungle and a surrounding sea. The Burage are light-skinned with extremely long noses. They live in huts and hunt pigs. They do not visit the human plane.

The Kochay

Below the plane of the Burage is the plane of the Kochay. The beings who dwell in this plane are black-skinned like the Onge, but with protruding jaws. In their land there are no pigs, so they subsist on fish, turtle, and dugong. They, too, appear uninterested in visiting the human plane of existence.