Shownotes Transcript
There's a small chain of hundreds of islands east of India called the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It's thought there's over 800 islands, of which only 38 have people living on them. Some of these islands are home to groups of the world's most isolated people. One of them is North Sentinel Island. And whoever you are, from around the world, you aren't welcome there. The indigenous Sentinelese people want nothing to do with the outside world. The message is clear: stay away.
But recently, Mikhailo Viktorovich Polyakov, a 24-year-old American tourist, allegedly took a boat there, left a can of Coke and a coconut as an offering, and filmed the whole thing. He's since been arrested by Indian authorities and received widespread criticism for his attempt to make contact. He's the second person in the last decade to try and get in contact with the North Sentinelese, despite laws against it and the fact that previous visitors have been killed.
So why do people keep trying to visit North Sentinel Island? That's what we're asking on today's episode. We're also finding out more about the island itself and the people who live there. I'm Mimi Swaby and this is What In The World from the BBC World Service.
Let's hear more about this now with the BBC's global population correspondent, Stephanie Hegarty. Hi, Stephanie. Hi, Mimi. So firstly, can you tell us a little bit more about North Sentinel Island and what do we know about the people who live there? So this is an island, a string of islands in the Indian Ocean. It's part of India. And it's a very, very small island.
And it is home to the Sentinelese people, as they've been called, what they call themselves. Nobody knows because this is a tribe that has refused contact with the outside world. It's thought...
from anthropologists that have been studying these people that they were once in contact with the outside world. But there in the, in around 1890s, there was an incident where a British soldier kidnapped some people from the community. And ever since then, there has been very little contact. The people, the Central Leeds people have refused. Been any time that people have tried to contact them, they have aggressively pushed them away.
And that's led to a few incidents where people have actually been killed who have tried to force contact with these people.
One of the most recent was in 2018, where another young American man called John Allen Chau, he was a missionary and he was on a mission to introduce Jesus to the Sentinelese people. And John Chau was killed. It's thought that he was killed by bow and arrow. We only know that he's dead because the fishermen who he paid to bring him to the island were
reported that they saw Sentinelese people burying his body on a beach. Wow, so the Sentinelese people really vigorously rejecting outsiders, and in the most extreme form with the bow and arrow, that supposed bow and arrow death. Yeah, although you can see from his journal that they made several efforts to tell him to go away before eventually...
killing him. They were shouting at him. They were resisting his advances very clearly. And he just persisted with this kind of messianic mission and obsession. And just going back to basics with the Sentinelese people,
What do we know about them, their language, their food? What kind of do we know so far? Based on the fact that they're dark skinned and quite short, it's thought that they migrated from Africa possibly tens of thousands of years ago. They're hunter gatherers from what we know. They probably eat a lot of fish given that they're on an island. They are clearly armed with bows and arrows. We can see that in the few pictures that we have. They wear
They don't wear much, just loincloths. And we're not sure how many, but probably 50 to 100, maybe more. In terms of what language they speak, very little is known. The few anthropologists that have been studying this group, based on other Andaman Island languages, they haven't been able to use those to communicate with these people. So it seems that their language is unique.
But it's also illegal for individuals to travel within five kilometres of the islands. Why is that? Who has implemented that law? So this is a law implemented by the Indian government, and it's based on ideas around the rights of uncontacted tribes. So these people have made it clear over the years that they don't want to be in contact with the outside world, that they don't want to speak to people.
to foreigners, the Indian government has decided that they have the right to do that. So they've protected them from people who are trying to force their way onto the island. Aside from the right of these people to self-determination to decide whether they want to be in touch with people outside or not, there are also well-known risks for tribes like these because
Because they haven't been in contact with the outside world for so long, they don't have immunity to lots of ordinary diseases that you and I could be carrying. And it's thought that they...
things like the common cold could have really serious impacts. I mean, we saw the impact of COVID here, a disease that we had no immunity to. So there are, so for all of those reasons, mainly because these people have made it clear they don't want to be in touch with the outside world, but also because of all the risks that people from the outside world could
could bring to them, the Indian government has decided to police the boundaries and not allow people. And this obviously is a huge source of intrigue for tourists, but also people online. And we're seeing lots of YouTube content creators like the American influencer who was arrested, tap into that. Is this something that is becoming an online trend?
Well, Survival International, which are one of the few groups who advocate for uncontacted people,
have said that this is a real threat, that it seems to be a fad among this kind of influencers who do a lot of prank-based or extreme prank content. Reaching uncontacted tribes has become a bit of a fad and Survival International are worried about that. That seems to be the motivation for this man, but it's not entirely clear yet. But it is something that Survival International are worried about.
So you mentioned earlier that they'd had previous contact with the outside world decades ago. How many other uncontacted tribes are there in the world?
So there are about 100 uncontacted groups, but they vary. It's a spectrum really in terms of the level of contact that they've had. And I think there's a bit of misunderstanding about what an uncontacted tribe is. Some of these tribes do actually have contact and trade with other groups of people, mostly
So the vast majority are in the Amazon, in Peru, Brazil and various other Amazonian countries. But many of those groups will be trading with their neighbours. So they do have contact, but a level of contact that they are able to control themselves. The Sentinelese are on the other end of the spectrum where they have zero contact with the outside world. So much so that
No one knows what language they speak. And even people in neighboring islands haven't been able to interpret what little they do know about their language. So they are very, very cut off. But some of these uncontacted groups, as I said, do have some level of trade and some level of mixing with the outside world.
So obviously we know about the Sentinelese. There's contact being made with them in the past and they vigorously rejected it. How do we know about other uncontacted tribes if they have limited interactions with the outside world?
Usually what we know comes from neighbours and often in some of these groups they'll share a language with their neighbours or at least they'll be able to communicate because their languages are similar. And again, that's what's unique about the Sentinelese as well is that, and probably because they're on an island, that their language does seem to be very different to some of their neighbours.
But there will be groups in the Amazon, for example, where their neighbors are in touch with them and where they do share. They have at least the means to communicate. So the reason why I say around around 100 groups is because we don't we don't actually know. There are likely to be some uncontacted tribes that we don't even know about that.
are cut off from the outside world. But we're talking about entire communities here and in some cases just one family. There was a tribe in, or a man in the Amazon in Brazil who lived for years on his own. He was thought to be the last member of his tribe and he refused contact with the outside world
because towards the end, there was just a handful of people, just his immediate family. And by the very end, just this man on his own. So we're talking about bigger communities like the Sentinelese and also just smaller family groups who are refusing to have extended contact with the outside world. And the exact number is impossible to determine. Thanks so much for speaking with us, Stephanie. Really appreciate it. No.
No problem. Now, the Andean Islands Police Force has condemned the US influencers' attempt to reach North Central Island, and he's received criticism from human rights groups. As Stephanie mentioned, social media is becoming more of a threat to uncontacted indigenous people, with more and more content creators attempting similar stunts for views. Here's Jonathan Mazawa from the indigenous and tribal people's rights group Survival International.
It's all part of a trend really where with the growing kind of public profile of uncontacted peoples and more public awareness of this issue and their situation, more and more people are online as sort of saying, you know, I'm going to try and make contact with them. And you often also see influencers
going to visit some indigenous people somewhere and saying, "Hey, look, I'm making first contact with this uncontacted tribe," when the people weren't uncontacted at all. It's the idea that these poor people, they haven't ever tasted Coke, for example, so, you know, I'm going to leave them a can of Coke or, you know, bring them kind of interesting Western gadgets and they'll inevitably be seduced by the attraction of this kind of thing.
And it's all part of the narrative of us thinking about how wonderful we are compared to other cultures. And, you know, it's dismaying, really, that this kind of thinking still persists. But for uncontacted peoples like these guys are going to, their cultures are changing all the time. I think it's really tempting to view these peoples, these cultures as unchanged for thousands of years. But we know for a fact that that's not the case, that their cultures, their ways of life are
are evolving just like everybody else is. But the key thing is that they ought to be in control of this process of interaction with the outside world and what these influences are trying to do together with the more kind of long-lasting, long-established threats to their survival, like logging and mining and so on. It's removing that element of control from the indigenous people about how they interact with the outside world.
That brings us to the end of today's episode. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Mimi Swaby and this is What In The World from the BBC World Service.