Us and Them

Kai Friese, Outlook India

Yes, anthropology is alive and well, in the islands and it’s having a field day in the news. The Indian Express on Sunday gave us a double-page spread (slugged ‘Black and White’) with a field guide to “the tribes and their survival tricks”. The Great Andamanese “whose strongest physical characteristics are distinctly Negroid”; the Jarawas who “look at heavenly bodies and can decipher what is to come”; the Shompen, “the only primitive tribe of the islands with Mongoloid features”, and so on.

It’s revealing that most journalists have invoked racial labels like Mongoloid or Negroid (I’ve even read ‘Negrative’) only as a marker of primitivism. Meanwhile, NDTV’s more sensitive reporter wittered on about the “dignity” of Nicobarese tribals, and the BBC’s web edition fretted about the fate of “some rare indigenous tribal groups”. >> continue

SEE ALSO:
– The Great Andamanese did not sense the arrival of the tsunamis

KUTV.com / ap

PORT BLAIR, India (AP) The last few dozen remaining members of an ancient indigenous tribe in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands said they raced up a mountain to escape a devastating tsunami – and avoid extinction.

“I am the king. They follow what I say,” said Jiroki, the king of the Great Andamanese tribe, wearing a red T-shirt and shorts. Contrary to speculation by some anthropologists, his wife said the Great Andamanese did not sense the impending arrival of the tsunamis. >> continue

Remark: Interesting to see how anthropologists “speculate” … they still dream about the nobel savage. Interesting to see how journalists like the Andamanese to be like. Derogatorily and romantizingly at the same time! they presented them first (example )as “stone age peoples” that want to be left alone. Interesting to read about the king telling us in this article: “We feel nice interacting with the outside world. Earlier our heart was only in hunting,” the king said. “There were no movies, nothing.”

UPDATE: Michael I. Niman, Alternet, writes:

“The indigenous populations of the Andaman and Nicobar islands have had extensive contact with the outside world. These descendents of African peoples were first visited by Marco Polo who described them as “No better than wild beasts.” European slave-traders later raided the islands for slaves. Anthropologists report that slavers continued to raid the islands well into the second half of the 20th century, long after the international slave trade was thought dead.”