July 8, 2025 • 9 mins
This small island in the Bay of Bengal is home to one of the last uncontacted peoples on the planet -- and they seem to want to keep it that way. Learn how North Sentinel Island has remained independent in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://history.howstuffworks.com/world-history/north-sentinel-island.htm
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Laurena
volbebom Here. The inhabitants of North Sentinel Island are one
of the few peoples on Earth almost entirely uncontacted by
outside society, and they seem to want to keep it
that way. For centuries, the island's indigenous people, known as
(00:24):
the Sentinels, have rejected most attempts by the outside world
to infiltrate their tropical home in the Bay of Bengal.
It's a fairly small island, only about twenty three square
miles that's around sixty square kilometers. We don't even have
a good idea of how many people live there. Estimates
vary between fifty and five hundred. The few glimpses of
(00:47):
life on North Sentinel Island paint an intriguing picture of
an untouched society of hunter gatherers who live in simple structures,
gather island fruit, spearfish from dugout canoes, and cook over fires.
What's amazing is that this society thrives less than twenty
miles or about thirty kilometers from neighboring islands where indigenous
(01:09):
cultures have integrated with the outside world, not always with
happy results. An Indian anthropologist by the name of Madamala
Chattapadhyai was the first woman to visit the isolated group
in the nineteen nineties, but has vowed never to go back.
In an interview with the National Geographic magazine, she said,
(01:29):
they've been living on the island for centuries without any problem.
Their troubles started after they came into contact with outsiders.
The tribes of the islands do not need outsiders to
protect them. What they need is to be left alone.
Case in point. In twenty eighteen, Norse Sentinel Island made
the news when a young American missionary named John Alan
(01:52):
Chow was killed on the island after repeatedly ignoring Sentinely's
warnings to stay away. Choo was only the latest in
a line of unwelcome outsiders, including fishermen, merchants, escape convicts,
and filmmakers whose intrusions onto the island were met with
an angry volley of arrows. North Sentinel is part of
(02:14):
a large island chain called the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,
currently a territory of the Indian Union. There are one
hundred and eighty four islands in this tropical archipelago located
out in the northeast Indian Ocean between me and Maar
and India. Only about thirty of the islands in the
chain are inhabited. In the seventeen hundreds, the islands were
(02:36):
explored by Dutch, Austrian and British merchant ships looking for
the best trade routes to the spice rich Indian subcontinent.
In seventeen seventy one, a ship from the British East
India Company was the first spot signs of life on
North Sentinel Island, cooking fires flickering in the night. The
first permanent European settlers arrived in the Andemen and Nicobar
(02:59):
Islands in the eighteen fifties, when the British built a
penal colony on Great Andaman Island to house colonial prisoners
from British ruled India. In eighteen ninety six, a prisoner
tried to escape on a raft and washed up on
the shore of North Sentinel. A search party found him
a few days later, dead from multiple arrows. The prisoner's
(03:20):
death confirmed previous reports from shipwrecked Indian merchants of unfriendly
greetings the island and its inhabitants remained unperturbed for another
half century. They were known to fire arrows at any
fishing vessel or naval ship that got too close to
its beaches. But in nineteen sixty seven, the Anthropological Survey
(03:41):
of India sent a team of twenty people, including police
and Indian authorities to attempt to make peaceful contact with
Sentinel Lease. However, instead of being greeted with the anticipated hostility,
the team landed their boat on an empty beach with
no people in sight. That first trip to the small island,
(04:02):
the anthropologists saw no central Leese at all. According to
one of the leaders of the expedition, the Sentinel Liese
must have seen the outsiders coming and gone into hiding.
The team followed footprints into the jungle until they came
to a clearing with eighteen nicely built, leaned two huts.
Each home had a well tended fire in front of it,
(04:22):
and hastily abandoned meals of roasted fish and fruits. They
estimated that forty to fifty people lived in the village.
The anthropologists left gifts for the Sentinel lies coconuts, which
don't grow on the island, iron rods, and plastic utensils,
but when they made further attempts at returned visits in
the nineteen seventies and eighties, their contact party was repelled
(04:44):
each time. In the early nineteen nineties, the Anthropological Survey
of India made another attempt to establish contact with Sentinel Lees.
The outreach team included the first female anthropologist to join
the endeavor, the aforementioned Madamala Chettapadyai. She specialized in the
indigenous tribes of South Andaman Island, but had never been
(05:07):
to North Sentinel. Both Chettapadyai and her parents were required
to sign waivers from Indian officials, acknowledging the danger of
the expedition. When the team arrived offshore, the usual complement
of armed men appeared, but instead of gesturing angrily and
firing their weapons, the Sentinal Onliese calmly walked toward the shoreline.
(05:29):
Chettapadyai told the National Geographic we started floating coconuts over
to them. To our surprise, some of the sentinal onlies
came into the water to collect the coconuts. Perhaps it
was the presence of a woman, but for some reason,
the sentineallyiese let down their guard. Some of the men
waded out to their boat and examined it. They happily
(05:51):
accepted all of the coconuts. They even allowed some of
the outsiders to walk around the beach and interact with
sentinely as women, teenagers, and children, but they were not
allowed to enter the jungle or see the village. Encouraged
by this interaction, the anthropologists returned a few months later
with a much larger team, but the situation quickly soured.
(06:14):
The Sentinel Lees weren't satisfied with collecting floated coconuts, so
they boarded the ship and took the whole bag. One
Sentinel liese man even tried to grab one of the
police officer's rifles, though he probably didn't know what it was,
and the officer forcefully took it back. Chattapadyay said the
man got angry and whipped out his knife. He gestured
(06:35):
to us to leave immediately, and we left. Since nineteen
ninety six, Indian law has made it illegal for fishermen, tourists, researchers,
or other civilians to approach or Land on North Sentinel Island.
In two thousand and six, two fishermen from me and
mar made an emergency landing on the island and were killed.
(06:56):
Their bodies buried in the sand. But that wasn't going
to stop John Alan Chow a twenty six year old
evangelical Christian missionary and adventure blogger who hired local fishermen
to take him there in November of twenty eighteen. Choo
was part of an international movement of young adventurers who
yearned to bring Christianity to the unreached corners of the globe.
(07:20):
He was a well trained outdoorsman and received several rounds
of vaccinations to ensure that he didn't bring any outside
diseases to the Sentinelees. He chronicled his missionary trip in
a diary and came prepared to deal with any contingencies
of contact with hostile residents, including dental forceps for removing arrows.
When Chow first waded up to the island, he brought
(07:42):
a large fish as a gift. He wrote in his diary,
I hollered, my name is John, I love you, and
Jesus loves you. The Sentinelies responded with arrows. Chow came
back and dodged even more arrows, including one shot from
a young boy that pierced Chow's water Proof Bible, A.
(08:03):
Chow wrote that night, if you want me to actually
get shot or even killed with an arrow, then so
be it. I think I could be more useful alive, though,
But to you God, I give all the glory of
whatever happens. I don't want to die, but tragically, that
is what happened. According to the fisherman who smuggled Chow
(08:25):
to the island, they saw the Sentinel Liese drag his
body to the beach and bury it. The Indian government
was unable to recover his remains. In twenty twenty one,
the Anthropological Survey of India issued a document recommending a
hands off eyes on policy toward North Sentinel Island. Instead
of trying to visit, they say the government should offer
(08:49):
protection to the Sentinel Liz's Eden from the Four Tees, travel, tour,
transport and trade, which is advice both wise and kind,
considering that the Sentinel Ease have made it pretty clear
that that's what they'd prefer. Today's episode is based in
(09:11):
the article why North Sentinel Island is off limits to
all visitors on how stuffworks dot com, written by Dave Ruse.
Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with
how Stuffworks dot com, and it was produced by Tyler Klang.
Before more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Laurena
volbebom Here. The inhabitants of North Sentinel Island are one
of the few peoples on Earth almost entirely uncontacted by
outside society, and they seem to want to keep it
that way. For centuries, the island's indigenous people, known as
(00:24):
the Sentinels, have rejected most attempts by the outside world
to infiltrate their tropical home in the Bay of Bengal.
It's a fairly small island, only about twenty three square
miles that's around sixty square kilometers. We don't even have
a good idea of how many people live there. Estimates
vary between fifty and five hundred. The few glimpses of
(00:47):
life on North Sentinel Island paint an intriguing picture of
an untouched society of hunter gatherers who live in simple structures,
gather island fruit, spearfish from dugout canoes, and cook over fires.
What's amazing is that this society thrives less than twenty
miles or about thirty kilometers from neighboring islands where indigenous
(01:09):
cultures have integrated with the outside world, not always with
happy results. An Indian anthropologist by the name of Madamala
Chattapadhyai was the first woman to visit the isolated group
in the nineteen nineties, but has vowed never to go back.
In an interview with the National Geographic magazine, she said,
(01:29):
they've been living on the island for centuries without any problem.
Their troubles started after they came into contact with outsiders.
The tribes of the islands do not need outsiders to
protect them. What they need is to be left alone.
Case in point. In twenty eighteen, Norse Sentinel Island made
the news when a young American missionary named John Alan
(01:52):
Chow was killed on the island after repeatedly ignoring Sentinely's
warnings to stay away. Choo was only the latest in
a line of unwelcome outsiders, including fishermen, merchants, escape convicts,
and filmmakers whose intrusions onto the island were met with
an angry volley of arrows. North Sentinel is part of
(02:14):
a large island chain called the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,
currently a territory of the Indian Union. There are one
hundred and eighty four islands in this tropical archipelago located
out in the northeast Indian Ocean between me and Maar
and India. Only about thirty of the islands in the
chain are inhabited. In the seventeen hundreds, the islands were
(02:36):
explored by Dutch, Austrian and British merchant ships looking for
the best trade routes to the spice rich Indian subcontinent.
In seventeen seventy one, a ship from the British East
India Company was the first spot signs of life on
North Sentinel Island, cooking fires flickering in the night. The
first permanent European settlers arrived in the Andemen and Nicobar
(02:59):
Islands in the eighteen fifties, when the British built a
penal colony on Great Andaman Island to house colonial prisoners
from British ruled India. In eighteen ninety six, a prisoner
tried to escape on a raft and washed up on
the shore of North Sentinel. A search party found him
a few days later, dead from multiple arrows. The prisoner's
(03:20):
death confirmed previous reports from shipwrecked Indian merchants of unfriendly
greetings the island and its inhabitants remained unperturbed for another
half century. They were known to fire arrows at any
fishing vessel or naval ship that got too close to
its beaches. But in nineteen sixty seven, the Anthropological Survey
(03:41):
of India sent a team of twenty people, including police
and Indian authorities to attempt to make peaceful contact with
Sentinel Lease. However, instead of being greeted with the anticipated hostility,
the team landed their boat on an empty beach with
no people in sight. That first trip to the small island,
(04:02):
the anthropologists saw no central Leese at all. According to
one of the leaders of the expedition, the Sentinel Liese
must have seen the outsiders coming and gone into hiding.
The team followed footprints into the jungle until they came
to a clearing with eighteen nicely built, leaned two huts.
Each home had a well tended fire in front of it,
(04:22):
and hastily abandoned meals of roasted fish and fruits. They
estimated that forty to fifty people lived in the village.
The anthropologists left gifts for the Sentinel lies coconuts, which
don't grow on the island, iron rods, and plastic utensils,
but when they made further attempts at returned visits in
the nineteen seventies and eighties, their contact party was repelled
(04:44):
each time. In the early nineteen nineties, the Anthropological Survey
of India made another attempt to establish contact with Sentinel Lees.
The outreach team included the first female anthropologist to join
the endeavor, the aforementioned Madamala Chettapadyai. She specialized in the
indigenous tribes of South Andaman Island, but had never been
(05:07):
to North Sentinel. Both Chettapadyai and her parents were required
to sign waivers from Indian officials, acknowledging the danger of
the expedition. When the team arrived offshore, the usual complement
of armed men appeared, but instead of gesturing angrily and
firing their weapons, the Sentinal Onliese calmly walked toward the shoreline.
(05:29):
Chettapadyai told the National Geographic we started floating coconuts over
to them. To our surprise, some of the sentinal onlies
came into the water to collect the coconuts. Perhaps it
was the presence of a woman, but for some reason,
the sentineallyiese let down their guard. Some of the men
waded out to their boat and examined it. They happily
(05:51):
accepted all of the coconuts. They even allowed some of
the outsiders to walk around the beach and interact with
sentinely as women, teenagers, and children, but they were not
allowed to enter the jungle or see the village. Encouraged
by this interaction, the anthropologists returned a few months later
with a much larger team, but the situation quickly soured.
(06:14):
The Sentinel Lees weren't satisfied with collecting floated coconuts, so
they boarded the ship and took the whole bag. One
Sentinel liese man even tried to grab one of the
police officer's rifles, though he probably didn't know what it was,
and the officer forcefully took it back. Chattapadyay said the
man got angry and whipped out his knife. He gestured
(06:35):
to us to leave immediately, and we left. Since nineteen
ninety six, Indian law has made it illegal for fishermen, tourists, researchers,
or other civilians to approach or Land on North Sentinel Island.
In two thousand and six, two fishermen from me and
mar made an emergency landing on the island and were killed.
(06:56):
Their bodies buried in the sand. But that wasn't going
to stop John Alan Chow a twenty six year old
evangelical Christian missionary and adventure blogger who hired local fishermen
to take him there in November of twenty eighteen. Choo
was part of an international movement of young adventurers who
yearned to bring Christianity to the unreached corners of the globe.
(07:20):
He was a well trained outdoorsman and received several rounds
of vaccinations to ensure that he didn't bring any outside
diseases to the Sentinelees. He chronicled his missionary trip in
a diary and came prepared to deal with any contingencies
of contact with hostile residents, including dental forceps for removing arrows.
When Chow first waded up to the island, he brought
(07:42):
a large fish as a gift. He wrote in his diary,
I hollered, my name is John, I love you, and
Jesus loves you. The Sentinelies responded with arrows. Chow came
back and dodged even more arrows, including one shot from
a young boy that pierced Chow's water Proof Bible, A.
(08:03):
Chow wrote that night, if you want me to actually
get shot or even killed with an arrow, then so
be it. I think I could be more useful alive, though,
But to you God, I give all the glory of
whatever happens. I don't want to die, but tragically, that
is what happened. According to the fisherman who smuggled Chow
(08:25):
to the island, they saw the Sentinel Liese drag his
body to the beach and bury it. The Indian government
was unable to recover his remains. In twenty twenty one,
the Anthropological Survey of India issued a document recommending a
hands off eyes on policy toward North Sentinel Island. Instead
of trying to visit, they say the government should offer
(08:49):
protection to the Sentinel Liz's Eden from the Four Tees, travel, tour,
transport and trade, which is advice both wise and kind,
considering that the Sentinel Ease have made it pretty clear
that that's what they'd prefer. Today's episode is based in
(09:11):
the article why North Sentinel Island is off limits to
all visitors on how stuffworks dot com, written by Dave Ruse.
Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with
how Stuffworks dot com, and it was produced by Tyler Klang.
Before more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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