Everything About The Sentinelese An Uncontacted Tribe living On North Sentinal Island

It’s hard to imagine that in the twenty-first century, when technology is advancing at an unparalleled rate and people are debating the danger of nuclear war, there is a spot where people live in a prehistorical lifestyle, entirely unaware of the changes taking place outside. This is the reality of North Sentinel Island located in the Bay of Bengal. The Sentinelese Tribe, who live on this island, have avoided any outside contact and fiercely defended their island against anyone who comes close.

The dense forest canopy prohibits the rest of the world from learning anything about the Sentinelese people, and we even don’t even know how many people live on the island. The North Sentinel Island is only 59.6 square kilometers, about the same size as Manhattan Island in New York. It is part of the Andaman Island Archipelago. It’s only 142 kilometers away from Sumatra and 1,200 kilometers from the Indian peninsula.

A tsunami in 2004 altered the island’s topography by rising it one to two meters, expanding its west and south limits by nearly one kilometer, and connecting an islet to the main island.

Sentinelese Tribe origin

North Sentinel Island’s inhabitants are one of the few uncontacted tribes left on the planet, utterly unaffected by modern society, and are said to have lived there for 60,000 years. Around the island, the Indian Navy maintains a three-mile buffer zone.

Negrito, a dark-skinned ethnic group, lives on North Sentinel Island and the other islands that make up the Andaman Islands. This Negrito tribe is thought to have originated in Africa, according to Survival International, an advocacy group for indigenous and uncontacted peoples. They arrived in India around 60,000 years ago via Indonesia.

North Sentinel Island’s assumed language is “Sentinelese.” Due to a lack of connection between the Sentinelese and the rest of the world, nothing is known about their native language. When the researchers heard the islanders’ phrases, they could only conclude that the language is unconnected to that of surrounding island cultures. As a result, the Sentinelese language is still categorized as an unclassified language.

The tribe has no cordial contact with outsiders and is fierce guardians of their area. Multiple attempts to contact the Sentinelese people have been undertaken since the 1800s, but they all met with spears and arrows, occasionally resulting in deaths. That’s why some people labeled them the world’s most violent uncontacted tribe.

There has only been one amicable encounter with the tribe so far, in 1974, when they took a large amount of food from the tourists.

However, in 1992, the Indian government prohibited people from approaching the island, not only because they would kill them, but also because the Sentinelese tribe lacked immunity to common diseases which other humans have. It means even if one Sentinelese became infected, the entire tribe would die a horrible death and be wiped out from the Earth.

The tribe is believed to be living in a stone age

The Sentinelese people live an “ancient nomadic” lifestyle, identical to that of humans in the Paleolithic age. To collect seafood and hunt, they use bows and arrows. They live in a village of straw and leaf homes. The usage and genesis of fire among the Sentinelese is a point of contention. While some say they have no idea how to make fire, others believe they may do it by rubbing stones together or by keeping fire that has been struck by lightning.

The usage of metal-tipped arrows, rather than all-wooden arrows, is one of the most fascinating modifications observed among Sentinelese people. Because these individuals lack metallurgical knowledge, it’s assumed that they scavenged metal from a ship that ran aground near the island in 1981. They also received aluminum cookware that the National Geographic Society had left on the island in 1974.

The sixth sense in the Sentinelese tribe

A devastating Tsunami struck Sumatra, Andaman, Nicobar Islands, Thailand, mainland India, and Sri Lanka on December 26, 2004. Thousands of people died as a result of the deadly tsunami and earthquake. Concerned for the island’s residents, the Indian government dispatched a helicopter to conduct a survey. The Sentinelese, it was found, appeared to have coped fairly well. Even though the shoreline had changed dramatically, the tribe and animals were able to adapt with incredible ease.

The Sentinelese people, according to government authorities and anthropologists, may have been spared by old environmental expertise. They may have detected the impending danger by observing the movement of the wind, sea, and birds. The Sentinelese, according to Ashish Roy, a local environmentalist, and lawyer, has a “sixth sense” that humans lack. He also said that these folks can smell the winds and use the sound of their oars to determine the depth of the water.

The deadly Sentinelese tribe doesn’t like to make friends

It is said that an East India Company vessel sailed past Sentinel Island one night in 1771, and saw lights flashing on the shore. Almost after a century, 86 passengers and 20 crew of an Indian merchant ship were stranded on the island for three days. The Sentinelese didn’t like intruders and attacked them with bows and iron-tipped arrows.

When a Royal Navy vessel reached to rescue the shipwreck survivors, a British Royal Navy officer named Maurice Vidal Portman took control of the Andaman and Nicobar colony.

When they searched the island they found abandoned villages as the tribe fled to inland. Portman and his search party captured an elderly couple and four children from the tribe and took them to Port Blair. The couple died due to sickness when they reached Port Blair, so the children were returned back to the island. No one knows what happened next.

Attacks by the Sentinelese tribe

In 1896, a convict who escaped fled to North Sentinel Island. A few days later, a colonial search party found his remains full of arrow wounds, with his throat slit. The British then decided to leave the Sentinelese in peace.

India claimed the isolated little island in 1970 and to say so a survey dropped a stone tablet on the beach.

In 2006, years later, an Indian crab harvesting boat sailed ashore, and it was reported that the Sentinelese killed both fishermen and buried their remains.

An American adventurer who kayaked to a remote Indian island populated by a tribe known for shooting at outsiders with bows and arrows has been killed, police said Wednesday. Officials said they were working with anthropologists to recover the body.

John Allen Chau, a 26-year-old adventurer was killed by the Sentinelese tribe in 2018. He went there in his kayak accompanied by seven fishermen. The fishermen who maintained a safe distance saw the tribesman drag Chau’s body as if they were about to bury him and they fled. No one knows what happened next, but Chau definitely didn’t return back.

The first woman to contact the Sentinelese – Anthropologists Madhumala Chattopadhyay

Mr. Pandit and Madhumala Chattopadhyay. Madhubala was the first woman to make contact with the Sentinelese tribe in 1991. She offered coconuts to the tribe to show that they come in peace.

 

Effect of the modern-day world problems on the Sentinelese Tribe

The Sentinelese are one of the world’s remaining isolated hunter-gatherer tribes, and their survival is threatened by climate change, garbage, technology, and other factors. They require more than simply a law and a border to safeguard them.

They may have survived deadly illnesses and an earthquake, but the ones yet to come will be deadlier than the two put together. Whatever happens, the Indian government must safeguard them. We have to understand that they can only be saved if they are left alone. The more humans like us try to engage with them, the more illnesses and viruses they become susceptible to.

Have you heard about the Sentinelese tribe before? Let us know in the comments.