About 10,000 individuals on Earth still reside as members of what anthropologists refer to as “uncontacted tribes.” These groups of hunter-gatherers live in near-total seclusion from the outside world, many of them deep in the Amazon Basin. However, none are more isolated than the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island in the Andaman archipelago, located far off the coast of India in the Bay of Bengal. These people, known as the Sentinelese, still maintain traditional hunting practices using bows, arrows, and spears. They also use these weapons to defend their territory, even killing individuals who attempt to visit their shores.
The untimely death of John Chau, a 26-year-old American Christian missionary, on the remote beach of North Sentinel Island in 2018 brought global attention to these isolated tribes. The news surprised many, highlighting the existence of such untouched communities in the modern era. Since then, the Sentinelese, believed to number between 50 and 200 individuals, have become symbols of resistance against the forces of modernization and globalization. A newly released National Geographic documentary titled “The Mission,” currently premiering in theaters and soon to stream online, brings attention to Chau’s life and his unsuccessful attempts at evangelism on the island. Additionally, Hollywood director Justin Lin, known for his work on the “Fast & Furious” franchise, is set to begin shooting a dramatization of the story.
As a young journalist in 1998, I traveled to the Andaman Islands captivated by the tales of the uncontacted tribe. Like Chau, I paid non-Indigenous fishermen to secretly transport me to the waters off North Sentinel Island under the cover of darkness. However, unlike him, I did not attempt to land. Nevertheless, catching a glimpse of several islanders on the beach felt like a window into another era.
It was only during my recent research for a book about North Sentinel Island that I truly began to understand the reasons behind their complete isolation. Much of the true story had remained hidden in the archives of the 19th-century British empire. It became evident that the islanders were not uncontacted or undiscovered; they were deliberately hiding, having escaped the terrible history that engulfed their fellow Indigenous tribes.
At the heart of this story, long forgotten by those outside North Sentinel, was another intruder who arrived on the island’s shores before Chau: Maurice Vidal Portman. Portman, a young and unconventional imperial adventurer, was sent to the Andaman Islands in 1879. The archipelago, already home to various Indigenous tribes, including the Sentinelese, served as a penal colony for British India. These Indigenous tribes, with little resemblance to other Asians physically or culturally, had potentially separated from the rest of humanity as early as 60,000 years ago. However, due to disease, warfare, and British colonization’s cultural destruction, their numbers were rapidly dwindling.
Portman’s initial arrival on the islands did not inspire high expectations from his seniors. He defied the typical image of an imperial officer—an artistic and moody young man, pulled out of school for unknown reasons and sent to India. At only 18 years old, he was assigned the role of officer in charge of the Andamanese, with orders to explore the archipelago’s remote regions and attempt to “befriend” the tribes resistant to British rule. The placement of an untested teenager in such a position shed light on the priorities of India’s colonial overlords, with the welfare of the Indigenous tribes seemingly low on the list.
Surprisingly, Portman embraced his role with enthusiasm. He embarked on his voyages accompanied by convict servants and Andamanese islanders who had formed truces with the British colonizers. With no other British personnel by his side, he landed on unknown shores, sometimes alone, expecting to encounter unfamiliar tribes hiding in the forests. Remarkably, his official and personal diaries document instances where he faced native arrows without fear. Portman approached his surroundings with scientific curiosity, meticulously documenting animals, minerals, and aspects of the native culture, including music, crafts, huts, food, and tattoos. He even taught himself the native languages, which were unintelligible to most other colonizers. His contributions to scholarly journals back in England drew attention to the Andamanese people, viewed through the lens of Victorian science, often characterized by racist undertones.
As Portman delved deeper into his explorations, he took on the additional role of photographer. Despite the challenges of early photographic technology, he committed himself to capturing thousands of images to preserve the Andamanese people for posterity. Fragile glass-plate negatives from Portman’s extensive collection survive today in the British Museum, mostly unpublished. While some of these images possess aesthetic beauty, a sense of impending doom lingers.
Portman’s darker side becomes evident in his scholarly works, including a phrasebook for Andamanese languages. The choice of translated sentences unintentionally reveals his dismissive interactions with the beleaguered natives he encountered:
“Take care, it is very heavy. Some convicts have escaped, you must search for them. Come and pick these ants off my clothes. Get me that orchid. Get me some oysters. Dive for that coral. Take me to your village. Get a broom and clean this hut. Have the people here been doing anything wrong? How did this woman become blind? How is this man so covered with sores?”
Furthermore, I discovered Portman’s previously unidentified private journal in the British Library in 2019. This two-volume journal provides a more intimate view of his interactions with the Indigenous people under his charge. The entries confirm his genuine fondness for some Andamanese individuals, as he bestowed English names upon his favorites. However, they also reveal his violent responses to perceived misbehavior by the natives, described with unsettling detachment.
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