North Sentinel Island
This reasonably small island located off the west coast of the Andaman and Nicobar islands has never been explored by the modern world. The island is about 4.5 miles north to south, and just over 3.5 miles east to west, and is located less than 30 miles from some major population centers. The reason the island is so unexplored is due to the Sentinelese, a tribe that lives on the island that is less than friendly to visitors.
Its believed the tribe has lived on the island for hundreds of years and had never made contact with the outside world, mostly due to their low level of technology. The tribe is one of, if not the most under developed tribe in the world, with it thought they haven’t even discovered how to make fire yet.
The tribe will attack anyone that comes to the island on sight with their primitive bows and blow pipes, and have been known to kill the occasional fishermen every once in a while. The island is also protected by the local governments who do not allow anyone to go there, even on scientific missions.
Apart from the guarantee of being attacked by a group of crazed, grass skirt wearing bow hunters there’s also the chance that any outside interaction with the tribe could see an outbreak that would wipe them all out, similar to the small pox epidemic that spread across the America’s during colonisation.
As for the island itself it doesn’t look like it has anything special on it, as the locals don’t even seem to have pottery and live in very basic tribal style grass and leaf huts. There are no stone buildings of any kind and they haven’t dug or built anything past a basic hut.
Their diet is unknown as they don’t communicate with anyone outside the island, but a general tropical island diet can be expected. Focusing mostly on fish and wild fruit and nuts, as for meat its unlikely there’s a sufficient mammal population on the ground due to the islands size, but birds would most likely be on the menu, though they would be consumed raw.
As for the tribes population no one can say for sure, but the highest estimates number around 100, which is quite impressive due to the islands size. If you were thinking that one day they might open up to the outside world, then don’t count on it as these people have been very aggressive since the first records of them started to appear.
The first British visit of the island happened in 1867 when an administrator from the East India company tried to explore the island, he was never seen again. At the end of the same year a merchant ship wrecked near the island and 106 crew members were stranded on the beach’s. They were attacked straight away and had to spend the next few days fighting off attacks, until they were finally rescued by a Royal Navy rescue party.
A good example of the disease issue when exploring the island comes from 1880, when a government administrator went to explore it, taking with him a large security force. This time the tribe decided to hide, running away from the expedition which found several abandoned villages and many pathways through the tress. After spending several days on the island they managed to capture an elderly couple and 4 children, who were all taken to Port Blair on the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The elderly couple quickly became ill and died shortly after, the children also became very sick but were sent back to the island to avoid them dying in the hands of the expedition and making them look bad.
Since the island has not been exposed to the outside world, it hasn’t had a chance to encounter, and develop immunities to things that everyone else has. What could be considered a common cold to the modern world would be the equivalent of the plague to these people, which may be the reason they are so aggressive. The end this post on north sentinel island here’s a picture of some angry tribesmen shooting arrows at a helicopter.
