However, that was not always how the secluded tribe was known. Since the killing of John Allen Chau, there have been numerous theories floated around about the Sentinelese tribe, with many calling them "hostile" and those who "shoot arrows on any invader". "A Christian missionary group, All Nations, which is based in Kansas, released a statement that said that the 27-year-old was a missionary with the organisation since 2017 and had been training to convert the isolated tribe to Christianity since he was in college," reported The Financial Express.Ī friend of the victim has gone on record to tell Daily Mail of the UK that John Allen Chau had "lost his mind". It’s time we revisit that history again.Bengaluru: The North Sentinel Island in the Andamans has gained international prominence in the past few weeks after an American evangelist-tourist was killed by the isolated Sentinelese tribe after he tried to make contact with them. The British experiment teaches us how not to treat the original inhabitants of the Andamans. The day you try to preach them any religion, the Sentinelese would cease to exist. They follow animism, worship and love nature, something ‘civilized’ people don’t. Don’t forget, they knew a tsunami was coming and moved to higher grounds. Shouldn’t they enjoy the fruits of human progress, or for that matter, as Chau allegedly wanted, have a religion? When you talk about fruits of human progress, what makes you think the Sentinelese or other tribes are backward? They may not have the luxuries and technology we have, but they are not uncivilized. Immunity of the tribes is very low and any contact with the outside world will endanger the Sentinelese. There are chilling accounts of such misadventures and so-called civilizational missions. But the Andamanese contacted diseases like syphilis and measles. First they killed a thousand of them in the Battle of Andaman and then they kidnapped them from the habitats and tried to civilize them at ‘homes’. Why do you think it is important to leave them alone? Look at what the British did to the Great Andamanese. The Sentinelese are very strong - locally they are called Pathan Jarawas because of their build - and do not need outsiders to teach them livelihood tactics. In Andaman literature, there are references of them being kidnapped by sailors and turned into slaves. What makes the Sentinelese so aggressive towards outsiders? Not much is known but they are very protective of their territory and women. They swim up to it and scavenge scrap iron to make arrow heads, knives and other weapons. But why the rifles? For them it was just a source of raw iron, just like the wreckage of a ship - like Primrose, a Panama registered freighter carrying poultry feed from Bangladesh to Australia, which ran aground on a coral reef on August 2, 1981. One man even attempted to take the rifles (meant to fire in the air in case of an emergency) the police were carrying. The men climbed our boats to collect the coconuts. When our contact party sailed again on February 21, they were more welcoming and turned up without weapons. And the Sentinelese are human beings, they understand who will harm them. Weren’t you scared of the consequences of meeting the Sentinelese? When I opted for research in the Andamans, my mother had to sign an undertaking that if anything happened to me, including death, the Anthropological Survey of India would not be held responsible. The community has been hostile to outsiders. It was a contact among equals, we did not see them as tribals in need of getting civilized. We no more dropped the coconuts but handed them over to the Sentinelese. We realized that the woman wanted to save us and emboldened, our party jumped into the water. A woman, probably his mother or aunt, pushed him and the arrow fell into the water. From the beach, however, another youth aimed an arrow at us. A youth waded across the water and came till our boat, others followed him. When we returned, they welcomed us with shouts of “ nariyali jaba jaba” (more coconuts).
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