ABOUT THE ISLAND

North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands, an Indian archipelago in the Bay of
Bengal which also includes South Sentinel Island.[8] It is home to the Sentinelese, an indigenous
people in voluntary isolation who have defended, often by force, their protected isolation from the
outside world.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Act of 1956[9] prohibits travel to
the island, and any approach closer than 5 nautical miles (9.3 km), in order to protect the
remaining tribal community from "mainland" infectious diseases against which they (likely) have
no acquired immunity. The area is patrolled by the Indian Navy.[10]
North Sentinel lies 36 km (22 mi) west of the town of Wandoor in South Andaman Island,[2] 50 km
(31 mi) west of Port Blair, and 59.6 km (37.0 mi) north of its counterpart South Sentinel Island. It
has an area of about 59.67 km 2 (23.04 sq mi) and a roughly square outline
The island is largely covered in tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forest. A large coral
reef is known to circle the island, and mangroves are also known to fringe its banks.

About the tribe

The Sentinelese, also known as the Sentineli and the North Sentinel Islanders, are
an indigenous people who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal in the
northeastern Indian Ocean. Designated a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group and a Scheduled
Tribe, they belong to the broader class of Andamanese peoples.

Along with the Great Andamanese, the Jarawas, the Onge, the Shompen, and the Nicobarese,
the Sentinelese are one of the six native and often reclusive peoples of the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands. Unlike the others, the Sentinelese appear to have consistently refused any
interaction with the outside world. They are hostile to outsiders and have killed people who
approached or landed on the island.[1]
In 1956, the Government of India declared North Sentinel Island a tribal reserve and prohibited
travel within 3 nautical miles (5.6 kilometres) of it. It further maintains a constant armed patrol in
the surrounding waters to prevent intrusions by outsiders. Photography is prohibited. There is
significant uncertainty as to the group's size, with estimates ranging between 35 and 500
individuals, but mostly between 50 and 200.

Practices
The Sentinelese are hunter-gatherers. They likely use bows and arrows to hunt terrestrial wildlife
and more rudimentary methods to catch local seafood, such as mud crabs[disambiguation needed] and
molluscan shells. They are believed to eat a lot of molluscs, given the abundance of roasted
shells found in their settlements.[5] They are not known to engage in agriculture.[16][17][18]
Dressing

Both sexes wear bark strings; the men tuck daggers into their waist belts. [5] They also wear some
ornaments such as necklaces and headbands, but are essentially naked. [19][20][21] Usual habitations
include small temporary huts erected on four poles with slanted leaf-covered roofs.[22][page needed]

Tools and weapons

Sentinelese appreciate the value of metal, having scavenged it to create tools and weapons, and
accepted aluminium cookware left by the National Geographic Society in 1974.[9] There is no
evidence of their having knowledge of metallurgy outside of cold forging to make tools such as
arrow heads

Canoes are used for lagoon-fishing, but long poles rather than paddles or oars propel
them.[5][25] They seldom use the canoes for cross-island navigation.[25] Artistic engravings of simple
geometric designs and shade contrasts have been seen on their weapons.[5]
Culture

The women have been seen to dance by slapping both palms on the thighs whilst simultaneously
tapping the feet rhythmically in a bent-knee stance.[5]

Housing

It is thought that the Sentinelese live in three small bands. They have two
different types of houses; large communal huts with several hearths for a
number of families, and more temporary shelters, with no sides, which can
sometimes be seen on the beach, with space for one nuclear family.
Boats
The Sentinelese fish in coastal waters.Unlike the neighbouring Jarawa tribe,
they make boats – these are very narrow outrigger canoes, described as ‘too
narrow to fit two feet in’. These can only be used in shallow waters as they are
steered and propelled with a pole like a punt.
Conclusion
From what can be seen from a distance, the Sentinelese islanders are clearly
extremely healthy and thriving, in marked contrast to the Great Andamanese
tribes to whom the British attempted to bring ‘civilization’. The people who are
seen on the shores of North Sentinel look proud, strong and healthy and at
any one time observers have noted many children and pregnant women.

Their extreme isolation makes them very vulnerable to diseases to which they
have no immunity, meaning contact would almost certainly have tragic
consequences for them.

Following a campaign by Survival and local organisations, the Indian

government abandoned plans to contact the Sentinelese, and their current
position is still that no further attempts to contact the tribe will be made.