<< News >> Rare island tribes safe following tsunami
Submitted by Andy B on Wednesday, 29 December 2004 Page Views: 5489
Other ArchaeologyCountry: India Fears that the world’s oldest aborigines residing in the numerous Andeman and Nicobar islands may have been wiped out by the recent quake and the tsunami it generated were put to rest by the administration here, which claimed to have received information that they have survived the disaster.Inspector-general of police S.B. Deol said: “We have established contact with the tribes, including the exotic ones. They are safe as most inhabit the jungles in the higher ground and not close to the sea. There are people who are spreading rumours about the tribals. I appeal to you not to spread global panic.”
Special fact-finding teams have been despatched to find out the status of the tribals.
Among the few inhabited islands of the 550-island archipelago, there are five primitive tribal groups of Mongoloid and African origins. They are the Great Andamanese living in Strait Island, the Onges in reserves in Dugong Creek and South Bay in the Little Andamans, the Jarwas in the jungles of the South and Middle Andaman Islands, the Sentinelese in the North Sentinel island, and the Shompens in Great Nicobar.
Almost all these tribes survive by hunting with bows and arrows, by fishing in the sea and gathering roots and fruit. The numbers of these tribes range from 30 to a few hundred. But there is concern about the fate of the more numerous Nicobarese tribe which numbers about 50,000. “I am afraid it is the Nicobarese tribe which has been hit by the tsunami and many of them may have lost their lives,” Deol said.
Tribal directorate officials in Port Blair said the five small tribes “are a vital link to our prehistoric past. If they are lost, India and the world will lose a bit of their glorious heterogeneity”.
“Even a small loss in any of these groups, barring the more numerous Nicobarese, could seriously endanger their survival,” an official said.
Anthropologists are more concerned about the five small tribes. Sources in the Anthropological Survey of India said the Great Andamanese were down to just a population of 30. Others, like the Shompens, number between 200 and 250.
Source: Telegraph of India
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