Contents page 1 — Who makes photos, with arrows to page 2, shot — by No means always been hostile page 3 — the language of The Sentinelese is unknown On a page
A few shots to read it. For example, to see a lightly clad man runs barefoot on a stony beach. With a keyed arch, he is in the height, there, where he is photographed. A picture like in the early days of colonialism, as an unknown ethnicities readily than aggressive the Wild were shown.
the making of this recording, however, only 15 years ago – on North Sentinel Island in the Andaman sea in the Northern Indian ocean. An employee of the Indian coast guard had taken from a helicopter, shortly after the devastating Tsunami had swept from 2004 in the Indian ocean, hundreds of Islands and vast stretches of coastline, causing 230,000 people were killed. The residents of Sentinel, are it’s probably about 100, had, it is believed, however, apparently, in a timely manner. The coast guard discovered a lot more than the armed man.
The still image of a video shows the closed living Nautilus. © Survival International/Reuters
The coral reef-fringed island of North Sentinel, is about as large as Manhattan and has maintained a life largely cut off from the outside world. Intruders? Be successfully chased. Photos and film recordings? Hardly available. Formally, the island belongs to India, but even researchers and staff of the Indian authorities have little contact with this part of the state’s territory. Outsiders prohibits the government in New Delhi, North-Sentinel to enter.
Nevertheless had the 27-year-old American missionary John Allen Chau, in the head, to convert the Nautilus to Christianity. Of the fishermen he had at the end of 2018 across the sea. But before he could enter the island, he was killed by the arrows of the contact-shy residents.
In the media reports about the incident appeared again and again the photo from the year 2004 – as obvious proof of the primitiveness, danger and aggressiveness of the islanders.
danger from the helicopter
The picture shows, of course, only the view angle of the photographing coast guard and not the of the photographed island resident. For the, the Situation is completely different: He sees, and only with tremendous noise approaching flight is listening to the object, and perhaps he sees this as one or more people with the cameras and Lenses in front of your face. Most likely, the man suspected in the helicopter is a threat of danger. At the same time, the photo provides no insights into how the Sentinelese actually live, and what makes up their culture. It operated for only of the usual stereotypes.
But how it came to these stereotypes? And: How hostile the Sentinelese are actually?
The Indian anthropologist Vishvajit Pandya is one of the few scientists who had in the nineties, the contact to the isolated island of people. He is a Professor at the school of information and communication technology in the Indian Gandhinagar.
