DireWolfSpirit Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 This is fascinating. The Jarawa tribe are an isolated Indian tribe who are living in a "protected status", with the Indian government striving to minimize outside contact to them. From the NYTimes article- Quote The Jarawas, who number about 400 and whom one geneticist described as “arguably the most enigmatic people on our planet,” are believed to have migrated from Africa around 50,000 years ago. They are very dark-skinned, small in stature and until 1998 lived in complete cultural isolation, shooting outsiders with steel-tipped arrows if they came too near. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/14/world/asia/india-jarawas-child-murder.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darzin Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 I find it so fascinating how groups like this can still exist. The fact that people alive today no nothing of electricity or flight or a million other things just boggles my mind. But you don't need to go to the paleolithic to get that different. 90% of the worlds poorest 48 countries do not have regular internet access. Having been to Tajikistan some of the far out villages are basically medieval with almost nothing on common with our modern way of life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckwheat Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 Fascinating. I wonder how they communicate, which language do they speak. It is probably also a very isolated language, not related to any other known language groups. It seems that they have some contact with people outside their community, that probably means the outsiders learn their language to communicate with them. On the case described in the article, it sounds very problematic. I know that such groups need to have special protection to keep their way of life if they so choose, but on the other hand, I have a problem with this part: Quote “I think they have the right to maintain the purity of their race. If they decide such a child should be wasted, let them do it.” Which is really giving a group of people the right to be deeply, Nazi-level racist. And I do not think special treatment and protection should be extended that far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 Yes Darzin, Buckwheat, it really makes me introspective about my relationship to humanity. I remember reading about a few isolated cultures in the past in the Amazon, New Guinea, and West Africa from various sources. Their stories really left an impression on me. I hadnt been aware of the Jarawa tribe before this. Most of those other groups had began having isolated contact to some extent by the 1960's or 1970's, for this aboriginal group to remain intact and undisturbed till 1998 is surprising. I believe the article said they have a 300 sq mi. area they inhabit on some island territory off the Indian coast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 Paleolithic means they use chipped stone tools. If they were using polished stone then they would be neolithic. Steel tipped arrows puts them firmly into the modern age, especially if they in fact do live in isolation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 If they are killing people action needs to be taken and due process should take its course. Cultural relativism shouldn't allow for them to come into another community and kill someone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 There's another tribe, on the same island group but on one that's otherwise uninhabited, who are even more isolated. The Sentinelese. They violently react to anyone trying to land on their island, so in time governments have simply decided to leave them be. It's different with these Jarawa if they share their land with others though, and in any case, it sounds like they're by their own choice no longer as isolated as the people in charge seem to be pretending. I mean, if they're going to hospital to give birth or to post-natal clinics I think you can wave bye-bye to the notion that their culture is completely untouched. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 2 hours ago, maarsen said: Paleolithic means they use chipped stone tools. If they were using polished stone then they would be neolithic. Steel tipped arrows puts them firmly into the modern age, especially if they in fact do live in isolation. my first response also. they are obviously conning all'y'all with this pre-historic routine. they are transarchaeological malingerers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted March 14, 2016 Author Share Posted March 14, 2016 2 hours ago, maarsen said: Paleolithic means they use chipped stone tools. If they were using polished stone then they would be neolithic. Steel tipped arrows puts them firmly into the modern age, especially if they in fact do live in isolation. Read the caption of the tribesman pictured. It shows him using a piece of foraged metal to chip a stone arrowhead I believe. Regardless the paleolithic tag comes from the article. They are grouped as uncontacted peoples such as some of the very deep jungle Amazonian tribes. Uncontacted peoples - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Wikipedia › wiki › Uncontacted_peoples Members of an uncontacted tribe encountered in the Brazilian state of Acre in 2009. Uncontacted people, also referred to as isolated people or lost tribes, are communities who live, or have lived, either ... Ishi - Chứt people - Jarawa - Pintupi Nine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnar of Skagos Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 37 minutes ago, polishgenius said: There's another tribe, on the same island group but on one that's otherwise uninhabited, who are even more isolated. The Sentinelese. They violently react to anyone trying to land on their island, so in time governments have simply decided to leave them be. It's different with these Jarawa if they share their land with others though, and in any case, it sounds like they're by their own choice no longer as isolated as the people in charge seem to be pretending. I mean, if they're going to hospital to give birth or to post-natal clinics I think you can wave bye-bye to the notion that their culture is completely untouched. Have you seen some of the videos on youtube of people attempting to contact them? Pretty interesting stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 Xray, Internal is harder and I think we should stay out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 Deeerp. I managed to accidentally delete my own post. Anyway, my post pointed out that the killing happened within the tribe, not that a tribe member killed someone outside of the tribe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnar of Skagos Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 They've got to be pretty inbred as well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Yes...although inbreeding isn't necessarily deleterious. It usually is, but if your inbred population is stable based on the selection pressures against it, then that population can persist for a long while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted March 15, 2016 Author Share Posted March 15, 2016 On closer exam that arrow (from article picture) is metal (foraged) and he is shaping it with a stone tool apparently. Nevertheless, I defer to anthropologists on what their classification should be, whether it's correctly paleolithic, hunter gatherer, lost tribe, uncontacted people etc. ( Isolated culture or isolated people seems a good description and works fine for me.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 On closer exam that arrow (from article picture) is metal (foraged) and he is shaping it with a stone tool apparently. Nevertheless, I defer to anthropologists on what their classification should be, whether it's correctly paleolithic, hunter gatherer, lost tribe, uncontacted people etc. ( Isolated culture or isolated people seems a good description and works fine for me.) The part about 'still in pre-history' makes them sound like time travellers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted March 15, 2016 Author Share Posted March 15, 2016 There is Tirur the lady quoted in the article who described how interaction with the tribe is conducted by keeping in mind "they are in pre-civilization", prehistory is defined as being in the era before written records. There is ongoing debate over the appropriate contact. What medical treatment that has been made available has been in what the article referred to as "isolation wards", also discussed is that some contact has been made by what they termed outreach workers. It doesn't tell us a lot of detail about the outreach workers, are there trained anthropologists among them or nurses maybe? One school of thought argues that any contact at all is detrimental, so officials have an ongoing balancing act over this post 1998 interaction. While the pace of change does have some alarmed according to the article. Some are questioning whether the Jarawa are being given the appropriate choice whether to remain this isolated or experience more integration. This (debate) seems to be an ongoing theme from other instances when modernity has came in contact with isolated cultures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Arryn Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Just awesome they didn't accidentally exist on an oil field or copper mine, else they'd have long ago suffered for their barbaric aggression towards innocent traellers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted March 15, 2016 Author Share Posted March 15, 2016 28 minutes ago, James Arryn said: Just awesome they didn't accidentally exist on an oil field or copper mine, else they'd have long ago suffered for their barbaric aggression towards innocent traellers Yes I suppose had they been in a strategic area the worlds powers would've needed to "bomb them to bring them democracy" or some similar altruistic measure of cleansing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnar of Skagos Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 More than anything, I would be worried about them growing sick through contact with outside forces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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