The Most Isolated Tribe On Earth Wants To Be Left Alone!
(photo credit: BBC Future)
In a world of rapid urbanization, we often assume there are no tribes left isolated without external contact on Earth.
It is almost impossible to accept that there are still humans on Earth who can live and survive without electricity, cars, internet and so many others! In fact they still live as primitives! There are some tribes around the Globe that haven't come in contact with the "civilized" world or didn't want to! One of those tribes live in North Sentinel Island, located in the Bay of Bengal, between Myanmar and Indonesia and it is home to an isolated tribe that has never been colonized or even made contact with. These people are one of the last Stone Age tribes on Earth whose culture has been completely untouched by modern civilization.
Contacts with the Sentinelese tribe.
On August 2, 1981, when the ship Primrose ran aground on the North Sentinel Island reef, the crew noticed men on the beach who were carrying arrows and spears. The captain tried to use radio communication to ask for help, but did not receive it. Fortunately, the crew was lucky enough to be kept away from the island by the troubled waters and rescued by helicopter a few days later.
“Survival International reported late last year that it had received reports that fishermen are targeting the area, with seven men being apprehended by the Indian Coast Guard.
One of the fishermen reportedly stepped foot on the island in close proximity to the tribe’s members, and he managed to leave unscathed.
Survival International, which advocates for tribal peoples’ rights, describes the Sentinelese as ‘the most vulnerable society on the planet’ as they are likely to have no immunity to common diseases such as flu and measles.
Due to their complete isolation, the chances of them being wiped out by an epidemic are very high, according to the organization.”
After the catastrophic Indian Ocean earthquake of 2004, the Indian government sent a helicopter to check on the Sentinelese tribe. It’s curious that the North Sentinel Island and its inhabitants were almost unaffected while some nearby islands suffered heavy damage.
When the helicopter hovered over a group of tribesmen, they were throwing stones and shooting arrows at it.
What else is known about the Sentinelese tribe
The Sentinelese are believed to have lived on the island for 60,000 years! After this unthinkable period of time in isolation, it’s no surprise that they are so hostile to outsiders, which may be due to past conflicts with the outside world. In order to protect the Tribe and prevent unnecessary violence, the Indian government has also made it illegal to approach it closer than three miles.
Due to the inability to study the tribe and the island, we don’t know much about them. It is estimated that the tribe counts between 50 and 400 members and lives exclusively by hunting and gathering. Though it is difficult to observe the island from the air because of the dense tree cover, it is established that the Sentinelese are not familiar with agriculture.
The Sentinelese are one of about 100 uncontacted tribes left in the world, most of which live clustered in remote West Papua and the Amazon rainforests of Brazil and Peru. But many of these other uncontacted tribes are not totally isolated, as cultural rights organization Survival International points out, over time, most people will learn something about their modern neighbors no matter what. However, many uncontacted tribes, either due to past atrocities visited upon them or a lack of interest in what they see of our modern world, choose to remain disengaged.
They’re not “pristine” or primitive peoples, but rather shifting and dynamic cultures that preserve unique languages, systems of knowledge, and skills. And because they are not completely separated, they’re often subject to those who wish to contact them, either to attempt to evangelize and modernize them, or even eradicate them to clear land for development. As such, the Sentinelese are unique even among uncontacted tribes in their isolation from other cultures and external threats.
Recently one more tribe was found in the Amazon and the most shocking is that the biggest threat to these people is their contact with the "civilized" people because their bodies are too pristine to come in contact with us!
If you read about the explorers such as Cook and Columbus you will learn that the diseases that the crew members carried devastated the native people who came in contact with them in North and South America, the South Seas, Asia. Humans build natural immunity to diseases that are common in their area through regular exposure. For these isolated people even a common cold virus brought by an outsider could wipe them out.
And that is why they should be left alone to carry on like they have for the last thousands of years as their only danger will be intruders...
Sources: The Mind Unleashed, Daily Mail, Good
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