That is about the tribe in Andaman and Nicobar Islands which hasn't had contact with the outside world for at least thousand years. They are hostile to contact worse our contact might kill them as they aren't immune to disease we are.
The tribe is estimated to have inhabited the island for 60000 years.
Ps: Dont we love Wiki? Oh, thanks Sepia mutiny, some random genetic article link from your space led me to this entry:)
When I visited Andamans in 1998, we traveled in a bus through dense jungle in which the jarawa tribe lived. The news at that time was that a jarawa-ese had fallen sick, was taken to Port Blair and he had fallen for the nurse who took care of him.
ReplyDeleteThere were also couple of police guys in the bus, because a few jarawa's also carried arrows and attacked the buses. The bus would often turn off the ignition on down-slopes to avoid making noise.
As teenagers, back home in calcutta, my sister and I would pretend we were jarawa's and pretend shoot each-other. We created the "jarawa expression" which we still use sometimes :)
Amma also recalled stories of her dad's friend who was the PWD person incharge of laying roads through the jungles in the 1970s and his stories about the time when the jarawa could attack them.
Very interesting anecdote, Kaushik.
ReplyDeleteApparently that road - that you travelled is what is causing all the trouble, the jarawas has started entering the civilization before we blink, they might have assimilated or their tribe might become extinct. sad.