Who Are the Andamanese?
The **Andamanese** are the indigenous inhabitants of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, belonging to one of the world's oldest and most isolated human populations. Genetic studies suggest their ancestors migrated from Africa over **50,000 years ago**, making them among the earliest human groups to leave that continent. Historically divided into several groups—the **Great Andamanese**, **Onge**, **Jarawa**, and **Sentinelese**—they numbered perhaps 5,000 before British colonization. Today, fewer than **500** survive from groups that have contacted the outside world, while the Sentinelese remain uncontacted. The Andamanese represent an irreplaceable link to deep human history, their languages unrelated to any others on Earth, their genetic heritage uniquely ancient.
The Great Andamanese
The **Great Andamanese** originally comprised ten distinct tribes speaking related but mutually unintelligible languages, inhabiting the main Andaman islands. Before British colonization (1858), they numbered perhaps 3,500-5,000. Contact brought devastating epidemics—measles, syphilis, influenza—to which they had no immunity. British "pacification" campaigns killed many directly. By 1901, fewer than 625 remained; by 1969, just 19. Today, approximately **50 mixed-descent individuals** survive on Strait Island, a small reserve. The last fluent speakers of Great Andamanese languages died in the 2000s-2010s; linguists documented fragments before extinction. The Great Andamanese represent near-complete cultural extinction—ten languages, thousands of years of accumulated knowledge, traditions never recorded—vanished within 150 years of sustained contact.
Onge and Jarawa
The **Onge**, inhabiting Little Andaman Island, now number approximately **100 people**, confined to a reserve after their territory was opened to settlers. Once numbering perhaps 670 (1901), disease and displacement devastated their population. They maintain some traditional practices—hunting wild pigs, collecting honey, fishing—but their culture is severely compromised. The **Jarawa** of South and Middle Andaman resisted contact until 1998, fiercely defending their territory. Numbering 400-500 people today, they face threats from the Andaman Trunk Road that bisects their reserve, bringing "human safaris" where tourists gawk at Jarawa despite legal prohibitions. Introduced diseases have killed some; cultural integrity is threatened by contact. The Jarawa represent the fragility of isolation—once breached, it cannot be restored.
The Sentinelese: Uncontacted
The **Sentinelese** of North Sentinel Island remain one of Earth's last uncontacted peoples, fiercely resisting all approach with arrows and spears. Numbering perhaps 50-400 (estimates vary wildly), they have rejected every contact attempt. In 2018, American missionary John Allen Chau was killed attempting to reach them—an act widely condemned as endangering the Sentinelese through disease exposure. Indian law now prohibits approaching within 5 nautical miles. The Sentinelese survive as the last Andamanese group maintaining complete independence, their language unknown, their culture unrecorded. Their situation raises profound ethical questions: do they have the right to permanent isolation? Can that isolation be maintained as the modern world encroaches? The Sentinelese embody both humanity's deep past and the contested ethics of contact.
Lessons and Legacy
The Andamanese experience offers stark lessons about contact between isolated peoples and the modern world. Populations that survived for 50,000 years collapsed within decades of sustained contact. Languages spoken since the Paleolithic fell silent. Knowledge accumulated over millennia vanished without record. The surviving groups face ongoing threats from settlers, disease, and cultural erosion. Conservation efforts now protect territory, but cultural preservation is more difficult—young Onge adopt outside ways; Great Andamanese heritage exists only in archived recordings. The Andamanese remind us what is lost when unique human communities disappear: not just people but irreplaceable windows into human possibility, linguistic diversity, and deep history. Their fate challenges the ethics of contact itself and the responsibilities of those who have the power to destroy what they cannot replace.
References
- Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1922). The Andaman Islanders. Cambridge University Press.
- Pandya, V. (1993). Above the Forest: A Study of Andamanese Ethnoanemology, Cosmology, and the Power of Ritual. Oxford University Press.
- Abbi, A. (2012). Dictionary of the Great Andamanese Language. Ratna Sagar.
- Sen, S. (2017). Savaging the Civilized: Verrier Elwin, His Tribals, and India. Oxford University Press.