Number 13: Fishermen Deaths in 2006 In January of 2006, two fishermen were consumed
by the deadly perils of North Sentinel Island. Sunder Raj and Pandit Tiwari were illegally
harvesting crabs off the island’s coast when their boat drifted into the shallow waters.
At nighttime, their improvised anchor failed and the boat floated with the current. Passing
fishermen tried to warn Raj and Tiwari, but received no response as they’d most likely
fallen asleep. Soon enough, the men got close enough to the shore that they were approached
by the Sentinelese, the island’s native inhabitants. Most past attempts at contacting
the tribe had been met with violent resistance as they seemed to fully reject the outside
world. This wouldn’t be an exception. A group of Sentinelese warriors, armed with
axes, approached the boat and butchered the fishermen. According to one source, the bodies
were later mounted on bamboo sticks, facing the sea like scarecrows, presumably as a warning.
Several days later, a helicopter from the Indian Coast Guard found that the bodies had
been buried and attempted to retrieve them. As the aircraft approached the island, it
was met with a barrage of spears and arrows launched by the Sentinelese. The helicopter
had to abandon its mission. Number 12: Death of John Allen Chau
The 2018 killing of missionary John Allen Chau reignited global fascination with the
Sentinelese tribe. In November of that year, fully aware of the dangers ahead, the 26-year-old
went to North Sentinel determined to convert its tribe to Christianity. He didn’t get
the required permits and bribed local fishermen to take him within 1,600 to 2,300 feet of
the shore. From that point on, Chau kayaked towards the island, in spite of the fishermen’s
warnings. His attempts to interact with the tribe were met with a combination of bewilderment,
amusement and hostility. Upon first making contact, they approached Chau with bows drawn,
as he told them that he was there by the authority of Jesus Christ. Chau gifted them with fish
and quickly paddled away, but would later return to the island. A journal entry from
November the 15th, 2018 describes how he was shot at by the Sentinelese. While closing
in on the north shore, he attempted communication by replicating their shouts, but the Sentinelese
burst into laughter. He approached them with gifts in the form of scissors, hooks, tweezers,
fishing lines, safety pins and other items. As Chau got out of his kayak to hand over
the gifts, a young woman and a child approached him with their bows drawn. Chau thought it
would be the end, so he started preaching and singing worship songs. Then the child
shot a metal-headed arrow that struck the waterproof Bible he was holding near his chest.
The tribe took the gifts and his kayak, but allowed the missionary to waddle through broken
coral and then swim away. After this interaction with the Sentinelese, Chau would refer to
the island as “Satan’s last stronghold”. Scared and desperate, Chau refused to give
up on what he believed was his mission. On November the 17th, he instructed the fishermen
to leave without him as he made his way to the tribal settlements once more. The next
day, the men saw Chau’s lifeless body on the shore. Six fishermen were later arrested
for breaching the perimeter and bringing the missionary close to the island. Despite efforts
on behalf of Indian authorities, his remains were never recovered.
Number 11: Legal Implications In the aftermath of the 2006 and 2018 killings,
there were polarizing views about whether or not the Sentinelese should be prosecuted.
It remains a difficult conversation since it involves subjecting an uncontacted tribe
to the conventional law of modern society. The crux of the matter is that the Sentinelese
people have made it abundantly clear that they want to be left alone. Those who ventured
towards the coast in recent years knew they were doing it illegally and were aware of
the dangers. This was also reflected by what Chau wrote in his journal: “Please do not
be angry at them or at God if I get killed…Don’t retrieve my body.” According to the Protection
of Aboriginal Tribes act of 1956, it’s illegal to make contact with the Sentinelese or even
get within 5 nautical miles of North Sentinel’s coast. Researchers and anthropologists, who
want to do so, need to get proper permission from the Indian government. North Sentinel
is a sovereign place under its protection and the laws that have been put in place prevent
the authorities from prosecuting the remote tribe. The government resumes its activity
to remote monitoring and there’s constant armed patrol to prevent outsiders from reaching
the island. In Chau’s case, the US government didn’t ask Indian officials to press charges
nor was the tribe prosecuted for the 2006 killing of Raj and Tiwari.
Number 10: Location North Sentinel is one of the Andaman Islands,
which form an archipelago in the Bay of Bengal, located in the northeastern part of the Indian
Ocean. At about 23 square miles, the island is roughly the size of Manhattan in New York
City. After the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, a tectonic plate was tilted under the island
thus exposing large portions of the surrounding coral reefs. They subsequently became dry
land or shallow lagoons and connected North Sentinel with Constance Islet, a forested
patch of land off the southeast coastline. Aerial expeditions were carried out to assess
the damage the tsunami had caused to the island and its inhabitants. Despite massive tectonic
changes, the Sentinelese had remained miraculously unscathed. To this day, North Sentinel’s
inhabitants remain shrouded in mystery and most of what is known about them stems from
speculation and limited observation. Number 9: Andamanese People
The Sentinelese belongs to the larger group of Andamanese people, of which only roughly
450 remain. Other tribes include the Great Andamanese, the Onge, the Jarawa and the Jangil,
a people extinct for roughly a century. The Sentinelese is the only tribe who has consistently
refused contact with the outside world and the only ones still living in their original
homeland. Towards the end of the 18th century, a time when the other Andamanese began to
have sustained contact with outsiders, their numbers were close to 7,000. As time passed,
loss of territory, violence and disease wiped out most of them. It isn’t known whether
the Sentinelese’s isolation and reluctance is a reaction to seeing their neighbors dwindle
in numbers. Number 8: Stone Age Civilization
The Sentinelese has been described as a Stone Age civilization, as many of their practices
haven’t evolved for tens of thousands of years. Some reports claim that they’ve lived
in isolation for nearly 60,000 years with little changes to their lifestyle during this
time. They’ve maintained a hunter-gatherer society and aren’t known to engage in agriculture.
It’s still rather unclear to what extent they use fire. They hunt with bows and catch
local seafood. There are some similarities to neighboring tribes. Like the Onge, they
make canoes, the two being the only Andamanese tribes known to do so. They use long poles
to propel the canoes which are suitable for lagoon-fishing and rarely used for navigating
to other islands. The markings on their bows are similar to those of the Jarawa and, like
them, the Sentinelese sleep on the ground. The uncontacted tribe has understood the value
of metal and will scavenge it to cold forge weapons and tools. It’s believed that they’ve
mainly sourced their metal from shipwrecks on the island’s coast. The axes and metal
arrowheads are larger and heavier than those of other tribes in the region. This would
seem to underline the prowess of Sentinelese warriors as well as their readiness to take
on invaders. Judging by the fact that Chau was shot at by a child, one might deduce that
the young engage in hunting as well as warfare. Number 7: Society
The tribe’s adults are shorter in stature than the average human and researchers place
their height between 5' 3” and 5' 5”. The difference may be explained as the result
of genetic heritage, nutrition or insular dwarfism. The Sentinelese have been described
as having well-aligned teeth and a “dark, shining black” skin color. Their muscles
are well-developed and very prominent. It’s unknown what they call themselves and their
language, which is unclassified, remains a mystery. It doesn’t seem to overlap with
any other in the Andamanese linguistic register. According to Chau’s notes, the Sentinelese
communicated through a multitude of high-pitched sounds. They live in temporary shelters, which
are typically placed on four poles and feature slanted leaf-covered roofs. They are mostly
naked as both the men and women only wear bark strings as well as ornaments in the form
of headbands and necklaces. It’s been reported that they sometimes wear the jawbones of deceased
relatives. Their weapons feature engravings of geometric designs and shade contrasts and
the men often have daggers tucked in their waist belts. It’s still unclear how many
people live on the island but common estimates range between 50 and 200. From the earliest
recorded contact to the 21st century, there have been several violent interactions between
the Sentinelese and outsiders. Number 6: Early Contact
In 1771, Diligent, a passing ship from the East India Company, first mentioned the island
and noted lights upon the shore. Almost a century later, an Indian merchant vessel ran
aground on the coast of North Sentinel. The crew and passengers safely made their way
to the beach. On the third day, they were suddenly attacked with arrows by the island’s
inhabitants. The captain, who had fled in the lifeboat, was later picked up by a sailing
vessel. The Royal Navy then sent rescuers to the island who subsequently found the survivors.
They’d managed to repel the initial attack with sticks and stones. Fortunately for them,
the islanders didn’t return. Number 5: Interaction in Colonial Times
In 1880, Officer Maurice Vidal Portman, of the Royal Navy, attempted to establish contact
with the Sentinelese. As a colonial administrator of the archipelago, he’d pacified previously
hostile Andamanese tribes, particularly the Onge. He led a group of Andamanese trackers
and armed Europeans to the island. The inhabitants retreated into the tree line and abandoned
their settlements. Portman’s expedition captured four Sentinelese children as well
as an elderly man and woman. They were taken to Port Blair, the archipelago’s capital
city. Shortly after they arrived the adults died and the children became ill. Portman
was quick to return them to the island along with gifts, still hoping to establish friendly
contact. This was never achieved and the children most likely related the presumably “alien”
experience to the others. Some have blamed the tribe’s aggression towards outsiders
on the way Portman had handled the interaction. The officer returned to the island several
times but the islanders always remained hidden. In 1896, a convict from a prison colony used
an improvised raft to reach the island. A search party later found him with a sliced
throat and arrow wounds. Richard Carnac Temple, chief commissioner of the Andaman Islands
from 1895 to 1904, described the Sentinelese as “a tribe which slays every stranger,
however inoffensive, on sight, whether a forgotten member of itself, of another Andamanese tribe,
or a complete foreigner.” Number 4: Primrose
In August of 1981, the Primrose, a cargo ship with a small crew, was caught in rough seas
and became stranded near the North Sentinel coast. A few days later, armed islanders prepared
canoes to attack the ship. The captain sent out a mayday asking for weapons. Strong waves
prevented the Sentinelese from reaching the Primrose and deflected the arrows they fired.
The crew spent almost a week stranded, terrified that their lives would be claimed by the tribe.
They were ultimately rescued by a civilian helicopter, assisted by the Indian Navy. Over
the course of the months that followed, the Sentinelese scoured the shipwreck for metal.
Scrap dealers contracted to dismantle the Primrose wreck reported regular visits by
the Sentinelese, over the course of the 18 months they worked at the site. The noted
that their interaction was limited but without incident, as the Sentinelese were mainly interested
in collecting iron. Number 3: T.N. Pandit and National Geographic
Expedition In 1974, a team of anthropologists and filmmakers
from National Geographic visited the island to film a documentary entitled “Man in Search
of Man”. They were bearing gifts and planned to establish friendly contact over the course
of several days. As the motorboat broke through the reefs, the Sentinelese shot arrows at
it. The crew managed to reach the beach and left gifts that included, among others, aluminum
cookware, a plastic doll and a live pig. Another barrage of arrows then followed, one of which
struck the documentary’s director in the thigh. The Sentinelese man responsible for
the hit could be heard laughing proudly as he retreated behind a tree. Others speared
the doll and the pig and buried them in the sand. The expedition yielded the first photograph
of the Sentinelese, who was presented in the National Geographic magazine as a people for
whom “arrows speak louder than words”. Anthropologist T. N. Pandit was a member of
the documentary expedition and he’d earned a reputation as an expert advisor during the
1970s and 1980s. He was the first professional anthropologist to visit the island, in 1967,
and had been assisting various parties who were hoping to establish friendly contact.
Pandit noted that the Sentinelese accepted the many gifts brought to them but also mentioned
violent encounters. Sometimes they’d rush to take the gifts only to then suddenly fire
arrows at contact parties. Pandit noted that they’d sometimes wave but at other times
make obscene gestures such as assuming defecating postures or swaying their penises. Yet, Pandit’s
gift-giving expeditions paved the way for a rather successful interaction.
Number 2: Peaceful Contact, 1991 The anthropological expedition of 1991 is,
to date, the most peaceful encounter between the Sentinelese and outsiders. Madhumala Chattopadhyay,
an anthropologist with the team, is often referred to as the first woman to have made
contact with the trine. On January the 4th, the Sentinelese, for the first time, approached
visitors unarmed. They accepted the coconuts they’d been offered and got close to the
dinghies as the exchanges were carried out hand-to-hand. One anthropologist noted the
milestone that having been touched by the Sentinelese represented. Pandit and Madhumala
returned on February the 24th, and the peaceful interaction continued. A series of contact
expeditions continued until 1994 and beyond but saw no significant progress in learning
more about the isolated Sentinelese. The tribe wouldn’t allow visitors to get close to
them and most often, gifts were left on the beach without any islanders making their presence
known. Number 1: Further Contact
The Sentinelese are among the world’s last uncontacted tribes. The population has been
designated a Scheduled Tribe and a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group. Most experts advise
against any further contact attempts, for the visitors’ protection but mainly for
that of the tribe itself. The immune systems of the Sentinelese are unprepared for the
diseases that modern humans can bring to their island. It’s been argued that there’s
currently no way of integrating them into the modern world without the threat of wiping
out the entire population. The argument seems to be reflected and reinforced by what has
happened to the other Andamanese tribes after they opened themselves to outsiders. Through
past and recent interactions, the Sentinelese people have made it violently clear that they
have no interest of sharing their island, interacting with outsiders, or being part
of another society except their own. Thanks for watching! Would you rather attempt
to establish contact with the Sentinelese or live in North Korea for a year? Let us
know in the comments section below!