Learning from the Jarawas
“YOUR blood pressure is too high and your nerves are wrecked. Take a trip to a tropical island and relax!” If you’re nervous about the stresses and pressures of modern civilization, this might be the advice you need. Even if not for medical reasons, who can resist such a tempting suggestion? So why not get away from it all by visiting the Andaman Islands, home to the Jarawas?
Andaman Islands? Jarawas? Don’t be embarrassed if you’ve never heard of them as they are far off the beaten track of world tourism. If you look at a map, you will find the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, between India and Myanmar (formerly Burma). This archipelago, made up of some 300 islands, is now the end of the Republic of India.
An uncivilized people?
The islands are home to four Negrito tribes: Great Andamanese, Jarawas, Sentinelese, and Onges. The Negritos, which means “little blacks,” are believed to be remnants of an ancient dark-skinned pygmy race that once inhabited most of Southeast Asia and Oceania. Because of their isolation, they have been called the purest remains of “Stone Age man” or, as Lieutenant Colebrook of the British Army, which once controlled the islands, put it, “the least civilized in the world.”
In 1858, when the British established a penal colony there, the great Andamanese numbered in the thousands. Soon, the diseases of outsiders, measles, syphilis, and others, along with opium addiction and alcoholism, devastated the tribesmen. Now only a few of them, all of mixed blood, remain on the little Strait Island. The Onges suffered a similar fate.
For years, the Jarawa and Sentinelese resisted contact and exploitation by outsiders. Their hostility managed to keep them isolated, but it also earned them a reputation as uncivilized and bloodthirsty cannibals. Relatively a few years ago, when officers from the anthropology department of Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman Islands, attempted to contact one of the North Sentinel Island tribal groups, their launch was met with a barrage of arrows, one that pierced the leg of a photographer.
What made them so hostile? MV Portman, a British officer who administered the islands at the end of the last century, commented: “Upon our arrival, the Jarawa were quiet and harmless to us, nor did they ever bother us, until we began to harass them continuously by inciting the coast. Andamanese contra After a few years of this disturbance, the life of the Jarawas became very hard and in retaliation they began to attack us. It was our fault if the Jarawas became hostile. “
The Jarawa way of life
The Jarawa are semi-nomadic. They live in groups of about 30 and several neighboring groups form a tribe. Each group moves within a well-defined boundary and does not go beyond the territory of other groups. Living in a lush tropical environment, they have no agriculture and no pets. Their livelihood depends on their bows, arrows, and spears for hunting and fishing.
It is part of their way of life that food is shared. So if someone in the group catches a turtle, everyone has a turtle. If one catches a pig, everyone has a pig. In their social order, there are no class distinctions between the haves and the have-nots. “The Jarawa could never be considered poor,” said one of the anthropological officials. “They have everything they need in abundance.”
Something unusual about the Jarawa is that they are among the few peoples in the world who do not know how to start a fire. They get their fire from burning forests set ablaze by lightning during frequent thunderstorms. And they guard their fires with care, keeping them lit and even carrying them when they move.
A nightmare of modern civilization is the breakdown of moral values. “Among the Jarawa, there is no premarital sex,” said the officer quoted above. “Adultery is very rare. A culprit would face strong social disapproval. He would feel so bad that he would leave the community for a period of time before wanting to return.” Do the people who live in your “civilized” community have such a keen sense of morality?
Modern civilization is synonymous with high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, and the like. The Jarawas do not suffer from such diseases. Although small in stature, the men are no taller than five feet [1.5 m] tall and even shorter women have been called “the most perfectly formed little beings there is.” In their own environment, they rarely get sick.
Although religion is not prominent in their lives, the Jarawas have certain rituals regarding the dead. When someone dies, the body is buried and the cabin previously occupied by the deceased is abandoned. After a few months, the body is exhumed. The skull, or more often the lower jaw, is then used by the closest relatives. After a while, other relatives use it in turn. This practice is considered a show of respect for the deceased and is clearly related to their ideas about the dead. The Jarawas believe that there is a soul, a carrier of life, who lives in another world. They also believe that the soul still cares about them, so they won’t do anything to upset it.
A home of abundance
The Jarawas enjoy a richly endowed home. Among the many beautiful plants that dress the islands are the glorious orchids, some of which are only found on these islands. By 1880, according to regional botanist Dr. NP Balakrishnan, some varieties of these orchids “like rare diamonds” were fetching “fabulous prices in England.”
Recently found on Sentinel Island by a German scientist, at the cost of a finger, is the thief crab. The Government Department of Fisheries Exhibition in Port Blair, Andaman Islands, has had a description on a notice board of the thief crab that reads: ‘Dangerous to coconut plantations. Climb coconut trees. Pick the ripe fruit. It breaks the shell with its formidable claws. Drink the fresh water and eat the coconut pulp. Others, however, have questioned whether this crab actually does all of this. While acknowledging that the crab climbs trees, critics say it only breaks open and eats damaged coconuts already on the ground.
What the future holds
Under the influence of modern civilization, will the Jarawas follow the path of the Great Andamanese and the gradual decline of the Onges and perhaps their extinction? Only time will tell. But for centuries, before the outsiders arrived, they had been caring for the home God had given them and selflessly making use of the provisions. His was, in fact, a simple and peaceful way of life. Can we learn anything from the Jarawas?