The Isolated Stone Age Tribe of North Sentinel Island

(Image source)

There is an isolated tribe still living in the Stone Age and they inhabit a tiny island in the Indian Ocean, and they want nothing to do with the modern world.

These Sentinelese, as the people of North Sentinel Island are called, are considered an "uncontacted tribe", meaning they have little to no contact with the outside world.

This tribe still practice hunting and gathering. They have never developed agriculture. They still live like all humans did in the Sone Age about 10,000 years ago. There has been minimal contact with the group that only a few photographs exist, beyond those taken far from the island's shore or from aircraft.

But unlike uncontacted tribes hidden away in the Amazon Rainforest, the Sentinelese were recorded in history. They have violently rejected contact with various nationalities that have attempted to contact them, from European explorers from Colonial times to the Indian authorities since the 1960s. Other than a few isolated trips by anthropologists, they have greeted explorers — and shipwreck survivors — with spears and arrows.

North Sentinel Island is Indian territory that is part of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean, between India and the Malay Peninsula.

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The natives of the Andaman islands had contact with the civilized world but the people of North Sentinel Island are a special case. Other than Europeans during colonial times visiting the larger Andaman islands, and occasional shipwreck survivors being stranded there, the island remained mostly untouched. In the 1960s, the Indian government tried to establish contact with the natives. but these trips accomplished little besides leaving gifts for the islanders.

Image source

In 1981, a Panamanian cargo ship got stranded on the island's reefs. The Sentinelese attacked the unarmed crew on the wreck with arrows. The crew waited a week to be rescued. The shipwreck still remains on the reef today.

Then in 1991, an Indian anthropologist managed a short, friendly contact with the inhabitants on a few trips to the island. But for the sake of protecting these people from outside disease, the Indian government stopped any further research trips.

Image by Indian Coast Guard

Since those trips, the natives have avoided contact. Following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, an Indian Coast Guard helicopter checking out the island was attacked with arrows. Amazingly, the natives seem to survive the strong tsunami, with a mysterious sense to go to safer ground before the tsunami hit.

In 2006, 2 unlucky Indian fishermen were killed when they got too close to the island. To this day, North Sentinel Island remains an exclusion zone declared by the Indian government, for the safety of both outsiders and inhabitants and in order to preserve the distinct culture of these lands.

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Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NorthSentinelIsland
http://northsentinelisland.com/

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