North Sentinel Island & The Sentinelese

North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. The island falls within India's borders.

It is home to a tribe of indigenous people, the Sentinelese. However, "Sentinelese" is just a name given to the people based on the name that civilization has given to the island, because no one has ever spoken to the tribe or been able to understand their language from afar. It is a virtual certainty that the tribe refers to themselves and the island by completely different and unknown names.

Their present numbers are estimated to be anywhere between 50 and 400 individuals. They agressively and vigorously reject any contact with other people, and are among the last peoples on Earth to remain virtually untouched by modern civilization. No known people on Earth remain more genuinely isolated than the Sentinelese.

The island has been under constant observation from afar since the early 1900's, and no one has ever left or gone to this island without fleeing immediately afterward or being slaughtered by the Sentinelese upon arrival.

The first recorded contact with the Sentinelese was the mid-1800's, when an Indian shipwreck was forced to land ashore. To anyone's knowledge, no one had ever been there before that. To mark the occasion, the Sentinelese shot a shitstorm of arrows at the crew without speaking a word or announcing their presence. The Shipwreck survivors wisely got the hell off. They then told everyone who would listen about the experience.

The next contact came in the early 1900's. An escaped convict landed on the island in his haste to flee the Indian authorities that we're chasing him. The Sentinelese did not shoot arrows at HIM, because they we're too busy slitting his throat. The authorities made no attempt to recover his body.

The island then remained untouched for about 60 years until 1964, when someone tried again. A bunch of anthropologists decided they would "win the natives' friendship by friendly gestures and plenty of gifts. So they landed on the beach just out of arrowin' range, and left behind a pig and some toys. They then cheesed it off the island and back onto their boat. They were delighted when the natives approached and accepted the gifts. They were less delighted when the natives STILL fired yet another shitstorm of arrows at their boat, hitting one member of their party in the leg.

What did they do with the gifts? Pigs we're indiginous to the island, and it was known through faraway observation that the Sentinelese ate them all the time. However, rather than doing the same with the gifted one, they SHOT THE PIG AND BURIED IT. They also buried a doll that was among the toys. However, RED buckets were taken with apparent delight, while GREEN ONES WE'RE REJECTED.

10 years later, in 1970, a group of explorers approached the island but again stayed out of range. They did manage to send a care package of fish inland - which we're taken with delight but the Sentinelese continued shouting at the boat and presented their weapons, mock aiming at the contact party and gesturing them to go the fuck away.

When the boat didn't move, women came out of the forest AND HAD A GIANT ORGY WITH ALL THE WARRIORS ON THE BEACH - all in front of the boat. Shit got awkward, so the boat left.

Very few people ever went back after that - but one group actually managed to land, AND be the first ones ever recorded to get inland. They found a native village - but it was completely deserted. They heard noises in the bushes and wisely hightailed it back to their boat before the clock struck arrowing time.

After this, the Indian government made it illegal for anybody to visit North Sentinel Island.

However, 2 days after the tsunami COMPLETELY ENGULFED the island in 2004, they sent helicopters, believing that there was no way the Sentinelese could have survived. But at least 5 people came out and shot arrows vigourously at the helicopter until it was forced to leave. They tried to bring down the helicopter with ARROWS, 2 days after the fucking TSUNAMI hit their island.

The very last recorded contact came in 2006, when Sentinelese archers killed two fishermen who were fishing illegally within range of the island. When a helicopter went to retrieve the fisherman's bodies, the Sentinelese drove it off with - you guessed it - a hail of arrows. To this date, their bodies remain unrecovered, however the downdraught from the helicopter's rotors at the time exposed the two fishermen, who had been buried in shallow graves by the Sentinelese.

Because there has never been any treaty with the people of the island, nor any record of a physical occupation whereby the people of the island have conceded sovereignty, the island exists in a curious state of limbo under established international law and can be seen as a sovereign entity under Indian protection.

They are defacto free to do whatever the fuck they please.

These guys... are hardcore.


It bears mentioning that while there is a lot of information out there on these people, so what I've posted is the OFFICIAL recorded history of the island. In my words, of course.

There IS a video on YouTube of these people making SOMEWHAT friendly contact with some visitors on a boat - they toss them some coconuts and accidentally manage to lob one into a Sentinelese woman's back, causing her to fall. No mention of when the video was taken or who it was that went to the island. They still don't allow the boat on the island though, the only difference is that they didn't try to slaughter the visitors this time - at least not on tape.

It may not even be the same island, who knows. Even the most obscure attempt at contact with the island is mentioned in the official record, so it just seems odd that this one isn't. Just thought that it bears mentioning before someone YouTube's them and calls me a liar:
Click here to go to the video.

As well, here is a National Geographic snipet on the Sentinelese.
It goes without saying that we should leave these people alone. And not just because any diseases that we carry that we've built up an immunity to over time could wipe them out within a week. There are so few indigenous peoples of the world left. Let them live in their own world. Just let them be.

B.@.D