Sentinelese contacts: anthropologically revisiting the most reclusive masters of the terra incognita North Sentinel Island

The label “Sentinelese” was etymologically derived from the island’s name by the researchers, administrators, and persons who had briefly contacted them, and not the tribes themselves. The conundrum is that their language, customary laws, traditional knowledge systems, and other social practices are still unknown. They are the most well-built and reclusive band of people with no affinity to neighboring tribes of the same archipelago. From prior contacts, it is evident that they still rely on Stone Age tools like bows, metal arrows, and adzes making them hunter-gatherers of modern times. The populace solely relies on nature for their mundane sustenance and survival. Such intimate relationships and interaction between ecology and social life have shaped a different cultural backdrop among the “Sentinelese” populace. Intriguingly, within such socio-cultural proximities, Jarawas, Onges, and Great Andamanese had developed dissimilar sub-cultures of their own. Time again, researchers and administrators tried to establish contact; herein, some individuals, including the second author, had made amicable contact in goodwill expeditions, but mostly, several other individuals who made contact were faced with unfriendly attitudes. In due course, in post-tsunami expeditions and later various other surveys, a ‘hands-off eyes on’ approach predominated the scene. Following such a suit, the present paper seeks to delve into the complex fabric of the tenable knowledge systems of the “Sentinelese” populace and revisit the various narratives of colonial and post-colonial visits, including that of the second author’s account of the North Sentinel Island.