
First Friendly Contact with the Sentinelese - nekopa
http://www.probashionline.com/madhumala-chattopadhyay-first-friendly-contact-with-the-sentinelese-jarawa-andamans/
======
redsummer
Any significant contact would wipe the Sentinelese out. Even a common cold
infection would be the end of them. The anthropologists know this, but seem
willing to risk this for their own ego.

If we wanted to learn anything about the Sentinelese, then perhaps we could
use well-camouflaged camera traps, and other electronic eavesdropping devices.
The moral considerations are difficult - it's a privacy breach, but the
information would also be valuable not only to their descendants (should
contact be made), but also to science generally.

~~~
codezero
I don't think the moral considerations are that difficult.

Would you accept NSA surveillance if they said it was so that your descendants
could understand you, and "For Science"?

~~~
jerf
The question doesn't work because I'm leaving a footprint a mile wide already.
Anyone who uses Facebook in a serious way has already said "yes" to your
question.

It has often occurred to me that my own children could be reading through my
comments years from now. Probably not. There's a lot of them. Of course if
they can search, well, who knows.

~~~
codezero
Good point, however, Facebook doesn't really contain private moments/thoughts,
which is what a bunch of hidden cameras would capture. Facebook allows you to
write your story and omit details you choose. Also, younger people have
flocked to more ephemeral forms of communication (or so I've heard, I don't
claim to back that up with numbers).

All the same, I think you make a good point.

------
ChrisDutrow
> The tribes might be primitive in their technological achievements but
> socially they are far ahead of us”.

Based on my understanding of "reality", I would assume this would tend to be
the case. From what I understand, rapid technological advancement tends to
wreak havoc on social structures.

These people are wise to attack outsiders, especially given their early
contact with westerners in 1880. There are all kinds of ways outside contact
is likely to bring despair to their community.

It also sounds like they have a matriarchal society which is (of course
debatably) a more stable, more advanced social structure.

~~~
Jun8
Does she use "us" to refer to Indian society, or humanity in general (minus
other primitive tribes, presumably)? What parameters do you base "advancement"
in this case, e.g. is the Sentilenese socially "far ahead of" US society in
general? How about, say, Ethiopian or Navajo societies?

Once we start thinking about the diversity of human experience I think we can
see such statements as examples of the _Noble Savage_ sentiment
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage))

~~~
goda90
Perhaps too much emphasis is being put on technological and cultural
advancement when thinking about these things. It may be that a tight knit,
homogenous society has fewer problems in general and thrives as long as
outside influence doesn't overwhelm it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I think that maybe not enough emphasis is put on technological advancement.
Cultures tend to look pretty similar to each other on any given technological
level. There's a case to be made that it's technology that drives social
structure, not the other way around.

------
codezero
It appears this is about contact with a different people, the Jarawa, I don't
see anything indicating contact with the Sentinelese except the caption to the
photo, is there any documented evidence? It appears the author has incorrectly
labeled any tribe on the Andaman Islands as "Sentinelese."

~~~
skepicurean
It appears you didn't closely read the article because it documents two
separate events:

1\. The author's meeting with the Sentinelese.

2\. The author's meeting with the Jarawa.

You are correct that most of the photos are from the meeting with the Jarawa
and that much of the article describes the author's time with the Jarawa but
there _is_ a segment which explicitly describes the meeting with the
Sentinelese, separate from the Jarawa meetings.

~~~
codezero
I am saying that the author is using Sentinelese interchangeably with
Jarawa/Andaman incorrectly.

The only reference I can find for such contact is a blog post and a 1993 news
article that appears anecdotal. I'd like to see the journal article written
about this contact by the Anthropological Survey of India which funded the
contact with the Andaman Islanders, but I can't find a source, leading me to
believe it didn't happen as described.

~~~
x1798DE
According to Wikipedia, Sentinelese is apparently (based on other encounters)
,not mutually intelligible with Onge, which does seem to be an inconsistency
in the idea that she heard them asking for coconuts in Onge.

~~~
codezero
Wikipedia references the same anecdotal source material and not anything from
an authentic source.

~~~
codezero
I think I misplaced this comment, sorry!

------
takee
If this really was the first successful contact, I don't quite understand how
the language of these people is the same as/similar to other Andaman
island/Indian languages. Context: "Nariyali Jaba Jaba".

~~~
DougWebb
They obviously didn't evolve there independently from other humans. They and
the other tribes have common ancestry, and a common root language. I doubt
anyone knows about inter-tribal contact through those 60,000 years that could
have kept the languages from diverging too much.

~~~
x1798DE
According to the current Wikipedia article on the Sentinelese language [1], it
is not mutually intelligible with Onge. This is more like what I would have
expected from a strictly xenophobic and (presumably non-literate) tribe, but
it doesn't square with the account in the article...

[1].
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_language)

------
udkl
Somewhere I read a while ago: These people do not cross the ocean to get to
the mainland or to other far away islands on their boats.

Reason ? They haven't yet invented oars.

------
amelius
> First Friendly Contact

But this tribe might have friendliness and hostility reversed :)

------
ikeboy
Is it known how similar they are besides for culture, i.e. would an infant
from there raised among humans or an infant from us raised by them be able to
learn the culture? Has anything similar been tried with other isolated tribes?

~~~
jwise0
These people are humans.

~~~
ikeboy
The question is whether anything relevant has changed in 60,000 years of
separation.

Given that humans only evolved around then, it's reasonable to ask about
tribes that split off.

"modern humans evolved in Africa possibly from Homo heidelbergensis, Homo
rhodesiensis or Homo antecessor and migrated out of the continent some 50,000
to 100,000 years ago"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution)

I suppose this could be mostly answered with a DNA test, on further thought.

~~~
mcbits
That's an ambiguous/misleading "and" in that sentence. Modern humans date back
to around 200,000 years ago. And it's thought that there was a great migration
from Africa roughly 50,000 years ago. Presumably the Sentinelese ancestors
were part of that migration, since they are quite far from Africa. Though I
agree that it's worth asking how much the population has diverged after
50,000+ years.

~~~
ikeboy
Thanks for picking that up, I had misread it as saying both happened then.

------
devishard
_Sigh._ We'll see how many Sentinelese are alive after the plagues we've just
released on them.

~~~
T2_t2
1993.

