Informant38

Who are they? The Jarawa are a largely uncontacted people, living on the Andaman Islands in the Indian ocean. Both British and Indian settlers have moved onto their islands over the last 150 years, but the Jarawa have chosen to maintain an almost complete isolation. They are very different in appearance to their Indian neighbours, and DNA tests suggest that their closest relatives are African.

How do they live? Because of the Jarawa's voluntary isolation, and the fact that no one outside the tribe really speaks their language, very little is known about them. We do know that they live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, hunting pig and monitor lizard, fishing with bows and arrows, and gathering seeds, berries and honey. They are nomadic, living in bands of 40-50 people. They resisted all contact with the outside world until 1998, when some Jarawa started coming out of their forest to visit nearby towns and settlements. From what can now be understood of their language, it seems that pressure from poachers on the coast had driven them inland. Although a few Jarawa, particularly women and children, still come out onto the road or into settlements to visit they continue to live a self-sufficient life in the forest.

What problems do they face? The main threats to the Jarawa are encroachment on their land - sparked by the building of a road through their forest in 1970 - and the risk of being settled forcibly - as planned by the authorities in 1991 and urged by a local lawyer in a court case brought in 1999. The road has increasingly brought settlers, poachers and loggers into Jarawa land, who steal the tribe's game and expose them to disease.

Survival International