What a tragedy.We could've done far more to have kept this jewel of humanity alive for posterity.60+ years after independence,we must ask,did we do enough for them?
Last of the Bo takes her language to the grave as 65,000-year-old tribe dies out
Jeremy Page in Delhi
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The last member of a unique tribe that inhabited the Andaman Islands for as long as 65,000 years has died of old age — taking to the grave with her one of the country’s many endangered languages.
Boa Sr, who died last week aged about 85, was the last member of the Bo — one of the ten Great Andamanese tribes that are considered indigenous inhabitants of the islands, which lie 750 miles off the east coast of India.
She was the oldest of all the Great Andamanese tribespeople, who now number only 52 among the archipelago’s total population of about 300,000, the vast majority of whom are recent immigrants from mainland India.
She was also the last speaker of the Bo language, which is distinct from those of the other Great Andamanese tribes, according to Anvita Abbi, a professor of linguistics at Jawaharlal National University in Delhi.
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Professor Abbi, who had known Boa since 2005, said that she had been losing her sight in recent years and was unable to converse with anyone in her own language since the other surviving Bo speaker died several years ago.
“She was the only person left who spoke Bo,” Professor Abbi told The Times. “At times, she felt very isolated and lonely as she had no one to talk to in her own language.” Boa had no children, and her husband died several years ago.
She could, however, communicate with others in a local version of Hindi and in Great Andamanese, which is an amalgam of all the ten tribal languages, according to Professor Abbi.
“We had an odd relationship, but also a very intense one,” she said.
“I spent a long time with her in the jungle and shared many moments with her. She was very proud to be the last member of the Bo.”
The loss of Boa and her mother tongue highlights the plight of the indigenous people on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a key Indian naval outpost that foreigners can visit only with a special permit.
The only indigenous tribe that is relatively intact is the Sentinelese, who ban any contact with outsiders and were famously photographed firing arrows at an Indian helicopter after the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004.
Genetic studies suggest that the islands’ indigenous tribes are the descendants of early humans who migrated from Africa to the sub-continent and then to South East Asia about 70,000 years ago.
There were about 5,000 Great Andamanese living on the islands when the British colonised them in 1858. Many were either killed, or died of diseases carried by the colonists.
Initially, the British used the islands as penal colonies where they imprisoned leaders of the 1857 Indian Mutiny and other Indian freedom fighters, many of them in the infamous Cellular Jail in Port Blair.
They also tried to “civilise” the tribes by moving many of them to one island and forcing them to live in an “Andaman Home”.
Of the 150 children born in the home, none lived beyond the age of 2, according to Survival International, a group that campaigns for the rights of indigenous people.
Boa was born in the jungle of the northern Andamans and grew up in traditional society, learning to gather wild potatoes and hunt for wild pigs, turtles and fish.
In the mid-1970s, the Indian Government moved the Great Andamanese tribes to a single island near Port Blair. She then lived in a government-provided hut with concrete walls and a tin roof, surviving on state food rations and a pension of about 500 rupees (£6.80) a month.
“She always said she wanted to go back to the place where she was born,” Professor Abbi said. “Alcohol was a big problem. It was killing them one by one.” She said that Boa also told her she felt the neighbouring Jarawa tribe, which is still relatively numerous, was lucky to live in the forest away from the settlers.
Boa survived the tsunami of December 2004, which killed 3,513 people on the islands, and told linguists afterwards: “We were all there when the earthquake came. The eldest told us ‘the Earth would part, don’t run away or move’.”
The king of the Bo tribe died in 2005, leaving only a handful of elderly members who also died over the next five years.
Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, urged the Indian Government not to resettle any the Jawara or other indigenous tribes, and to allow them more say in their own lives. “With the death of Boa Sr and the extinction of the Bo language, a unique part of human society is now just a memory,” he said.
“Boa’s loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands.”
Plight of the Andamanese
• The Andamanese tribes had little contact with the outside world until the mid-19th century because of their reputation for hostility
• Their small height, dark pigmentation and unusual hair categorise them as part of the “Negrito” peoples of Africa and Asia.
• The Great Andamanese, once ten linked tribes, now number 52. They were moved to the tiny Strait Island in 1970 by India; many suffer from alcoholism
• Of the other Andaman tribes, the Jarawa are one of the most endangered. Their 200-300 strong population has had some contact with the outside world since 1998. They live in nomadic bands and hunt pigs and lizards
• The Sentinelese live on their own island, North Sentinel, and have no contact with outsiders, attacking any who come near. After the 2004 tsunami they were photographed and shown around the world firing arrows at a helicopter
• The Onge of Little Andaman Island call themselves En-iregale, meaning “perfect person”, and now number about 100
Sources: Survival International, International Journal of Human Genetics, American Journal of Human Genetics
