The Land of Naked People: Encounters With Stone Age Islanders

by Madhusree Mukerjee

On a lush, remote island, modern civilization has recently made contact with what may be the last group of Stone Age people. The Sentinelese wear no clothes, do not know how to start a fire, and have fervently rejected the intrusion of outsiders. But that is changing, writes Madhusree Mukerjee, who has had exceptional access to that island and the others that make up the Andaman chain in the Bay of Bengal.
Over seven years, Mukerjee found that other aboriginals on the islands have abandoned their ancient ways for enticements such as motorcycles and plastic toys. The price: outsiders have taken critical land, introduced serious diseases, and left the natives with a broken sense of self. This book offers unprecedented insights into the processes of colonization and modernization, the persistence of harmful myths about “savages,” and the perennially fraught relationship between light- and dark-skinned peoples.
Mukerjee gives us a fascinating look at a world nearly gone. Combining anthropological findings with historical accounts and personal travel stories, she lets us glimpse a primeval, disappearing humanity.

Genres: Nonfiction, India, Travel, History, Asia, Anthropology

268 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2003

About the author

Malcolm Gladwell does the Podcast "The Prime Minister and the Prof" in Revisionist History inspired by her book "Churchill's Secret War."

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. Its about the various Stone Age tribes in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, their history and how degrading, demeaning and decimating all contact with modern people has been to them. The modern people were firstly the British, then the Japanese and now the Indians who own the islands. As is in line with empire-builders, the islanders themselves have never been consulted about the transfer of their sovereignity to any foreign power).

The history is confined to contacts over the last three centuries or so; nothing written is available from the tribespeople themselves and no-one seems to have asked them of their oral history. Modern stories are mostly from the point of view of the Indians whose policies of aggression, bribery and totally ignoring the desires of the local populace in favour of their own industries and resettlement of Bangladeshi people are more or less a continuum from the rule of the British in that part of the world.

The author had to get permission to visit the tribal areas. She was aware that each added modern contact would threaten the survival of the tribes still more and acknowledges that she is part of that process. She nevertheless proceeds to try and get permission and when it is refused, goes ahead with her visit anyway. This is where I have a real problem with her stance of "what have we done to the noble savage: we've done so much it can't hurt if I go too and take them some cloth and tobacco bribes". Geez.... Her agenda was obviously something like, 'so if I will have something to write about that not many people have and that will help sell the book and I can make lots and lots of money', otherwise she would have left them alone.

One tribe, the Sentinalese, live on a very isolated island, which the author also tries to reach but gets no further than a boat off-shore. These people have kept their freedom and seem to be living in their own way. No-one has yet got past their bows and arrows to penetrate the interior to begin logging and selling their patrimony. It will happen, but let's hope that their aggression and the world's eye keeps modernity just off shore.

Totally rewritten after a reread on 17th July 2019

[Lisa McKenzie · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only drama here is unintentional, as we witnesses the author grasp desperately for a fascinating story to justify her Guggenheim grant. It remains out of her reach.

[Thaths · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has been in my Amazon wish list for some time. I am familiar with the author's writing from having subscribed to Scientific American for a decade. I had high hopes for this book.

However, I was disappointed. The book is about India's far flung provice / colony / territory called the Andaman islands. The islands are closer to Indonesia, Burma and Thailand than to mainland India.

The work is divided into four books named after the four major tribes in the islands - Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa and Sentinelese.

The books flits back and forth through time - alternating between describing first contact during colonial times and the more modern tragedy of contact between the mainland Indians and the Andamanese. The narrative of the modern bits is highly disjoint. I wish the author would just plain come out and say what she had to say instead of agonizing with half articulated thoughts.

[Vincent T. Ciaramella · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a book that could have been interesting but never got off the ground. I feel like the author was reaching for a story that just wasn't there. Most of these tribes have been documented and I was looking for a more anthropological look at their customs and history. Most of this book details run ins with British or other sailors during the 19th century or India's mistreatment of the aborigines. But these short parts are just anecdotal and not really all that informative. The rest is the authors journey to and from various islands.

I was really interested in the Sentinelese people. I know not much is know about them but I was hoping to grab some more info other than the "drive by" the author did of the island.

I hope in the future someone puts out a serious work on these people along with the other tribes of these islands that focuses on more science and less on some romantic encounters with strange people.

[Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Mukerjee's anthropological memoir describing the current life of the people of the Andaman Islands to be extremely gripping. Known for centuries in the outside world as the most "primitive" humans in existence, so primal in their lifestyle that they had not even mastered fire, they were often looked upon as little better than animals. Mukerjee cites and quotes myriad period documents that describe the interplay between the outsiders who took control of the Andaman Islands, first the British, followed by India, up to current attempts to bring the last of the stone age tribes fully into contemporary Indian society.

I feel that Mukerjee does a wonderful job describing a culture that is nearly unknown and showing that currently, the last remaining Andaman Islanders untouched by foreign influences are slowly being integrated into modern culture whether they want it or not, representing the last confrontation between a powerful colonial culture and one left unchanged, perhaps being the one we can do something about.

[Niyati Mirajkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enlightening insight into the lives of the aboriginals of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the context of post colonization and modernization in the Indian Archipelago.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is poorly organized. The author intersperses historical information with modern-day information, based around her research trips to the island. However, neither the historical nor contemporary events unfolded in order. There are several tribal groups spread over the islands, which are distinct from each other; how, exactly, isn't well-shown. She repeatedly mentions a number of people she encounters on her repeated visits to the island, but doesn't give enough information for them to be distinct individuals.

[Achyuth Sanjay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim before a vacation to the Andamans, and quite enjoyed reading it. It’s a good read for anyone with a casual interest in the anthropology and history of the Andamanese people and their islands, and is interspersed with typical stories of interactions with (invariably corrupt) Indian bureaucrats, interesting locals as well as some members of the tribes she speaks about. Halfway through reading the book, it did evoke some existential questions - why indeed do we need to know more about these people, answer anthropological questions etc when in such a delicate ecosystem these very interactions can threaten or endanger their existence. I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty that this is the risk that we (the non Andamanese apparently ‘civilized folks’) impose on them forcefully, all to what end - to satiate our curiosity? Is it worth it?

In terms of writing, I quite liked the writers style - it’s very free flowing following her train of thought jumping from
British era anecdotes to her present day experiences - which may not be everyone’s cup of tea especially if you’re looking for something a little more tangible and serious. However I am not a big fan of the title- I understand it’s a reference to the supposed etymology of the name of the islands, but I still felt it was a bit reductionist and sensationalist. Being naked is far from their defining characteristic and calling attention to that only reinforces the same surprise/shock/disdain that the author herself calls out as insensitivity as part of the locals/settlers.

[Celia Sánchez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book covers the major tribes of Andaman Islands.Four major tribes are Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa and Sentinelese. Whether they want it or not,there are current attempts to bring the last of the stone age tribes fully into contemporary Indian society.The author also tries to reach out to Sentinalese tribe who lives on a live on a very isolated island but gets no further than a boat off-shore.No one has ever figured out exactly why they are so hostile to outsiders and their language remains a mystery.Anthropologists believe the people on this island descended from migrants from Africa who came to the Andamans thousands of years ago. North Sentinel is among a shrinking handful of Andaman Islands home to people who still, in 2018, have had very little contact with the outside world.

Add to it : John Allen Chau, a 26-year-old from Washington State, paid a group of fisherman $350 to take him to North Sentine(to spread christianity) under the cover of darkness. Fishermen had warned him not to go.He enetred the island and was brutally killed by the tribes ....

https://www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...

informative read .....

[Tim Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

_The Land of Naked People_ by Madhusree Mukerjee is an interesting and informative account of one of the last stone age peoples in the world (or what is left of them), native peoples of the Andaman Islands, a archipelago located north of the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean, a people that according to archaeologists, linguists, and geneticists have been isolated from the rest of the world for tens of thousands of years. Mukerjee interwove personal accounts of travels to the islands and interviews with government officials, researchers, activists, local residents, and the tribesmen themselves with vivid historical narratives of early contact situations, warfare with, and research on these aboriginal peoples.

The people of the Andamans, long known to Asian and European travelers, were feared for centuries as cannibals and headhunters. They were often referred to as "dog-people," as sub-human; in the nineteenth century some were displayed in the Calcutta zoo, where Bengali visitors took them to be descendents of the monkey god Hanuman, and as late as 1925 a paper published in _Man_, a journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, defined the Andaman as a new species of human, _Homo mincopoeus_. Simultaneously intriguing and repulsing Arab, Chinese, and British travelers by their casual nudity (the natives wore virtually no clothing), ferocity towards outsiders (many of the historical accounts are of hostile first encounters and "punitive expeditions" against islanders), and their physical features that were more African than Asian, the islanders were little bothered for centuries, the islands mostly unsettled despite being located on major trade routes between India and China. Though outside civilization has become increasingly dominant in the last 200 years or so, there are still remote areas in the archipelago; the one hundred or so individuals who make the island of North Sentinel their home are still very much a stone age people (though many technically no longer use stone but rather work metal from nuts and bolts that wash up on their shores into arrowheads) who may be among the most isolated humans on earth (though how long they will stay isolated is a matter of some concern).

Mukerjee divided the Andaman islanders into four groups. About ten tribes (at one time during colonial times comprised of as many as 5,000-8,000 people) made up a group called the Great Andamanese, occupying most of the Great Andamans (the South, Middle, and North Andaman Islands) and several adjacent smaller islands. They were at war with the elusive Jarawa, a small group that numbered at one time as many as 600, a group that lived in the dense western forest of South Andaman. Seven hundred or so Onge tribal members lived on Little Andaman, a sizable island farther south, and a hundred Sentinelese lived on the eighteen square miles of North Sentinel off to the west.

The author painted a vivid picture of an interesting group of people. Though only distantly related to the Congo Pygmies, they were originally similar in many respects; they lived in dense, moist tropical forests in small bands, had peppercorn hair, painted their naked bodies with clay (a practice which the author discussed at length), used bows, arrows, and nets to obtain food, and had extraordinary botanical knowledge. Hunter-gatherers, they subsisted on a variety of plant products, fish, sea turtles (a favorite), dugongs (now virtually extinct in the islands), and a number of forest animals, the most favored of which was the wild boar, believed by some to have descended from the southern Chinese pig. The natives cared greatly for children; among the Great Andamanese it was considered a compliment and a mark of friendship if a married man, after paying a visit, asked his hosts to adopt one of their children; these parents would in turn not only visit frequently their own but adopt others. Several of the groups had taboos against killing certain creatures. The Great Andamanese for instance ruled that it was taboo to kill a certain spider, a type of beetle, two bird species, two fish species, a certain mollusk, and two types of trees. Cicada grubs were much coveted in several of the islands as food, but many were fearful of upsetting Biliku, the northeastern monsoon wind, whom the cicada was the child of; the islanders would be "silent as a mouse" during early morning and late evening singing of the cicadas, not doing any work or making any noise.

Unfortunately much of the book is about the very sad state of the Andaman Islanders. Massive, often illegal, deforestation, even in the protected tribal reserves, has resulted in huge erosion problems, silt runoff that has killed nearshore corals and local fisheries, and deprived the islanders of much food and shelter on every island but North Sentinel. Only 42 Great Andamanese remain, most of them alcoholics (a dependency on alcohol and other substances in the past deliberately encouraged by the authorities), suffering from malnutrition thanks to a diet largely of oil and starch, and many of the children fathered by the welfare staff who are supposed to care for them, Mukerjee documenting how the social workers sometimes took cruel advantage of them. The remaining 100 or so Onge are only a little better off. Disease in the past devastated the islanders and still thins their numbers to this day as they are a people without previous exposure to such illnesses as pneumonia, mumps, and even the common cold. The Jarawa are famous for their resistance, having fiercely fought logging and road construction in their forests, killing laborers and travelers as recently as 1998. Much feared, laborers required guards, police had to escort travelers on the road through their forest; one person told the author, if asked if he ever saw a Jarawa, replied, no, "To see is to die." Though there have been some reverses in favor of the Jarawa in the end it seems that they are doomed to be assimilated into Indian culture if they don't perish from disease and deforestation first.

[Shreeram MV · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a series of anecdotes, personal to the author as well as historic, about the various tribes of Andamans. It gives glimpses into "the last of the planet's first humans". Written in a largely casual style, the author brings out different stories about the Andamanese tribes that help the reader form a picture about their lives in the past and today. It gives some very important examples of how modern civilization continues to overwhelm (sometimes destroy) tribal societies, often condescendingly, by attempts to assimilate them into a world order that is humongous (in all respects) compared to their little islands. If you are curious about the Andamanese tribes, this book is a good place to start.

The book is well-written and is an easy read. Not text-bookish at all. It does get monotonous at times, though. The author's trysts with the government offices for permissions to visit the tribes and some of her escapades are in an ethically grey area - something that the author acknowledges at one place in the book, much to her credit.

[Nallasivan V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A travel + history book covering the major tribes of Andaman Islands. The book's focus is on how the tribal life has changed because of their encounter with the mainland civilization. Andamans have been witnessing the clash of civilization since the 1800s. First, with the British explorers and military trying to establish their foothold on the islands. Later, with the Indian government trying to establish control over the dominion.

Little understanding of the aboriginal way of life meant that these endeavours always ended up affecting them adversely. Over the last two centuries, the various tribes of the islands have lost more than they have gained. Encounters with modern civilization meant they can't go back to their tribal lifestyle. Neither have they assimilated into the mainstream way of living well enough to lead a meaningful life.

Plenty of food for thought, especially if you plan to visit Andaman Islands.

[Actually-A -Badger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth reading! This book uses the (in)famous North Sentinelese tribe as a starting point to talk about the other tribes in the Andaman Islands, who actually have been contacted to various degrees. There's a short chapter about the uncontacted tribe at the end of the book, but be aware that this book doesn't focus on them.

The destruction modern society has brought to the other tribes in the Andaman Islands - most of which has happened only in the past few decades - is genuinely distressing to read. Some of the information is a little outdated now - the notorious "tribe safaris" have since been outlawed, and the slain American missionary isn't discussed - but this book is a valiant effort at bringing attention to the plight of a people who have been abandoned by the world.

[Lalit Singh Tomar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 2003 (before Tsunami). This book is about the aboriginals of Andaman Islands (not the nicobar )

This is a good book to read if you want to know more about the obscure world of aboriginals of Andaman. Basically about the 04 The Great Andamanis , Onge , Jarawas and Sentinels

The narration of this book toggles between the authors own journey in late 90's and historical anecdotes (mainly of Britishers).

I mainly liked the stories related to Britisher ...
There is indeed something more to know about Andaman apart from KALAPANI

[Scifimoth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this to learn more of the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands and especially the mysterious Sentinelese, and indeed it did provide insight in to these peoples; however I learned more of the increasingly poor treatment they have received from the hand of their rulers right to modern times; they've been humiliated, marginalized, hunted, had their lands stolen, forests cleared, and been treated like vermin.

My one complaint with the book is that it does not properly cite the bibliography through the text.

[Peter Kirby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this very informative and useful when I was living on the Andamans.

[Alan Millard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Educational and Informative.

[Mrs. Moore · Rating 1 out of 5]

Warning: If you don't like being depressed, stay away from this book!

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but I got the picture early on in the book.

[Ayush · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive, and adds nothing new.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book read more like a dissertation rather than an informative work of non-fiction. I ended up skimming portions of the back half.