[doodlebugging]

When they mention the Sentinelese who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean as being uncontacted they have to ignore the shipwreck in the inlet on the northwest end of the island.

I'm guessing that the mariners who found themselves on the island did not make a very good first impression as representatives of the larger outside world and that this contributed to the hostility towards outsiders that the Sentinelese exhibit.

I know there was a bible-thumper a few years back who found himself skewered while trying to help the North Sentinelese find Jesus. That seems like a predictable outcome when you consider that the inhabitants have to be closer to everything that is real and important on their island than we modern people will ever be and likely have their constructs about how the world works so they don't need someone else's Jesus to keep them grounded.

Interestingly enough, the only place where I saw any clear indication that the island was inhabited was on the north end of the island near the inlet where the ship is run aground and sunk. Just north of the tree line you can clearly see a well-worn path leading from the woods east of the wreck to the inlet.

I'll bet they keep a weather eye out for any new contraptions not of their own making.

[AlotOfReading]

They've encountered and traded with people from outside the island, like Anstice Justin during contact attempts between the 80s and 2000s [0]. The direct contact attempts were halted in the 90s due to ethical/health concerns for the sentinelese though, so expeditions after that point were gift-giving missions to monitor and support friendly relations.

They became more hostile to expeditions after some fishermen were killed on the island and recovery teams attempted to use helicopters to rescue the bodies before the islanders could bury them.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d44151-024-00213-5

[doodlebugging]

Thanks for the historical context. It makes sense that they would prefer not to interact with outsiders.

[xadhominemx]

“the inhabitants have to be closer to everything that is real and important on their island than we modern people will ever be and likely have”

They undoubtedly have their own absurd mythology describing their origins and the workings of the universe

[doodlebugging]

As they should. That is how people maintain generations-long connections to ancestors and group history, whether it be an oral tradition in songs or stories or a set of written tales.

[xadhominemx]

Or maybe they rape and beat their woman, suffer from high infant mortality and often die excruciating deaths after moderate injuries like a broken arm or cut.

[cpursley]

If they did, they wouldn't survive for more than a few generations, no?

[mkl]

No, that probably describes most of our species' existence.

[cwmoore]

Maybe Jesus bringing them penicillin and condoms is worse somehow

[crossroadsguy]

That sounds familiar. They are also antivaxxers in a way. And after the raping they probably also don’t allow their women to go for abortions. They definitely meed an orange haired god! Let’s go for it!

[doodlebugging]

If you're hoping to fill the open position vacated by bible-thumping Jesus I'm sorry to inform you that the position will apparently remain open for the forseeable future.

Perhaps your skills are more useful in Texas or in the southern US where I understand that problems like you describe are trending up.

[xadhominemx]

I’m not a bible thumper but I also don’t promulgate cringe noble savage mythology either

[doodlebugging]

It's unfortunate that you tagged the Sentinelese as rapists and abusers of their spouses in your first comment.

That's being pretty judgemental, like a bible-thumper would be, off to save people who aren't necessarily interested in being saved from a situation that may never have been part of their worldview.

Sometimes it's better to leave things alone. Western civilization doesn't have an answer to every question and for too many cultures in the past, contact has meant that we effectively killed them while making an effort to save or assimilate them.

In my view your reply suggests that you have strong cultural biases that education may help you overcome. Reading is still fun as it always has been. Grab a book and step outside your bubble.

I'm gonna need to read up on some of the materials that others have linked to see whether there is historical evidence of this abusive behavior that you think is part of their culture.

EDIT: I just read the Atlantic article linked by u/marc_abonce in this thread. I see nothing in that to support your assumption that the men are rapists and spouse abusers. In contrast, I see strong evidence of a group of people who suffered greatly in their interactions with western colonizers.

[gosub100]

There's no prerequisite to believe in a fantasy in order to maintain connections to ancestors.

[heyjamesknight]

Citation needed.

People connect through story. The stories that connect the most people over the greatest timescales have all been myths—or developed into them over generations.

Augustus Caesar commissioned the Aeneid for this exact reason: Rome needed a founding story, a connection to the Universal History of the world that it stepped into and inherited.

The "Matter of Britain" has captivated England for a thousand years, even though its obvious Arthur and Camelot never existed in any way similar to those stories.

The Jewish people have celebrated the Passover for over 3000 years based on their connection to a story.

Don't discount the power of "fantasy".

[marc_abonce]

> the mariners who found themselves on the island did not make a very good first impression as representatives of the larger outside world and that this contributed to the hostility towards outsiders that the Sentinelese exhibit.

The bad reputation that us outsiders have probably traces all the way back to the British intrusion into the island back in the XIXth century:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/north-sent...

[doodlebugging]

Thanks for that link. It doesn't reflect well on the British. A lot of colonial powers had similar interactions with people they encountered leaving large parts of many cultures destroyed by the changes they were forced to make.

[crossroadsguy]

Well unlike some invaders like Mughals to Indian subcontinent, the Brits never intended to settle overseas, definitely not in India. They went everywhere to loot, destroy, and leave when there was nothing more to loot or it was too tough to maintain control.

> doesn't reflect well on the British

Shocking!

[oa335]

> Brits never intended to settle overseas

What about Canada, United States, Australia, New Zealand, and several Caribbean Islands?

[OJFord]

I think GP's definition of 'settle' that excludes 89 years of British Raj^ must certainly also exclude Australia, penal colony.

^which comprised many atrocities yes, but also expat rulers/officials, and building/development.

[dyauspitr]

It probably means never intended to settle overseas where they couldn’t exterminate the natives first.

[gosub100]

The fact that their level of innovation is on par with (ours - 2k years) reflects poorly on them, doesn't it? What is the end game, keep living like neanderthals until sea levels rise and they all swim or paddle away?

[doodlebugging]

There is no requirement that every culture evolve at the same pace and reach the same level of sophistication. Many cultures have reached a quiet, local equilibrium with their environment, having gained an understanding of everything around them and how best to utilize it for the success of the group.

Unfortunately some are extinct now because of the idea that they are somehow less advanced than they should be considering the environment that their culture occupied upon first contact with their more technologically advanced human relatives.

OT:

Gosub100, that's pretty BASIC and gave me a chuckle. It's been a long time since I thought about BASIC. The days where you would buy a computer and pick the programming language and OS that you want to use with it passed a long time ago. Maybe it's what we really need today though.

[wruza]

On one hand this, on the other, being born there is a live sentence. The thought that somewhere exists a kid just like I was, but his fate is to pick roots and other local equilibrium things, all his life… bitter. He’ll never learn about gosub or for-next. If I were among the people who send aid, the first thing I’d send was ‘80s-style OS tablets with infographic manuals how to make games and bulky batteries with solar panels to run these. Because parents have taken me on an “island” in the summer and there was nothing to do except to socialize with clearly criminal peers and the internet was not a thing.

[liamwire]

Yet it was exactly this line of thinking that led to, as one example, the Stolen Generations in Australia, and similar atrocities around the world. Maybe they don’t need our saving.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations

[wruza]

Oh, that slippery slope again! First you give them tablets, and next day their

children were forcibly taken from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970

Excuse me, but this is pretty much different line of thinking from mine. I’m confident that they don’t need children forcibly taken from their families, sure. But tablets are okay.

[doodlebugging]

Still OT but a nice segue that jogs my memories of the first PCs that I had available. A friend's Dad bought him a Compaq Deskpro that looked a lot like a portable sewing machine with QuickBASIC and my parents bought me a 128k Mac and QuickBASIC for the Mac. We jointly developed software using QuickBASIC that ran under Apple's System5? OS and various DOSes in PC land (DRDOS, OS/2, DOS2-5, Windows 286 and 3.1, etc).

I think that if you initiated your plan to send those tablets, etc that you should consider sending late 90's model tablets (there weren't many tablet style computers until the 90's I think) with period correct software since a lot of the personal computers, OSes and programming languages available for the 80's rigs required use of multiple disks due to memory and hard drive space constraints.

Far too many times I would be in the middle of an operation and be met with a prompt to load a specific disk from the set of disks for the software that I was using so that the software could perform some operation that wouldn't fit in memory on the disks that had already been read. If you passed them around to kids today they might quickly lose interest in the process. You could of course use those old school PCs to help teach them something of computer architecture and operations so that they can more easily grasp the functionality than if they were handed modern rigs with huge hard drives and zero disk space issues so that things run so quickly there is no time to teach about Disk I/O, clock speeds, etc.

Anyway, thanks for this.

[wruza]

Yeah, I meant “style”, not literal 80s tech. I’m just used to subtracting a few years due to growing up in the location that had everything too late. I think that for learning the pre-IBM-PC spirit would be the best. Basically a ROM BASIC style “OS” with an SSD chip as RAM+ROM and some mainstream embedded CPU chip. Flat everything, but in abundance. The key idea here is to give them INKEY, LINE,BF and PSET before they learn to integrate a payment widget into their wordpress deployment.

[MrVandemar]

> On one hand this, on the other, being born there is a live sentence. The thought that somewhere exists a kid just like I was, but his fate is to pick roots and other local equilibrium things, all his life… bitter.

You're judging the possible happiness of someone in a completely different geography and culture according to your own.

Just because you depend on wifi for your happiness, that doesn't mean everyone does.

The hypothetical kid probably has excellent, fulfilling relationships with his family and friends, probably feels satisfied with a meal of fish that you couldn't even imagine how good it tastes, is content with the sounds of nature, singing, staring into a fire and telling stories. Perhaps he can trap, kill and prepare an animal for eating and enjoys the esteem of his peers for doing so.

He doesn't owe rent. He doesn't need insurance. He doesn't worry about getting to work 5 minutes late, or working overtime, or whether the apples are "organic" or contaminated with pesticides, his parents are always home -- and probably his whole village or tribe are his family and teachers.

That kid has his own way of being happy and fulfilled and content, just as valid -- and perhaps more so -- than yours.

[wruza]

You got it backwards. I’m not judging him if that’s the case. I’m just empathetic to the ones that may exist as described.

And no, I don’t believe in the happy-life-in-the-forest. The first thing “aboriginals” do is to get themselves sneakers, t-shirts and soap. Although I’m not gonna defend or explore this further, believe what you believe.

As far as I’m informed, particularly Sentinelese don’t even have a constant fire to enjoy that tasty fish I couldn’t even imagine.

[MrVandemar]

That's an excruciatingly blinkered opinion.

Ignoring the fact that our own level of "innovation" as you call it is built on centuries of brutal exploitation of land and resources and people.

And the "sea level rise" you mention is a consequence of that "innovation", and our enlightened culture keeps building houses next to the sea using energy sources that contribute to the rising sea-level.

Very little of what you buy these days is what it costs (a) to manufacture it and (b) to dispose of it. Where are those costs bourne? Slaves for (a) and the future and other-peoples-back-yards for (b).

So, I would say that their culture is sustainable, and doesn't have even one percent of our own self-inflicted, self-destructive, intractable problems.

[aqueueaqueue]

They wait out the great AI war then repopulate the planet. Maybe?

[davidw]

Path on North Sentinel island:

https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5920005,92.2195112,225a,35y,...

[arrowsmith]

And here's the shipwreck: https://www.google.com/maps/place/North+Sentinel+Island/@11....

Anyone know the story of this shipwreck? Wikipedia says that "Nineveh, an Indian merchant ship, was wrecked on a reef near the island" in 1867 - is this it?

I have my doubts because a) this shipwreck is not "near" the island, it's practically ashore on the island and b) the wreck looks reasonably intact. Wouldn't a submerged, 150-year old wooden ship have completely rotted away by now?

[doodlebugging]

Thanks for doing something I should've done myself. Popping out to Google Maps gives a higher resolution view of the island and with that one can easily pick out a network of trails around the island though I haven't seen clear indications of settlements yet. I think you can even see on the east side of the island at least one man-made fish trap similar to those found in other parts of the world.

It's clear that they travel all over the island making use of the resources available. I wonder whether anyone has reported seeing them swim. Some of the trails lead to small inlets and across to small islets on the perimeter which are now isolated from the main island.

Anyway, thanks for this post. It enhances the comment above.

[davidw]

The tree canopy looks to be pretty thick to make out any settlements, at least for my eyes.

[doodlebugging]

According to the book that I have been reading that was linked in a reply that has since been deleted, North Sentinel Island is relatively flat and has a coral base, unlike the other Andaman Islands which are remnants of an eroded and submerged island chain that existed offshore of Burma, Thailand, etc.

The vegetation also is different in that the trees are very tall and the canopy restricts light to the extent that there is not as much undergrowth on NSI as on neighboring islands so it is likely that any structures they build from the available wood are concealed under the forest canopy.

There are quite a few trails visible on Google Earth and each tails out in the forest not far off of the beaches though some are visible in areas noted on the maps as being marshes. Very interesting place but from the history documented in the book, it is pretty clear that the inhabitants wish to be left alone and that contact with outsiders has caused them and natives on neighboring islands much hardship since first contact several centuries ago.

One noteworthy thing is that it is simply not accurate to characterize them as uncontacted. It is better to describe them as isolated and vulnerable and therefore worthy of any protections we can offer even if that means to leave them to their own devices.

The book was written after the great Christmas quake and tsunami in 2004 and is partially available thru the wayback machine. [0] There's a lot to take in and some chapters don't exist there but it is a deep rabbit hole to tumble into. Very interesting stuff with a nice accounting of historical contacts with people on many of the islands out there.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20070406235017/http://www.andama...

[ellyagg]

How do you envision the castaways made a bad impression? It's not like every band of explorers immediately tries to open a Walmart or something.

My guess is that the dominant society anywhere will make you pay for not knowing their culture.

[FredPret]

Neal Stephenson wrote a book about Vikings discovering a Wal-Mart via time travel, and boy do they like it.

(rise and fall of D.O.D.O.)

[cpursley]

Sold! Thank you for pressing the order button on my next book ;)

[doodlebugging]

I think the comment about newcomers bringing diseases that killed many of their people would explain why they don't welcome outsiders.

[narrator]

They are hostile to outsiders because they have no immunity to modern diseases and in the past, each time someone tried to contact them a lot of them died.

[doodlebugging]

This probably plays into their desire to remain isolated. If every time some wanderer landed on their island a lot of their people died then it makes sense that they would not welcome anyone from outside.

[tolerance]

You sound like an interesting fellow to converse with in line toward the gallows.

[doodlebugging]

If I should ever find myself in a line like that I will be sure to remember to ask any observers if they are or if they know tolerance. Perhaps then we can have this conversation covering any subjects that you find interesting and in the process conjure enough of a distraction for the guards that we might make our escape to the freedom that we both no doubt deserve.

Happy Trails.