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In this article, Garrison Gove will inform readers about North Sentinel Island, inhabited by one of the few remaining uncontacted tribes in the world.
North Sentinel Island
North Sentinel Island
By Garrison Gove
In today’s modern era, the entire world seems interconnected. Airplanes have allowed us to travel between continents in a matter of hours. Satellites and undersea telephone lines have allowed us to communicate with virtually anyone on the planet. However, even in this period of rapid globalization, certain groups of people still cling to isolation.
North Sentinel Island, located in the Bay of Bengal in the northeast Indian Ocean, seems like a tropical paradise at first glance. The island is encircled by a white sandy beach and is home to several coral reefs. Dolphins and sea turtles frolic off-shore. But the island is home to the Sentinelese, a group of indigenous people who live in isolation from the modern world, and maintain their status by greeting trespassers with hails of spears and arrows.
North Sentinel Island has existed in maritime folklore for many years. According to the American Scholar article "The Last Island of the Savages", North Sentinel Island was first sighted by an East India Company survey vessel in 1771, who reported seeing lights from fires on the shore but did not investigate further. In 1867, the Indian vessel Ninevah ran aground on the island, with the 106 survivors setting up camp. The Sentinelese attacked them, but they managed to hold off the attack before being rescued by a Royal Navy vessel.
Sentinelese tribesmen row their canoe. Photo credit: Anthropologist Survey of India
Encounters with the Sentinelese continued into the 20th century. In 1974, a National Geographic photographer attempted to visit the island, and was rewarded for his efforts with an arrow in his thigh. In 1981, the Panamanian cargo ship ran aground on the reef off the coast of the island. The crew managed to fend off the locals with nothing more than axes and flare guns before being rescued by the Indian Navy. The Sentinelese later salvaged the ship for iron for tools and weapons, according to Forbes. By this point, it appeared that any outsiders who visited the island would be greeted with hostility. However, a breakthrough finally occurred in 1991.
Sentinelese people as seen from a distance. Photo credit: Survival International
An Indian anthropologist named Triloknath Pandit had cautiously observed the Sentinelese from afar for over 20 years. Finally, in 1991, Pandit actually set foot on the island, delivering coconuts and other gifts, which the natives accepted without incident, according to The Independent. Nevertheless, despite this groundbreaking milestone, no progress was made in understanding their language, and a Sentinelese tribesman let them know they overstayed their welcome by making a stabbing gesture with his knife. Pandit made several more visits to the island, with varying reception of hospitality, before the Indian government forbade travel to the island in 1996.
Since then, several others have visited the island, sometimes unintentionally, but all instances have resulted in far more gruesome conclusions than Pandit’s expedition. The Indian Navy maintains patrol around the island, and the Indian government refuses to prosecute the Sentinelese for killing hapless individuals who encroach upon their island. Whether or not the outside world agrees with the Sentielese’s methods of preserving their isolation, their ability to remain isolated from the outside world for centuries is unquestionably remarkable.
Sources:
Sources:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120925024523/http://andaman.org/BOOK/reprints/goodheart/rep-goodheart.htm
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