North Sentinel Island
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It has been suggested that Indian Ocean Island be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since November 2015. |
2009 NASA image of North Sentinel Island; the island's protective fringe of coral reefs can be seen clearly.
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| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 11°33′N 92°14′E / 11.550°N 92.233°ECoordinates: 11°33′N 92°14′E / 11.550°N 92.233°E[1] |
| Archipelago | Andaman Islands[2] |
| Area | 72 km2 (28 sq mi)[2] |
| Highest elevation | 122 m (400 ft)[1] |
| Country | |
| Union Territory | Andaman and Nicobar Islands |
| Demographics | |
| Population | 250 to 300[3] (as of 2005) |
| Ethnic groups | Sentinelese[2] |
North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. It lies to the west of the southern part of South Andaman Island.[2] Most of the island is forested.[4] It is small, located away from the main settlements on Great Andaman, surrounded by coral reefs, and lacks natural harbours.
A group of indigenous people, the Sentinelese, live on North Sentinel Island. Their population is estimated to be between 50 and 400 individuals.[2] The Sentinelese reject any contact with other people, and are among the last people to remain virtually untouched by modern civilization.[5] The population faces the potential threats of infectious diseases to which they have no immunity, as well as violence from intruders. The Indian government has thus declared the entire Island, which is approximately the size of Manhattan, and its surrounding waters extending three miles from the island, to be an exclusion zone.[6]
Contents
History[edit]
Early history[edit]
The Onge were aware of North Sentinel Island's existence and their traditional name for it is Chia daaKwokweyeh.[2][7] They also have strong cultural similarities with what little has been remotely observed amongst the Sentinelese.[7] However, Onge who were brought there by the British during the 19th century could not understand the language, so a significant period of separation is likely.[2][7]
British exploration[edit]
The earliest recorded mention of North Sentinel Island was made in 1771 by the British surveyor John Ritchie, who observed "a multitude of lights" from an East India Company hydrographic survey vessel, the Diligent, as it passed by the island.[2][5][7] Homfray, an administrator, travelled to the island in March 1867.[8] Toward the end of the same year's summer monsoon season, the Nineveh, an Indian merchant ship, was wrecked on a reef near the island. The 106 surviving passengers and crewmen landed on the beach in the ship's boat and fended off attacks by the Sentinelese. They were eventually found by a Royal Navy rescue party.[7]
An expedition led by Maurice Vidal Portman, a government administrator who hoped to research the natives and their customs, accomplished a successful landing on North Sentinel Island in January 1880. The group found a network of pathways and several small, abandoned villages. After several days, six Sentinelese (an elderly couple and four children) were captured and taken to Port Blair. The colonial officer in charge of the kidnapping wrote that the entire group, "sickened rapidly, and the old man and his wife died, so the four children were sent back to their home with quantities of presents".[2][5][8]
A second landing was made by Portman on 27 August 1883 after the eruption of Krakatoa 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.[2][8] Portman visited the island several more times between January 1885 and January 1887.[8]
Recent history[edit]
Indian exploratory parties under orders to establish friendly relations with the Sentinelese made brief landings on the island every few years beginning in 1967.[2] In 1975, Leopold III of Belgium, on a tour of the Andamans, was brought by local dignitaries for an overnight cruise to the waters off North Sentinel Island.[5] The cargo ships MV Rusley and MV Primrose ran aground on coastal reefs in mid-1977 and August 1981 respectively. The Sentinelese are known to have scavenged these wrecks for iron. Settlers from Port Blair also visited the sites to recover cargo. In 1991, salvage operators were authorized to dismantle the ships.[9]
On 2 August 1981, the ship Primrose grounded on the North Sentinel Island reef. A few days later, crewmen on the immobile vessel observed that small black men were carrying spears and arrows and building boats on the beach. The captain of the Primrose radioed for an urgent drop of firearms so the crew could defend themselves, but did not receive them. Heavy seas kept the islanders away from the ship. After a week, the crew were rescued by a helicopter working under contract to the Indian Oil And Natural Gas Commission (ONGC).
The first peaceful contact with the Sentinelese was made by Trilokinath Pandit, a director of the Anthropological Survey of India, and his colleagues on 4 January 1991.[10][11] Indian visits to the island ceased in 1997.[2]
The Sentinelese survived the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and its after-effects, including the tsunami and the uplifting of the island. Three days after the event, an Indian government helicopter observed several of them, who shot arrows and threw stones at the hovering aircraft.[2][7][12] Although the tsunami disturbed the fishing grounds of the Sentinelese, they appear to have adapted.[13]
On 26 January 2006, two fishermen were killed by Sentinelese when their boat drifted near the island.[14]
Geography[edit]
Before the 2004 earthquake, North Sentinel Island had about 72 km2 (28 sq mi) and a roughly square outline.[2] All around the island, behind a narrow beach the ground rose abruptly by 20 m (66 ft), and then gradually to between 46 m (150 ft)[15] or 122 m (400 ft)[1] near the centre. Reefs extended around the island to between 800 and 1,290 metres (0.5–0.8 mi) from the shore.[1] A forested islet, Constance Island, also "Constance Islet",[1] was located about 600 metres (2,000 ft) off the southeast coastline, at the edge of the reef.
The 2004 earthquake tilted the tectonic plate under the island, lifting it by 1 to 2 metres (3 to 7 ft). Large tracts of the surrounding coral reefs were exposed and became permanently dry land or shallow lagoons, extending all the island's boundaries – by as much as 1 kilometre (3,300 ft) on the west and south sides – and uniting Constance Island with the main island.[13][16]
Apart from the narrow original beach and the uplifted reefs, the island is densely covered by forest.[2]
Political status[edit]
Since 1947, India has administered the island as part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory.[17] 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.
The Andaman and Nicobar Administration has stated in 2005 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.[3]
| Census | Population estimate[18] |
|---|---|
| 1901 | 117 |
| 1911 | 117 |
| 1921 | 117 |
| 1931 | 70 |
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (2014) p. 266.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o George Weber. "The Andamanese: Chapter 8: The Tribes". pp. part 6. The Sentineli. Archived from the original on 20 May 2013.
- ^ a b Subir Bhaumik. "Extinction threat for Andaman natives" 5 March 2005.
- ^ Weber, George. "The Andamanese: Chapter 2: They Call it Home". Archived from the original on 2 April 2013.
- ^ a b c d Adam Goodheart (2000). "The Last Island of the Savages". American Scholar. Autumn 2000.
- ^ "The Island Tribe Hostile To Outsiders Face Survival Threat". Retrieved 2015-07-24.
- ^ a b c d e f Pandya (2009) p. 362-363.
- ^ a b c d Ratha; Pfeffer; Behera (1997) p. 288.
- ^ Pandya (2009) p. 342.
- ^ Ratha; Pfeffer; Behera (1997) p. 289.
- ^ McGirk, Tim (10 January 1993). "Islanders running out of isolation: Tim McGirk in the Andaman Islands reports on the fate of the Sentinelese". The Independent (London).
- ^ Buncombe, Andrew (6 February 2010). "With one last breath, a people and language are gone". The New Zealand Herald. The Independent. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
- ^ a b Weber, George (2009). "The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami". Archived from the original on 16 June 2013.
- ^ Foster, Peter (8 February 2006). "Stone Age tribe kills fishermen who strayed on to island". The Telegraph (London).
- ^ Great Britain, Hydrographic Dept (1887) p. 257.
- ^ Pandya (2009) p. 347.
- ^ Weber, George. "The Andamanese: Chapter 1: Contact". Archived from the original on 2 April 2013.
- ^ Venkateswar (2004) p. 120.
Bibliography[edit]
- Sarkar, Jayanta (1997). "Befriending the Sentinelese of the Andamans: A Dilemma". In Pfeffer, Georg; Behera, Deepak Kumar. Development Issues, Transition and Change. Contemporary Society: Tribal Studies 2. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. pp. 287–294. ISBN 81-7022-642-2. LCCN 97905535. OCLC 37770121. OL 324654M.
- Venkateswar, Sita (2004). Erni, Christian; Stidsen, Sille, eds. Development and Ethnocide: Colonial Practices in the Andaman Islands. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. ISBN 87-91563-04-6. ISSN 0105-4503. LCCN 2005419099. OCLC 57255778. OL 5877534W.
- Pandya, Vishvajit (2009). In the Forest: Visual and Material Worlds of Andamanese History (1858–2006). Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-7618-4272-9. LCCN 2008943457. OCLC 371672686. OL 16952992W.
- "The Andaman Islands and the Nicobar Islands § 9.8 North Sentinel Island". India and the Bay of Bengal (PDF). Sailing Directions (Enroute). Pub. 173 (8th ed.). Springfield, Virginia: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. 2014. p. 266.
- "North Sentinel". The Bay of Bengal Pilot. Admiralty. London: Hydrographic Office. 1887. p. 257. OCLC 557988334.
External links[edit]
- The Sentinelese People History of the Sentinelese and of the island
- 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"
- video clip from Survival International
- "photographs of the 1981 Primrose rescue"
