The world’s most isolated tribe that’s completely cut off from the rest of the world | World | News
Hidden away in the Bay of Bengal, in the Indian Ocean, lies a small island that has been deemed so dangerous that the Indian government has prohibited visits. North Sentinel Island belongs to the Andaman Islands and is home to the world’s last and most isolated Stone Age tribe. However, no one who has landed on the island has ever left alive.
The Sentinelese are an indigenous tribe that lives in voluntary isolation and will not stop defending, often by force, its isolation from the outside world. They belong to the broader class of Andamanese peoples. The tribe has had minimal contact with outsiders and has usually been hostile to those who approach or land on the island. In 1956, the government of India declared North Sentinel Island a tribal reserve and prohibited travel within three nautical miles of it. Photography is prohibited, though some have managed to get close enough to take pictures. Due to a lack of knowledge of the group, there is significant uncertainty about its size, with estimates ranging between 35 and 500 individuals.
Describing the tribe in his travel journals, the 13th century explorer Marco Polo wrote: “They are a most violent and cruel generation who seem to eat everybody they catch”.
In her analysis of interactions and contacts with the Andaman Islanders, Zarine Cooper, a specialist who has verified the indigenous peoples’ existence on the islands for the past two millennia, revealed that they have only ever received visits from researchers and slave raiders.
During a 2014 circumnavigation of their island, researchers estimated the tribe’s height between 5 ft 3 and 5 ft 5, with well-aligned teeth. They showed no signs of obesity and had very prominent muscles.
In November 2018, it was reported that an American man, 26-year-old John Allen Chau, was killed by the Sentinelese. He travelled there on a mission to spread Christianity. He did not seek the necessary permits to visit the island. He made several visits to the island before the local fishermen he paid to take him saw the islanders dragging his body before spotting it lying on the shore the next day.
The crew of the MV Primose made a lucky escape from the island in August 1981. While carrying chicken feed from Bangladesh to Australia, the ship ran aground in rough seas just off the island. After a few days, the captain dispatched a distress call asking for a drop of firearms and reported boats being prepared by more than 50 armed islanders intending to board the ship. Strong waves prevented the Sentinelese canoes from reaching the ship and deflected their arrows. The crew had to keep a 24-hour guard with axes, pipes and flare guns. Nearly a week later, the crew were evacuated by helicopter.
The most recent contact took place in March this year, when a US citizen and social media influencer Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, 24, made an unauthorised landing on the island. He was subsequently arrested by the Indian Police Service. Indigenous rights organisation Survival International condemned his actions as “deeply disturbing”, noting that uncontacted peoples like the Sentinelese are vulnerable to being wiped out by contact-induced diseases to which they have no immunity. The YouTuber was reported to have left Diet Coke and a coconut as “offerings” to the people of the island.
The Sentinelese are hunter-gatherers, using spears with bows and arrows to hunt wildlife and more rudimentary methods to catch seafood, like mud crabs. They are believed to eat many molluscs and are not known to engage in agriculture.
Men tuck daggers in their waist belts and wear some ornaments, such as necklaces and headbands, but they are essentially nude. They tend to live in small temporary huts erected on four poles with slanted leaf-covered roofs.
