Ethnography briefing: the Andaman Islanders

The Andaman Islands are a string of islands in the Bay of Bengal that belong to India. For unknown numbers of centuries, many of the islands were inhabited by people who fished, gathered and hunted for their livelihood. During the 18th century, when European countries were expanding trade routes to east Asia, the Andaman Islands were of major strategic importance as a stopping place.

At the time of the first, small settlements of the British in the late 18th century, the total indigenous population was estimated at between 6,000 and 8,000 (Miller 1997). Today, more than 400,000 people live on the islands, and they are mostly migrants from the Indian mainland. The total number of indigenous people is about 400. British colonialism brought contagious diseases against which the indigenous people had no resistance. The colonial presence also resulted in death by direct violence (hanging of islanders who fought back, skirmishes in which the British had guns and the islanders had bows and arrows) and indirect violence (from displacement, despair and culture shock).

Only four surviving clusters of indigenous Andamanese now exist:

• The smallest group, just a few dozen people, consists of the remnants of the so-called Great Andamanese people. Several groups of Great Andamanese people formerly lived throughout North and Middle Andaman Islands, but no indigenous people inhabit these islands now. Their surviving descendants live on a reservation on a small island near Port Blair, the capital city.
• The so-called Jarawa, numbering perhaps 200, live in a reserved area on the southwest portion of South Andaman island, and very little is known of their language. Jarawa is a term that the Great Andamanese people use for them.
• The Onge, around 100 in number, live in one corner of Little Andaman Island.
• Another 100 people or so live on North Sentinel Island. Outsiders call them the “Sentinelese.” No one has established communication with them, and almost no one from the outside has gotten closer than arrow-range of their shore.

The December 2004 tsunami disrupted much of the Andaman Island landscape, particularly areas that had been cleared of mangroves and other trees. As far as anyone knows, none of the indigenous people died as a direct result of the tsunami, though many of the immigrant settlers did (Mukerjee 2005).

The future of the indigenous people is more endangered by external culture, in the form of immigration and development, than from nature. Immigrants from the mainland continue to arrive, and international organizations such as the World Bank and businesses continue to provide incentives for the settlers.

In February 2010, one of the few remaining survivors of the Great Andamanese people, a woman named Boa Sr, passed away. She was the last speaker of the Boa language.

Sources:

• “Culturama” by Barbara Miller, <a href="Cultural Anthropology, 5th edition, Pearson 2009, pg 94
• Barbara Miller, “Andaman Update: From Colonialism to “Development,” paper presented at the Annual South Asia Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, 1997
• Further information on the Jarawa and their cultural survival

Images: One of the many uninhabited islands in the Andamans with intact mangroves protecting the coastline from erosion. The roots of mangrove trees provide a habitat for shrimp, a prominent food item of the indigenous peoples and also now sought after by the tourist industry for hotel fare. Source: Barbara Miller.

Archival photograph from the early twentieth century of a girl wearing the skull of her deceased sister. Source: A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, The Andaman Islanders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922.