The world has seen many ages: Stone Age, Iron Age, Bronz Age, Medieval Age, etc. While the world is progressing in the Modern Era nowadays, this can’t be said for all parts of the world. Few communities are still not progressive and can’t reach modern civilization. These societies have no idea of the outer world and modernity. They are completely isolated and stuck in an old age. With an incident in 2018, the most popular among these tribes is The North Sentinel Islanders.
The Sentinelese and The Island
North Sentinel Island is in the Andaman Islands, under India’s rule. These islands are in the Bay of Bengal, which is in the east of India. The North Sentinel Island has a small area with an unknown population. However, the population is estimated to be between 40 and 500, which shows we have little insight about this isolated tribe. While researchers implied that there were at least 40 people on the island, there is still a massive unknown about the island, which makes the estimation harder. The language of the islanders is unknown.
Many explorers and scientists, and lastly, the explorer “Allen Chau” tried to contact the people of the island, which ended in high aggression and even deaths. But why? Why are the people of this island extremely aggressive toward outsiders and refuse to contact with the outside world? Well, the answer to this question is in the pages of history.
History with The Island
The first contact with this island was back in the British Colonial Era (not really surprising) in the 18th and 19th centuries. Later, an expedition rover, Maurice Vidal Portman, went to North Sentinel Island in 1880. After finding a few huts and gaining some information about the lifestyles of the Sentinelese people, they took two elderly and four children to Port Blair.
But this was a colossal mistake because since the Sentinelese people were still in the Stone Age and had no contact with the outside, they also did not have an immune system to all the bacteria of the modern world. This means that they can die with even a tiny flu. This fatal fault caused the death of the elderly. They sent the four infected children back to the island, which heated the aggression in the Sentinelese tribe.
After these contacts, Sentinelese people were thrusting towards invaders for a long time. In 1956, it became illegal to enter the island. With permission, anthropologists made peaceful contact some years later by presenting islanders with useful items. Nevertheless, the Sentinelese warned them that if they stayed too long on the island, which caused no progress in understanding the Sentinelese. The tribe knows that invaders bring various diseases with them.
Eventually, an explorer, Allen Chau, illegally entered the North Sentinel Island. However, the islanders killed and buried his body on the beach. In the diary that was found after his death, it was written that his goal was to bring Jesus to the Sentinelese. According to the diary, he made contact with these tribespeople before, but the tribe didn’t want to have contact with him and warned him twice. But his persistence cost him his own life.
Summary
The Sentinelese want to stay in isolation. With the incidents that happened in history, they know that contact will be harmful rather than beneficial. The proper thing to do is obey the rule and refrain from entering within the five nautical miles around the island.
You can take a look at our other posts in History and Geography!
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