Talk:Jarawa (Andaman Islands)

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This hunk of material about a French-language film was placed in the article. I am moving it here for reference.

Jarawa, La Rencontre Interdite
Duration: 1 hour and 9 minutes.
Quelques-uns sont restés totalement isolés et hostiles dans les îlots les plus reculés des îles Andaman, un archipel montagneux du golfe du Bengale, d'autres viennent tout juste d'entrer en contact avec ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler la « civilisation ». Les Jarawa risquent, dans un avenir proche, de se voir parqués. Au début des années 90, l'auteur a entrepris clandestinement plusieurs tentatives d'approche de ce groupe humain. Il les retrouve en 2003 et réussit à partager leur quotidien. La pression des autorités indiennes menace de détruire les derniers Négritos de l'Asie, emportant avec eux l'un des grands mystères du peuplement humain : les premiers habitants de l'Asie du Sud seraient noirs Réalisation : Patrick Bernard, 2002 Dans la collection « Les voix de l'oubli. Chroniques des derniers chasseurs-cueilleurs » Pays : France.

Let's begin in-place translation here, then move whatever is useful into the article.-- Jmabel | Talk 21:59, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Jarawa, La Rencontre Interdite
Duration: 1 hour and 9 minutes.
Some are a totally isolated and hostile remnant in the most isolated islets of the Andaman Islands, a mountainous archipelago in the Bay of Bengal, others have just entered in contact with that which it is conventional to call "civilization". The Jarawa risk, in the near future, de se voir parqués. At the beginning of the 1990s, the author tried clandestinely and tentatively to approach this group. He finds them in 2003 et réussit to share their daily life. The pressure of the Indian authorities threatens to destroy the last Négritos in Asia, taking with them one of the great mysteries of human population: the first inhabitants of South Asia were Blacks.
Réalisation : Patrick Bernard, 2002 from the collection « Les voix de l'oubli. Chroniques des derniers chasseurs-cueilleurs » ("The voices of the forgotten. Chronicles of the last hunter-gatherers") Country : France.

[edit] Tsunami

An interesting item on NPR this morning implied that the Jarawa had a 100% survival rate in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake: somehow, they knew or sensed what was coming, and all headed for the upland jungle. The story related to fly-by checks by the Indian Air Force, so it could easily be exaggerated (how would they know it was 100%? How would they know what the Jarawa did to survive?). I'm not putting that in the article just on the basis of "I heard it on the radio", but someone may want to follow up on this. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:57, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

Reports like this seem to be from folks who really don't know what they are talking about. They want to assign natives with little or no contact with the modern world great wisdom for reasons that don't make sense. I am not saying the natives are stupid or fools. Just that like all humans, they are going to be running the gambit of dumb to very smart folks.

The reason that a lot of these native groups survived is really quite simple. These are groups of people who have choosen to not have much (if any) contact with the modern world. Well, on these islands, where for example the Jarawa share their island with people from the modern world... guess where they live? They live pretty much as far inland as you can get on these islands, while the folks from the modern world live on the coasts. Now who do you think is going to die from the Tsunami? That would be the people living on the coasts. Those living inland, quite naturually, are living on higher ground and avoided the brunt of the catastrophe. So, naturally, they lived through it. --68.164.29.116 05:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there were few deaths over the whole of the Andamans, indigenous and non-indigenous alike, when compared to the more low-lying Nicobars - about 60 all told, versus about 3500 for the Nicobars. True enough, the Jarawa live (and always seem to have preferred to live, before the Indian colonists came) mostly in inland regions, and are situated on the western (ie, the leeside) of the island. A similar tale was told about the remnants of Great Andamanese people, numbering about 50 who live on Strait I, off the eastern coast of Great Andaman - this is more exposed and low-lying, perhaps that original radio report confused the two.--cjllw | TALK 08:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Anthropologists have spoken to the Onge to find out how they survived the Tsunami (It was initially expected that none would have survived due to their location). They were told that tradition tells that the land and sea are always fighting to decide boundaries. On the day of the tsunami the trees shook so the islanders knew the spirits were angry over something. Later they saw changes in the clouds and water so knew the sea was going to enter the jungle and mix with the land until the new boundaries were decided upon. The native tribes all went to high ground before the first wave arrived. It is suspected that none of the indiginous tribes that live traditionally lost anyone. Wayne (talk) 14:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)