However pleasant our team’s attempt at “friendly contact” with the Sentinelese may have been, they are a tribe extremely suspicious of outsiders. Madhumala Chattopadhyay with a Jarawa tribeswoman. The Sentinelese woman is more akin to her counterpart from the outside world in that she keeps her genitals covered though only with leaves. Fat deposition on the buttocks of Onge women is quite prominent, among Jarawa women it is less so, and among Sentinelese, such disposition is totally absent.

The body of the Sentinelese is also more muscular than the other two. The most easily noticed physical disparity is in height – the Sentinelese are taller than the Jarawa and the Onge. The differences are not just in physique and customs but also in the way each group reacts to visits from outsiders. Besides, the popular press has covered my interaction with the tribes several times.ĭuring my long years of studying the Andaman tribes, I have found remarkable contrasts between the Sentinelese, the Jarawas and the Onges. MC : I published several accounts – 20 research papers and a book ‘Tribes of Car Nicobar’ – on my time spent with the Jarawa and Sentinelese tribes. NI : What were the key anthropological findings of your work on the Andaman tribes? Subsequently, government contact expeditions were abandoned on the belief that these efforts could harm the Sentinelese. This time around the Sentinelese did not carry weapons with them and the meeting was more friendly and relaxed than the first one. The second contact happened on 21 February 1991 with cultural anthropologist Triloknath Pandit as an additional member.

I wrote a report on the contact for the ASI in January 1991. Our contact began in the morning and lasted more than seven and half hours with all our team members going back to the anchored ship around lunchtime to get more coconuts. I approached the Sentinelese and spoke to them in a Negrito language that is understood by the other Andaman tribe Onge, hoping they would understand our benign intentions. We floated gunny bags carrying coconuts towards them. The boat was within the arrow range of the Sentinelese, who were gathering on the shore to meet us. We anchored our ship at a distance and approached the island on a lifeboat. The 28-member Sentinelese group did carry weapons during the meeting but hurt no one. Awaradi, director of Tribal Welfare, and Dr Arun Mullick, both in the Andaman administration, and I went to meet them. MC : I was a research associate at the Anthropological Survey of India (ASI) when the first direct physical contact happened with the Sentinelese at Allen Point on North Sentinel Island on 4 January 1991. NI : How did you get on the contact expeditions to meet the Sentinelese? Bakhtawar Singh of the bush police force was the first person to establish friendly contact with the Jarawas in 1966 and remained the key person for further contact with them. In areas inhabited by Jarawa tribes, for instance, bush police were deployed with a buffer zone separating them from the rest of the population. The efforts intended to bring these tribes into the mainstream. These included leaving coconut-filled gunny bags in areas inhabited by different tribal groups. Distant contact efforts were made even after India’s Independence in 1947. MC : Since the British colonial days, efforts have been made to interact with the tribes. NI : What efforts have been made to interact with the tribes of Andaman and Nicobar islands? This is also another reason why these tribes in Andaman and Nicobar islands may require isolation. However, any contact with tribes for scientific studies should be non-exploitative and benign.Īndaman Negritos have similarities with negritos of Philippines and Malaysia and this is an important component that could be probed further. Madhumala Chattopadhyay: The importance lies in our desire to understand their genetic makeup, culture, social structure, taboos and dietary habits. Nature India: What is the scientific importance of studying isolated tribes, such as those in the Andaman and Nicobar islands? Following heated debate around the killing of an American traveler by the fiercely isolated Sentinelese tribe in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Shubhobroto Ghosh talks to physical anthropologist Madhumala Chattopadhyay on why the genepool of such aborigines need segregated protection.

Woman north sentinel island people