Andamanese update

Andamanese Jarawas are OK: The AP reports:

JIRKATANG, India — Members of the ancient Jarawa tribe (search) emerged from their forest habitat Thursday for the first time since the Dec. 26 tsunami and earthquakes that rocked the isolated Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and in a rare interaction with outsiders announced that all 250 of their fellow tribespeople had survived.

"We are all safe after the earthquake. We are in the forest in Balughat," Ashu, an arrow-wielding Jarawa, said in broken Hindi through an interpreter in a restricted forest area in the northern reaches of South Andaman island (search).

According to varying estimates, there are only 400 to 1,000 members alive today from the Jarawas, Great Andamanese (search), Onges (search), Sentinelese (search) and Shompens (search).

Some anthropological DNA studies indicate the generations may have spanned back 70,000 years. They originated in Africa and migrated to India through Indonesia, anthropologists say.

Government officials and anthropologists believe that ancient knowledge of the movement of wind, sea and birds may have saved the indigenous tribes from the tsunami.

Seven men — wearing only underwear and amulets — emerged from the forest to meet with government and police officials to say they had all fled to the forest and survived by eating coconuts. The men were all carrying bows and five arrows each and wore colored headbands with leaves.

The Jarawa were (along with the Sentinelese, who have their own island) essentially uncontacted until the late 1990s when a young tribesman walked into Port Blair, the urban center of the large Indian colony in the Andamans, and was discovered scavenging through garbage. When attempting to run away, he broke his leg and was hospitalized. In the hospital he discovered the pleasures of television, and when he was released, he started bringing his friends into town to cadge food and watch TV. Unfortunately, their immune systems were overwhelmed by the outside world's germs, and the Jarawa have been victims of several epidemics in recent years.

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