Andamanese

The Andamanese is a collective term to describe the peoples who are the aboriginal inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal. The term includes the Great Andamanese, Jarawa, Onge, Sentinelese and the extinct Jangil. Anthropologically they are usually classified as Negritos, represented also by the Semang of Malaysia and the Aeta of the Philippines. They are thought to have arrived from Africa and to have lived on the Andaman Islands for up to 60,000 years. With very little contact with external societies or each other for nearly all this period the tribes have mutually unintelligible languages. This comparatively long-lasting isolation and separation from external influences is unequalled, except perhaps by the aboriginal inhabitants of Tasmania.

However, this changed in the mid-1800s after the British established penal colonies. Increasing numbers of Indian and Karen settlers arrived, encroaching on former territories of the Andamanese. This proved disastrous for many of the tribes - with no resistance to common diseases, they quickly succumbed to epidemics of pneumonia, measles and influenza. At the time of first contact with the British there were an estimated 5,000 Great Andamanese; today only 41 remain.

Today only the Sentinelese, who live exclusively on North Sentinel Island, have been able to completely maintain their independent state, resisting attempts to contact them. The Jarawa have also managed to remain substantially apart from the later colonisers and settlers; other Andamanese groups have had more extensive contacts, resulting in drastic reductions in territory and numbers, with several peoples becoming extinct altogether. Until the 19th century, their habit of killing all shipwrecked foreigners and the remoteness of their islands prevented modification of their culture or language. Cultivation was unknown to them, and they lived off hunting indigenous pigs, fishing, and gathering. Their only weapons were the bow, adzes and wooden harpoons. Besides the aboriginal people of Tasmania, the Andamanese were the only people who in the 19th century knew no method of making fire, carefully preserving embers in hollowed-out trees from fires caused by lightning strikes.

ee also

*Andamanese languages
*Uncontacted peoples

External links

* [http://www.andaman.org The Andamanese by George Weber]
* [http://awa.survival-international.org/news/tribes//jarawa News by Survival International]
* [http://awa.survival-international.org/news/video/jarawa Videos by] Survival International