UN American instagrammer killed by uncontacted tribe in Andaman Islands - becomes pincushion for Stone Age arrows

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46286215

An American man has been killed by an endangered tribe in India's Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Fishermen who took the man to North Sentinel island say tribespeople shot him with arrows and left his body on the beach.

He has been identified as John Allen Chau, a 27 year old from Alabama.

Contact with the endangered Andaman tribes living in isolation from the world is illegal because of the risks to them from outside disease.

Estimates say the Sentinelese, who are totally cut off from civilisation, number only between 50 and 150.

Local media have reported that Chau may have wanted to meet the tribe to preach Christianity to them.

But on social media the young man presented himself as a keen traveller and adventurer.

"Police said Chau had previously visited North Sentinel island about four or five times with the help of local fishermen," journalist Subir Bhaumik, who has been covering the islands for years, told BBC Hindi.

"The number of people belonging to the Sentinelese tribe is so low, they don't even understand how to use money. It's in fact illegal to have any sort of contact with them."

In 2017, the Indian government also said taking photographs or making videos of the aboriginal Andaman tribes would be punishable with imprisonment of up to three years.

The AFP news agency quoted a source as saying that Chau had tried and failed to reach the island on 14 November. But then he tried again two days later.

"He was attacked by arrows but he continued walking.

"The fishermen saw the tribals tying a rope around his neck and dragging his body. They were scared and fled," the report added.

Chau's body was spotted on 20 November. According to the Hindustan Times, his remains have yet to be recovered.

"It's a difficult case for the police," says Mr Bhaumik. "You can't even arrest the Sentinelese."

getting BTFO by Pajeet an-prims is pretty embarrassing way to go

 

[AprilRains]

The issue is how much population you need to avoid adverse effects from it, and what practices could mitigate that. I'd assume they have some kind of elaborate system on who can marry who if they're still around at all.

i dunno, lemme go ask

 

[Marvin]

The issue is how much population you need to avoid adverse effects from it, and what practices could mitigate that. I'd assume they have some kind of elaborate system on who can marry who if they're still around at all.

Certainly, though I think people were claiming that with tricky math, you could avoid any inbreeding at all.

 

[ICametoLurk]

WASHINGTON: A US fundamentalist Christian group has sought murder charges against "those responsible" for the death of American adventurer and provocateur John Allen Chau, amid growing doubts about his evangelical credentials and ridicule over his conversion efforts directed at an ancient tribe that predates organised religion.

https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/m.ti...inst-sentinelese/amp_articleshow/66776223.cms

 

[frozenrunner]

WASHINGTON: A US fundamentalist Christian group has sought murder charges against "those responsible" for the death of American adventurer and provocateur John Allen Chau, amid growing doubts about his evangelical credentials and ridicule over his conversion efforts directed at an ancient tribe that predates organised religion.

https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/m.ti...inst-sentinelese/amp_articleshow/66776223.cms

This would have made a better starting point for Rambo 4 tbh.

 

[idosometimes]

Inbreeding is not bad by itself. If you had super genes and sibling with super genes, you would get super offspring, not CWC. Issues of inbreeding are reduced variability and it becomes more likely for people to pick up to copies of bad recessive genes, which is the big worry about inbreeding. Think back to your studies where you learned about Howie Mendel and his pea plants. If you have small brain recessive gene and sisterwife has small brain recessive gene, you have 25% chance of having small brain child and 75% chance of keeping that gene alive for another generation. If you do not have that gene, your odds are same likelihood of mutation as other people. These populations would be much more affected by natural selection. They are not taking autistic disabled kid down to the hospital. Nature just takes its course. This reduces burden of bad genes. When it comes to whole people, you are dealing with more genes, but the problem does not change.

Lack of variation can reduce ability to withstand environment or make it more difficult for population to survive. If genes of tribe cause arteries to fatally harden and clog by age 25, the population would decline even with people having kids at age 15. It would put too much strain on young people and reduce social "wisdom". The savages here could have genetic weaknesses that would make it hard for them outside their little savage island.

 

[Dracula's Spirit Animal]

We know almost nothing about them so all we can do is guess. Even if they are hunter gatherers, they've obviously been able to maintain their food supply over a prolonged period of time regardless of natural disasters - which is quite an accomplishment given the tiny space they inhabit.

We don't really know what animals are on the island or even what plants grow there, let alone whether the inhabitants undertake any crude forms of agriculture or animal husbandry. Clearly, they have access to fresh water. They're presumed to have no knowledge of how to make fire, but that's based on questionable observations from the 1800s.

It's kind of interesting how attitudes about what's ethical have changed. If these people were exotic animals, we'd be looking at captive breeding programmes to try to save them from extinction but there seems to be common agreement that leaving them to their fate is the only ethical option. Not all that long ago, such a policy would have been viewed as genocidal.

If you look on Google Earth at 11 35' 00'' N 92 12' 43'' E, it looks to me like some sort of organized crop area. Could be wrong, but it looks like it to me.

 

[Tookie]

Supposedly they've been there as long as 55,000 years, so either there used to be more of them (or there actually are more of them than estimated), or they've somehow survived this long anyway. Or they used to have more contact with other tribes that no longer exist. Or they're already dying off and this is just the remnants.

It's a combination of all of those. Their population is rapidly dwindling and they would have had occasional infusions of DNA from other tribes prior to industrialization. Another thing to take into account is that their living conditions contribute to having brief and shitty lives, most of them probably just aren't living long enough for most of the genetic problems to even crop up. They presumably aren't marrying off first-degree relatives so most of the severe birth defects won't be there and they probably die of some tropical bullshit before anything else can rear its head.

 

[Dysnomia]

WASHINGTON: A US fundamentalist Christian group has sought murder charges against "those responsible" for the death of American adventurer and provocateur John Allen Chau, amid growing doubts about his evangelical credentials and ridicule over his conversion efforts directed at an ancient tribe that predates organised religion.

https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/m.ti...inst-sentinelese/amp_articleshow/66776223.cms

So murder charges against people who have zero concept of modern civilized law? They literally have no idea that what they did was wrong. In fact, whether it was wrong at all is something that is open to debate. I personally don't think the tribe did anything wrong. They are no contact and don't want to interact with the outside world. Then this idiot decides to go and spread the word of Jeebus to people. And he knew he wasn't supposed to be there.

You can't punish the Sentinalese for this. There's no way to even explain to them what is going on. Even if there was no language barrier you'd hit a brick wall when trying to explain the concept of the law. They are living thousands of years in the past and aren't even remotely familiar with the way the modern justice systems work. Even in backwards places like India. I guarantee it would be deemed that they are unfit to stand trial and there would be a human rights disaster in the media over it.

We know almost nothing about them so all we can do is guess. Even if they are hunter gatherers, they've obviously been able to maintain their food supply over a prolonged period of time regardless of natural disasters - which is quite an accomplishment given the tiny space they inhabit.

We don't really know what animals are on the island or even what plants grow there, let alone whether the inhabitants undertake any crude forms of agriculture or animal husbandry. Clearly, they have access to fresh water. They're presumed to have no knowledge of how to make fire, but that's based on questionable observations from the 1800s.

It's kind of interesting how attitudes about what's ethical have changed. If these people were exotic animals, we'd be looking at captive breeding programmes to try to save them from extinction but there seems to be common agreement that leaving them to their fate is the only ethical option. Not all that long ago, such a policy would have been viewed as genocidal.

They likely have some simple horticulture going on. Other similar tribes do.

If they didn't make fire back in the 19th century then we don't know if they have since discovered it. It seems strange that a tribe would go thousands of years without discovering a survival basic like making fire. But then again, they may not have much need for it if they've gotten along fine without it all this time.

You don't really need a lot of people to avoid this actually. Its been estimated you only need around 160 people to avoid any sort of inbreeding or genetic drift. Its been estimated that their population is as low as 50 (which wouldn't be enough) to as high as 400 (which would be). There's no accurate count and they've lasted as long as 60k years, so we can assume their population is at least at or over 160. Nobody really knows though.

The guy also probably needed to die because if he brought the flu with him, he'd probably wipe out the whole fucking island. They have no genetic immunity to modern diseases and its been luck that they haven't contracted anything with the minimal contact they've had. Probably because they murder and toss the bodies out into the sea of anyone who stays too long.

Hope he didn't pass anything on before he passed on then.

 

[Tookie]

The guy also probably needed to die because if he brought the flu with him, he'd probably wipe out the whole fucking island. They have no genetic immunity to modern diseases and its been luck that they haven't contracted anything with the minimal contact they've had. Probably because they murder and toss the bodies out into the sea of anyone who stays too long.

Interestingly, a National Geographic expedition in the 70's left them a live pig as a gift and the Sentilinese promptly killed it and buried it on the beach. I kind of wonder if they were hit with an epidemic in the past and some of their hostility to outsiders is rooted in some primitive understanding of that.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/world/asia/american-killed-andaman-island-tribe.html

Once, when Mr. Pandit’s expedition offered a pig to the Sentinelese, two members of the tribe walked to the edge of the beach, “speared it” and buried it in the sand.

During another encounter, Mr. Pandit was separated from his colleagues and left alone in the water. A young tribesman on the beach pulled out a knife and “made a sign as if he was carving out my body.”

“He threatened; I understood,” Mr. Pandit said. “Contact was different with the Sentinelese,” he added, noting that the Jarawa, another tribe, “invited us to come ashore and sang songs.”

 

[Gorillagorillagorilla]

Imagine the genetics of these guys. Esepcially since they've been isolated since the last Ice Age

 

[AnOminous]

So murder charges against people who have zero concept of modern civilized law? They literally have no idea that what they did was wrong.

They did nothing wrong anyway.

 

[AprilRains]

They did nothing wrong anyway.

They have the right to set their foreign and domestic policy. They have done so, and have communicated it in a language which does not require translation. Those who insist on ignoring it shall attend a Mass for the Dead without having to kneel.

 

[TowinKarz]

Also, western legal ethics require you to bring charges against a person, or "person" as the law defines it.

You can't indict a whole tribe for murder (at least not a true and honest tribe that still lives as one, as opposed to a "modern" tribal authority that has a mailbox, police force and casino under their control)

If you don't know who put the fatal arrow in our dumb-ass evangelical, there's no way to get "justice" in any fair sense of the word, leaving all the other complications mentioned above out of it as there is no way to even investigate the "crime" if you grant one happened at all.

Unless what you really mean by "justice" is blow the whole island up so whoever did it at least feels your wrath.

 

[AprilRains]

Also, western legal ethics require you to bring charges against a person, or "person" as the law defines it.

You can't indict a whole tribe for murder (at least not a true and honest tribe that still lives as one, as opposed to a "modern" tribal authority that has a mailbox, police force and casino under their control)

If you don't know who put the fatal arrow in our dumb-ass evangelical, there's no way to get "justice" in any fair sense of the word, leaving all the other complications mentioned above out of it as there is no way to even investigate the "crime" if you grant one happened at all.

Unless what you really mean by "justice" is blow the whole island up so whoever did it at least feels your wrath.

Oh, no. I'm not letting you get away with that. I'll have you know I've watched a bunch of episodes of Law & Order, especially those starring Sam Waterston as Jack McCoy. And his trademark move was the conspiracy charge.

That dude would charge anyone with conspiracy just to get them to talk. I swear, I think all of his law books fall open to chapters on conspiracy. His theories of these conspiracies were frequently contrived, but the threat of prosecution was usually plausible, and it got people to cut deals.

This? This is cake. This tribe is clearly part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy to murder people who approach the island. Hang them all!

 

[repentance]

Also, western legal ethics require you to bring charges against a person, or "person" as the law defines it.

India regards North Sentinel Island as sovereign, so the only "laws" which govern the island are those of the islanders themselves. I suspect their "laws" allow them to kill outsiders who enter their territory, meaning there is literally nothing to charge people with.

 

[Olhelm]

Bahahahaha. Trying to teach violent isolationists about Jesus when their language isn't even documented and then coming back after insulting them.

I expect a film about this to be made soon. The North Sentinelese are honestly extremely fascinating and I cannot wait for this guy's complete journal to be made public.

 

[AprilRains]

I expect a film about this to be made soon. The North Sentinelese are honestly extremely fascinating and I cannot wait for this guy's complete journal to be made public.

Werner Herzog is very good at subjects like this.

 

[repentance]

Bahahahaha. Trying to teach violent isolationists about Jesus when their language isn't even documented and then coming back after insulting them.

I expect a film about this to be made soon. The North Sentinelese are honestly extremely fascinating and I cannot wait for this guy's complete journal to be made public.

His journal is going to be all about himself and God. He had extremely brief contact with the islanders, so whatever he wrote will be boring.

I agree that the North Sentinelese and other lost tribes are fascinating, and it's a shame there's no way to learn more about them without endangering them and/or changing their way of life.

 

[Telomayonnaise]

Only a matter of time before the north Sugandese here catch a case of Ligma

 

[Maxliam]

We should just drop agent orange on the entire island.