India is preparing for its first nationwide census in over a decade—and counting the Sentinelese, the world’s most isolated tribe, is proving to be a serious challenge.
Officials are given the tall task of determine how to include the tribe without risking violence or exposing them to disease, according to the Daily Mail.
The Sentinelese, who live on North Sentinel Island, are known for attacking outsiders on sight. In 2006, two Indian fishermen died after drifting nearby in their boat. “They were brutally hacked to death with axes,” and their bodies were displayed on bamboo sticks, an Indian police chief told reporters.
During relief efforts after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, a lone Sentinelese man fired an arrow at a military helicopter that was coming by to check if the small island population was still alive.
India formally recognized the Sentinelese’s right to remain isolated in 2014.
Since then, North Sentinel Island and adjacent waters are now off-limits, patrolled by the Indian Navy, and unauthorized entry is banned. Officials have warned that violating the exclusion zone could result in deadly retaliation. The tribe is legally allowed to defend its territory. Experts caution that attempting any direct contact to count the tribe could lead to violence or a health disaster.
Officials have begun exploring the use of drones or satellite imagery to estimate their population from afar. Still, critics argue such surveillance raises ethical questions and may still provoke hostility.
Hostility to the outside world could stem from an interaction in 1880, when a British colonial officer named Maurice Vidal Portman abducted six members of the Sentinelese tribe. This included an elderly couple and four children, all from the North Sentinel Island.
They were taken to Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a British overseas territory, for "scientific observation.” The couple later died, and the children were returned to their home.
Portman would take photographs of the Andamanese in Port Blair until the end of his stay in the island, documenting information about their anthropological details. He also showed interest in measuring the penises of the Sentinelese.
