Man in search of man: The Sentinelese.

Situated in the Indian Ocean, towards the southern side of India, are a group of islands known as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. This is a part of our country not very well known, and also a part in which one is not interested until one is planning a costly vacation on the coasts. However, there is one other thing at these small pieces of land that might get you interested here; the tribes of the land. The people living here had been cut off from the contacts of mainland culture and the developments taking place there. As result the people whom you might meet here will neither look like the people of the mainland India nor behave like them. Looking at them, it seems as if they are still caught up in the primitive times and there, in that dimension of time, lies their unique world undisturbed by modern times.
The Great Andamanese:

The great Andamanese is a collective term used for 10 different tribes that lived in most of the large islands in the Andaman. These tribes spoke different but related languages were of Negrito origin and were related by culture and geography.
Until the late 18th century, the Andamanese people were preserved from outside influences by their fierce rejection of contacts (which included killing any shipwrecked foreigners) and by the remoteness of the islands. But after the coming of the British, things changed.
The Sentinelese are one of the very few remaining ‘uncontacted people' in the world and they are determined to keep it that way which means we know tantalisingly little about their language, their culture, their belief system or even how many of them there are.But what we do know is that they have lived happily and largely healthily on their tiny, lush, mangrove-swamped 20-square-mile island for at least 30,000 years.During which time, they have feasted on wild pigs,clams, berries and honey, engaged in energetic communal sex sessions on the beach and repelled pretty much every visitor (well-meaning or threatening) with a flurry of poison arrows and razor sharp machetes.

So it wasn’t such a surprise last weekend when John Allen Chau, a 26-year-old American Christian missionary-cum-thrill-seeking explorer who visited the island was felled by a poison arrow and then dragged round the white sand beaches by a piece of twine until he was dead.

Apparently Chau, a graduate of the evangelical Oral Roberts University, Oklahoma, who had previously declared visiting North Sentinel as his ‘must-do adventure’, had decided his life’s calling was converting the Sentinelese to Christianity.

They're probably so aggressive because of this weirdo, Maurice Vidal Portman.

The Sentinelese are often described as “uncontacted,” but this not strictly true. They had a very significant contact in 1880 with Commander Portman.

Portman, the black sheep third son of some minor noble, was assigned by the English Royal Navy to administer and pacify the Andaman Islands, a job he pursued from 1880-1900 with the full measure of his own perversity.

Portman was erotically obsessed with the Andamanese, and he indulged his passion for photography by kidnapping members of various tribes and posing them in mock-Greek homoerotic compositions.

During his 20 years in a sexualized heart of darkness, Portman measured and cataloged every inch of his prisoner’s bodies, with an obsessive focus on genitals.

Portman spent most of his time in the greater Andaman Islands, but in 1880, he landed on North Sentinel. The natives fled, and his party ventured inland to find a settlement which had been abandoned in haste.But they located an elderly couple and a few children they were able to abduct. The couple quickly died, likely from ailments to which they had no immunity.The children spent a few weeks with Portman doing fuck knows what, after which he returned them to the island. Portman returned on a couple occasions, but the Sentinelese hid from him each time.The story related by the children was certainly passed down among the 100 or so inhabitants of the island, and even today, Portman’s fatal kidnapping is just beyond a human lifetime.
So when the Indian government attempted contact with anthropologists in the 1960s and 70s, the Sentinelese were understandably hostile to outsiders. The Indian government soon gave up.

In 1981, a cargo ship named The Primrose ran aground on the coral reef surrounding North Sentinel. The crew radioed for assistance and settled in for a long wait. But in the morning they saw 50 men with bows on the beach, building makeshift boats.

The crew called for an emergency airlift and were evacuated, and not a moment too soon. Rough waves had thwarted the Sentinelese in their attempts to board, but the weather was clearing.

The ship and its cargo were left at the island, awaiting discovery by Neolithic eyes. Today you can still see the gutted remains on The Primrose on Google Earth.

Imagine climbing on board that ship. A completely alien vessel filled with alien things. Imagine seeing simple machines for the first time. A hinge. A latch. A wheel. Things that would instantly make sense in a satisfying way. Others would be so incomprehensible to avoid notice.

In the 1990s, when anthropologists returned to the island to make new attempts at contact, they were met with a different attitude. Not friendly, exactly. But they were willing to accept gifts. Many would wade into the water with smiles to accept coconuts.
After collecting gifts for a few minutes, a few members of the tribe would approach and make menacing gestures, signaling that it was time for the outsiders to leave. They have never lost their desire for isolation, despite the gifts.

And they remained consistent in their intolerance against intruders. In 2006, two fishermen were killed after drifting into the island when their anchor detached while they were sleeping.

The Sentinelese are lucky they were so effective at preventing contact. The neighboring Jawara weren’t so fortunate. The tribe went from 9,000 to a couple hundred from lack of genetic immunity and only forestalled annihilation due to aggressive segregation. Their future is bleak.
Yet on North Sentinel, they’ve maintained a small community for 60,000 years which is by all indications happy. There is no way to integrate them into the modern world without wiping out nearly every member of their tribe.And their aggressiveness is not the mark of savagery. It just that their conception of outsiders is mostly framed by some foot-faced English pervert who murdered some old people and did weird things to their kids. So let’s do them a favor and leave them alone.

Under Indian law, it is illegal for anyone to be within five nautical miles of the islands and, since last year, even filming the natives in the Andaman Islands — which include North Sentinel — has been illegal.

It’s also off limits for visitors. Dependra Pathak, the director general of police in Andaman and Nicobar, said tourist and missionary John Allen Chau was illegally carried to North Sentinel Island by seven fishermen – each of whom has been arrested by Indian police.
This is partly to protect visitors such as Chau, from the natives’ deadly tendencies.
But more importantly, it is to ensure the continued survival of the world’s last pre-neolithic tribe. A people, so isolated, so apart from, so unexposed to modern life that they are unlikely to have any resistance common illnesses such as flu, measles or even a cold.

Since colonial times, there’s been a pervasive rumour that the Sentinelese are cannibals. There’s no evidence to support this, and a 2006 analysis from the Indian government following the death of two fishermen on the island concluded that the group does not practice cannibalism.

The false belief reportedly grew from misunderstanding the practice of a neighbouring tribe , the Onge, who cut up and burned the flesh of their deceased to prevent them from being consumed by evil spirits.

India’s current government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, revoked some rules that protected the island. In August, it removed requirements to obtain a Restricted Area Permit for 29 islands in Andaman Islands, including North Sentinel Island.
That means that it’s now legal for tourists to visit the islands, according to India Today , even though the Sentinelese have killed people and indigenous rights groups have called for their protection.

Sentinelese aim arrows as an Indian Coast Guard helicopter: After the Tsunami in 2004, an Indian Coast Guard helicopter went to check on the Sentinelese , the most secluded people on earth, whether they had survived the tidal onslaught. As the helicopter was hovering over the Islands, the coast guard commander Anil Thapliyal saw the Sentinelese come out of the forest shooting arrows. The Sentinelese had survived, based on their knowledge of nature and its movements. Never before has the Indian Coast Guard been so pleased at being attacked. Photo courtsey: the Indian Coast Guard.

I think the fact that these people had boats but didn’t bother coming ashore to say hi to the outside world is a pretty big indicator they are perfectly content to keep themselves isolated.