North Sentinel Island
Encyclopedia
Andaman Islands
The Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...
in the Bay of Bengal
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...
. It lies to the west of the southern part of South Andaman Island
South Andaman Island
South Andaman Island is the southernmost island of the Great Andaman and is home to the majority of the population of the Andaman Islands. Port Blair, the capital of the islands, is located on the southern part of this island. Some areas of the island are restricted areas for non-Indians; however,...
, and has an area of 72 km². Most of the island is forested. Because it is small, located away from the main settlements on Great Andaman
Great Andaman
Great Andaman is the main archipelago of the Andaman Islands of India. It comprises five major islands. From north to south, these are North Andaman, Middle Andaman, South Andaman, Baratang and Rutland Island...
, surrounded by coral reef
Coral reef
Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
s, and lacks natural harbors, it was never settled by Europeans.
A group of indigenous people
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
, the Sentinelese, live on North Sentinel Island. They speak the Sentinelese language
Sentinelese language
Sentinelese is the unknown language of the Sentinelese people of North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Islands, India. It is presumably a distinct Andamanese language, but how closely it may be related to other languages of those families is unknown...
and their present numbers are estimated to be anywhere between 50 and 400 individuals. They reject any contact with other people, and are among the last people to remain virtually untouched by modern civilization.
History
The earliest known mention of the Sentinelese was made by the British surveyor John Ritchie in 1771. An expedition led by Maurice Vidal Portman, a government administrator who hoped to research the natives and their customs, accomplished the first known successful landing on North Sentinel Island in 1880. The group found a network of pathways and several small, abandoned villages. After several days, six Sentinelese were captured and taken to Port BlairPort Blair
Port Blair is the largest town and a municipal council in Andaman district in the Andaman Islands and the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a union territory of India...
. They soon became sick, however, and two of them died. The other four were returned to the island.
The second recorded landing was made on August 27, 1883 after the eruption of Krakatoa
Krakatoa
Krakatoa is a volcanic island made of a'a lava in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. The name is used for the island group, the main island , and the volcano as a whole. The island exploded in 1883, killing approximately 40,000 people, although some estimates...
was mistaken for gunfire and interpreted as the distress signal of a ship. A search party landed on the island and left gifts before returning to Port Blair.
Indian exploratory parties under orders to establish friendly relations with the Sentinelese made brief landings on the island every few years between 1967 and 1997. In 1975, Leopold III of Belgium
Leopold III of Belgium
Leopold III reigned as King of the Belgians from 1934 until 1951, when he abdicated in favour of the Heir Apparent,...
, on a tour of the Andamans, was brought by local dignitaries for an overnight cruise to the waters off North Sentinel Island. In the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
and early 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
many Sentinelese were killed in skirmishes with armed salvage operators who visited the island after a shipwreck.
Parts of the island were tilted by the December 2004 earthquake
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
, sinking some of the surrounding coral reefs and raising others. The survival of the Sentinelese was confirmed when, three days after the event, an Indian government helicopter observed several of them, who shot arrows and threw stones at the hovering aircraft with the apparent intent of repelling it. The coastline of the island has changed completely, and although the fishing grounds of the Sentinelese were disturbed, they appear to have adapted to the island's current conditions.
The government of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands has recently stated that they have no intention to interfere with the lifestyle or habitat of the Sentinelese and are not interested in pursuing any further contact with them.
Political status
Officially, the island has been administered by IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
as part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory since 1947. However, because there has never been any treaty with the people of the island, nor any record of a physical occupation whereby the people of the island have conceded sovereignty, the island exists in a curious state of limbo under established international law and can be seen as a sovereign entity under Indian protection. It is, therefore, one of the de facto autonomous regions of India.
External links
- "Lonely islands: The Andamanese", comprehensive online documentation by George Weber
- "The Last Island of the Savages", in-depth article by Adam Goodheart
- Brief factsheet about the indigenous people of the Andaman Islands, by the Andaman & Nicobar Administration (archived 10 April 2009)
- "The Andaman Tribes - Victims of Development"
- Administration in India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands has finally decided upon a policy of minimal interference
- video clips from Survival InternationalSurvival InternationalSurvival International is a human rights organisation formed in 1969 that campaigns for the rights of indigenous tribal peoples and uncontacted peoples, seeking to help them to determine their own future. Their campaigns generally focus on tribal peoples' fight to keep their ancestral lands,...