An American man had been killed by a primitive tribe called the 'Sentinelese" living on Sentinel Island after he went there to visit. You can see the story here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46286215
The Sentinelese tribe live on the island in isolation. They live a hunter gatherer lifestyle to this day with no contact with the outside world and will attack and kill anyone who comes to their island. The island had been visited a few times but all attempts to make contact failed. Little is known about them.
And I wonder, why are the Sentinelese so hostile ? Do they believe in total isolation? Have they had negative experience with foreign visitors in the past?
The island is covered in thick jungle and it would be fascinating to go inside and explore and see how this tribe lives.
Supposedly they don’t have many of them left, and they want to keep all outsiders away so they don’t get any diseases, etc. He should never have went there in the first place if they clearly said they kill whoever tries to come to the island. He had escaped the first time, and WENT BACK to try again -_-
It may sound cold-hearted but IMHO that’s natural selection in action.
They’ve clearly shown him the first couple of times that he is not welcome there.
The island is banned for visits by the country for a reason…
It is sad he died on these islands, but the warnings were very clear. Plus, there was no justification for inflicting disruptive cultural contact on a community in this sort of situation.
He just seems to have been an adventurer. Which is the modern term for what we just used to call show-offs.
The loss of human life is always tragic.
What is even sadder is that his body remains there, together with all its germs these people have no immunity for and remains a danger to their safety.
It was buried in a shallow grave and should have decomposed by now so there should be no germs, but what about air borne germs coming in from nearby fishermen and boats constantly?
Some viruses and bacteria can, unfortunately, exist in the environment for months at a time with no carrier.
As for the boats, I think there’s a quarantine zone for everyone’s safety around the island and they’re not allowed to come that close, both because of the risk for infection of the island inhabitants and because they react with hostility when someone approaches.
I agree that boats and ships aren’t allowed to get close because the threat is quite high. But actually I don’t blame this tribe for its behaviour because we all know what happens with such exotic distant lands, they are fully exploited untill the flora and fauna are inevitably destroyed and the locals are either enslaved or forced to live a poor life deprived of the resources of their own land. Sad but true.
In their particular case a British explorer kidnapped several people from their island (both children and adults) back in the 19th century - the adults quickly got sick and perished in his captivity (I assume due to their lack of immunity to diseases outside their island) and the children got sent back. I imagine they have been distrustful - to say the least - ever since.
That is horrible. Why did he even kidnap them? To show them the “civil” world… But like I said, their decision to refuse all foreign contact is quite reasonable as they haven’t seen anything good from the visitors so far.
From what I read, they are a tribe that has been living on that island for more than 60,000 years - totally secluded and extremely hostile to outsiders, so yeah. It’s pretty obvious that they do not want any outside contact.
Why would anyone try to force it upon them is beyond me.
Live and let live… or suffer the concequences, in this case.
The guy was a moronic show-off. Like the idiots who get out of their vehicles in safari parks for a selfie with a lion, these self-obsessed people are a danger to themselves and everyone around them.
On a wider perspective, his arrogant actions suggest we carry the germ of an assumption of cultural superiority, that we have a right, maybe a duty, to make contact with “lesser” civilisations. In the context of the islanders, contact itself is an act of aggression. I wonder if, if we imagine that Africa or Australia had not yet been explored and discovered by westerners, would we have the maturity to just keep away?
Or would we carry on with the arrogance of the Enterprise’s “Star Trek” mission, “to seek out new life and new civilizations”. Not forgetting of course that the Enterprise was a military craft, and armed to the teeth…
Shouldn’t be a problem if the government had banned all visits to your island and put out warnings that you should not be disturbed for any reason. (which is the case with the Setinelese tribe).
Wasn’t there something about home invasion and the right to protect your home with letal force if necessary in the US of A? My home - my fortress type of thing…
I am a huge follower of the National Geographic channel. I often watch the documentaries of the tribes living in African jungles and other such regions. They are still living the life as people do hundreds of years ago. What is the reason for that?
It would be nice to think the reason is because we are now sensitive to the rights of remote societies to be left alone. Even non-aggressive contact for such cultures with the developed world is likely to be extremely traumatic. Why would we think we have the right to do it?
I think it’s fair to say, that would be upto the tribes whether they want to give up their primitive lives and convert to modern living, but it’s quite a difficult call how to approach this, because for me personally, I prefer the modern life because I grew up in it, but if I grew up in the primitive life and knew nothing else, I would have been happy with it. However, I don’t know how I would have reacted when I saw the modern life if I grew up in the primitive life. I don’t know if I’d like the allure of modern laptops, smartphones and other wonders of the modern age. Though the modern life has its advantages like modern medicine that keeps you alive, and laws that keep you from being murdered, and the fun gadgets, it also has its fair share of evils like poverty, capitalism and wars. It all comes down to the nature of the human species, it seems our wicked primal habits have not improved (upgraded to civilized) to catchup with modern technology we created.