The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island, that 99.99% don’t know

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The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island

In november 2018, john allen chau, a 26 years old american missionary, decided to go to india’s North Sentinel Island illegally. The natives of this island are believed to be a part of the North Sentinelese tribe and they might be the world’d last uncontacted tribe. It means that know nearly nothing about the rest of the world. John was a Christian and was so obsessed with his religion, that he wanted to teach Christianity to the people living on this island (The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island).

The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island (image credit pinterest)

He went to a nearly island and bribed a fisherman with 25,000 rupees and convinced the fisherman to drop him off at the island. They begin the journey on the night of 14th November 2018, hiding from the coast guards in the darkness (The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island). He was carrying his carrying his GoPro camera, some scissors, a kayak for the remaining journey, some dried fish, a football, and a Bible which he had hoped to give them as a gift.

On the morning of 15th November, as soon as they reach the island, he tells the local fisherman to wait at a distance and goes closer to the island alone on his kayak. He spots some houses and heard women talking, he prepared to park his kayak on the beach, when he spotted 2 Sentinelese men carrying bows and arrows approaching him.

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He greets them by saying,”My name is john, I love you, Jesus loves you”. The 2 men place their arrows in the bow, and get ready to shoot at him. Panicking, John turns around to leave. Some hours later, he tried again. He went to the north shore of the island this time. From afar he could see about 6 sentinelese people on the island looking in his direction, shouting, as if trying to say something (The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island).

Obviously, neither group could understand the language of the other. Friends, there’s no one on the planet who can understand the sentinelese language, other than the sentinelese people. Whatever syllables John could identify, he tried to repeat them and shouts towards them. The sentinelese people laugh at him then. John slowly kept on approaching them. Remaining at a safe distance, he starts dropping off the ‘gifts’ he had brought for them.

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There was a child and a young girl near them, carrying bows and arrows. John got off his kayak and tried to talk with the child. A sentinelese man then steals his kayak from behind him, while he tries to explain some verses of the Bible to the child. A few seconds later, the child took aim at John’s chest and shot an arrow (The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island).

The arrow hits the Bible by chance and john’s life was spared. Panicking once again, John tried to escape. But since he didnot have his kayak this time, he swims back to the boat somehow. At night, he wrote in his diary, “Lord, is this island Satan’s last stronghold?” “Is this island full of monsters where the natives haven’t even heard even heard Jesus’s name?” He continued writing in his diary, “i don’t want to die, I should go back. Lord , i don’t want to die.”

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But his obsession with the lord, had turned into madness. He tried to convince himself that he needed to retun to the island as it was the perpose of his life. 16 november 2018, he wrote a letter to his family, he tells his parents, ” you guys might think, I’m crazy, but I think it’s worth it to declare Jesus to these people, if I get killed, please, do not blame these people.”

After writing this, he set on once again to the North Sentinel Island on his boat. This time, he didn’t come back. The local fisherman who had driven him, watched the sentinelese burying a body from afar. Judging by the clothes, he gets to know that it was john Allen Chau’s body (The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island).

The NORTH SENTINEL ISLAND :

The Sentinelese were first contacted by the government in 1991. North Sentinel island is a part of the Andaman and Nicobar islands.There are 572 islands in total in the Andaman and Nicobar Archipelago, Only 38 of these are inhabited. Of course, only 12 are open to tourists. The islands have been divided into 3 districts. North and Middle Andaman, South Andaman, and Nicobar (The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island).

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The capital is Port Blair in South Andaman. North Sentinel island is only about 50 km from here. It is a small island of 60 square km and is covered by a dense forest. The people living there are called the north sentinelese. But that’s the name we gave them. We don’t know how the tribe refers to themselves. What’s the name they have for themselves?

It is believed that about 70,000 years ago, some people migrated out of Africa. This is known as the ‘Out of Africa’ theory. That the first modern human beings were from africa and the people living on sentinel island now, Are the direct descendant of the people who migrated out of africa.

These first group of humans went to Yemen from East Africa (Sentinelese tribe). From there, they walked to the indian subcontinent eventually reaching Myanmar, South-East Asia, East Asia and eventually spread across these islands and reached Australia as well.

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During these thousands of years, the humans who decided to live in the middle east, india, south-east Asia, etc mixed in with each other because they had similar terrain, it was easy to go from one place to another on land. But the humans who settled on the remote islands, couldn’t mix in with the other humans and remained isolated from the rest of the world.

It is said that the North Sentinelese tribe (Sentinelese tribe) about 10,000-30,000 years ago, came on the island, and since then, they have been isolated and cut off from the rest of the world. It slso means that they never learned agriculture. Agriculture was discovered about 12,000 years ago. You might say that while living on this island, they never felt the need for agriculture. They don’t even know that something like agriculture even exists.

But this means that this is the last Stone Age tribe. People who still live like they are in the Stone Age. They have a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They don’t grow their food. Instead, they pick fruits from the trees, hunt animals, and fish for food. They are the most isolated tribe in the world because they want to remain isolated. Everytime the outside world has tried to establish contact with them, there has been violence most of the time.

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If historically compare, the oldest written record of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with us is from the 2nd century AD. When a Roman mathematician, claudius Ptolemy described the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as the ‘Islands of Cannibals’. This description wasn’t limited to North Sentinel Island only. Rather it was for the entire Andaman and Nicobar Island.

So we don’t know which tribe was being referred here. After this, in 673 AD, a chinese traveller, travelling from Sumatra to india, said that the people living on the islands were cannibals. Meaning that they eat human meat. The Arab traveller who visited the Andaman Islands during the 8th and 9th centuries, said the same thing.

In the 11th century, a temple was built during Raja Raja Chola I’s reign, which contained inscriptions, claiming the same things that they consider these islands impure, and that they believe cannibals live there. If we talk specifically about North Sentinel Island, the first record of it was mentioned in 1771. When an East india Company ship passed by this island and the surveyor spotted light on this island. The next account of it was in 1867, When an indian merchant ship with around 100 passengers, met with an accident on the shore of this island. The survivors of the accident were attacked by the sentinelese.

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Fortunately, they could escape with the help of the British Royal Navy. This was the first case of the North Sentinelese people attacking and driving out outsiders from their island. Then in 1880, a British office, Maurice Vidal Portman, decided to meet with the sentinelese people to establish contact and try to ‘civilise’ them.

By this time, the Britishers had established contact with the other tribes in Andaman. They had been friendly contact, and they could communicate with them as well. When portman went to the North Sentinel island, he brought with him people from the other Andamanese tribes.So that North Sentinelese could communicate with the other tribesmen. Once there, he found that the tribesmen of the other tribes in Andaman, spoke in a language so different from the north sentinelese language, that they couldn’t communicate with each other. It was impossible to communicate.

On his journey, portman met an old couple on the North Sentinel Island, and four children. He decided to kidnap them and to take them back with him to port Blair. He discovered that North Sentinelese people were cut off from the rest of the world for so long that after reaching Port Blair, the old couple passed away within a few days. Portman felt bad for the kids after this and so he returned the children to the island.

Handling them some gifts. It is very likely that the children took back germs and backterium which were completely foreign to the island. It would’ve infected more people and there killing many, which is possible.

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The diseases that we see in modern times, our bodies have developed immunity against them because year on year our ancestors were exposed to there diseases and had developed immunity against them. But the people living on the North Sentinel Island (Sentinelese tribe) had been cut off from the entire world. Cut off from all the new diseases. So their bodies had not developed immunity. This Portman incident is believed to have been a major reason why the North Sentinelese people are violent towards outsiders.

In 1967, Triloknath Pandit became the first official anthropologist to visit this island. He had taken a team of 20 members including scientists, members of the Armed Forces, unarmed navy personnel, and the governor. On this island, their team followed the footprints of the Sentinelese, for about 1 km.

So the team returned leaving behind some gifts for them. Such as coconuts, pots, pans, and other iron tools. In 1970, an official research team went to this island, and set up a stone tablet declaring that the North Sentinel Island is a part of the indian Territory. In 1974, an indian flim crew went to this island, who made a documentary on the tribes of Andaman and Nocobar Islands. Triloknath Pandit was there with the film crew as well as some armed forces. Once again, as gifts, they left behind some coconuts.

They had even taken a live pig, to present as a gift. They left these things on the shore and moved back to see how the locals would react to them. After some time, some tribal people came out to the shore and started attacking them with bows and arrows. One of the arrows hit the director of the film. One of the arrows hit the director of the film, prem Vaidya, on his thigh. They even attacked the pig that was left behind as a gift to them.

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Killed the pig and buried it in the sand. Friends, this was the first time the North Sentinelese people were captured on camera. After this, Triloknath Pandit made several attempts over the course of the 1970s, 80s and 90s.But it was the same story every time. He would go to the island with small teams, would leave behind pigs and gifts, the tribe would kill the pigs each time and bury it in the sand. Once they gave them a doll as a gift. They shot an arrow as it too and buried it in the sand.

In 1981, a merchant ship Primrose, going from Bangladesh to Australia, Met with a strom and got stranded on this island. Once again, the people of the Sentinelese tribe came to attack these passengers but because of the weather conditions, their arrows could not hit them thankfully. They sent out distressed calls, and somehow managed to survive near the ship. One week later, they were rescued by a helicopter.
But this is a major incident in the history of the North Sentinelese people.

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Because it was the time when this tribe had seen iron for the first time in their lives. They discovered iron then. Because friends, after this, whenever contact was established with the North Sentinelese people, it was found that these people had started using iron in their bows and arrows. The iron they had scavenged from this ship. They had managed to use the iron. This shipwreck can be seen on Google Maps.
The next big historical event took place in 1991.

This was the first time when the North Sentinelese people made the first friendly contact. It was the first time when someone had gone to visit them, and they weren’t violent. In january, an expedition was led by indian anthropologist, Madhumala Chattopadhyay. She went with her small team without any weapons offered coconuts, and this time, the Sentinelese people actually took the coconuts.

Was it because it was different because, a woman had gone to meet them, while all expeditions before it were by men? There was something quite shocking in this friendly contact. This team had returned and when they went to meet them again the next day, a sentinelese man had his bow and arrow aimed at them. He would have shot at them any moment.But a Sentinelese woman came forward and pushed down the arrow, gesturing that he shouldn’t shoot the outsiders. The man listened to the woman and buried his weapon under the sand. This way the members of the expedition could go on the land for the first time.

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This way the members of the expedition could go on the land for the first time. And could give the coconuts to the setinelese people with their own hands. There was another expedition about a month later. Triloknath Pandit and Madhumala went on it together, and once again, the sentinelese people didnot use any weapons. They got off their boats and the sentinelese people collected the coconuts in a friendly way. But it was the last time when the sentinelese people were so friendly towards the rest of the world.

The expeditions after 1991, every effort to contact the Sentinelese people, saw only violence. We don’t know why it happened.
Why during the small time period, the sentinelese people become so friendly and later turned violent once again (The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island).

As the result, after 1997, the indian government banned people from going to the island. The government realised that there is no point in trying to communicate with them again and again, when they do want any communication. They are living peacefully on the island and they should be allowed to do so. The government had an Eyes-on, Hands-off policy towards them. In a way, we will monitor the tribe and will help them, if they need, but will maintain a safe distance from tribe .

In 2004, there was a devastating Tsunami in the indian ocean. The officials of the indian coast guard, went to monitor the situation on the island from a helicopter to ensure that the island was not damaged and the people living there were safe. In return, the helicopter was showered with arrows and officials in the officials in the helicopter realised that since they were being attacked, the sentinelese people must be alright. Because of the tsunami, this island was lifted up by 1.5 meters.

In 2006, there was an unfortunate incident two local fishermen got quite close to the island by mistake and the sentinelese people started attacking them and eventually they were killed. After this the government decided that that there needs to be a 5 km radius, so that no one gets even as close as 5 km from this island.

According to the diary, written by john about his experiences, their height is no more than 5’3 to 5’5. They have short hair and shining dark skin, well defined muscles. According to john diary, some of the people had yellow paste on their faces. They didn’t wear clothes, but wear some fiber string on their head, neck and loins. Women wear thinner fibre strings and men wear thicker bands (The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island).

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Surprisingly, they are not very curious about their surroundings. Normally, humans have this quality, generally people vwants to explore new places. But for that case, the nearest island to the north sentinel island is merely 36 km from it. Even so, the sentinelese people never tried to go to the island or to explore places outside their island. In terms of food, we know that they cannot farm. They survive by hunting for animals, such as wild boars.

Language is one of the most interesting things about the north sentinelese people. Because they cannot communicate with any outsiders. Regarding the language, john wrote in his diary that their language contains a lot of high- pitched sounds, such as ba, pa, or sa (The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island).

According to John’s diary, there are about 250 Sentinelese on the island. While the estimates of the Indian Government ranges from 50 to 500. Because no one has been able to count the exact number of people living there. So that’s the estimate. We know this about their behaviour that they donot take dead bodies back into the jungle, they don’t cremate the dead, they bury the dead on the beach, under the sand (The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island).

As for the accounts of the ancient historians, the oldest written records, that the people living there are cannibals, eating humans, it is not true. We also know that if the people coming to visit them are n small groups , they would attack them, but if the visiting party is large, as was with Triloknath, they hide in te forest instead of attacking them.

Many expeditions have spotted pregnant women and children which tells us that the population on the island can sustain itself. And perhaps the most important thing that we get to know about them, is that the North Sentinelese people can live sustainably. They live on one small island without cutting the forests, living harmoniously with nature, without any overpopulation (The reality of mystery of last stone age tribe of north sentinel island).

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