The Isolated Tribe the World Knows Very Little About
People have been to the top of the world's highest mountains and to some of the deeper parts of the sea.
But even now there are places on Earth we know very little about. And one of them is just 50 kilometers from Indian beach bars.
This is North Sentinel Island. And there's a good reason we know so little about the place and its people — because that's the way the island's residents want it.
The Sentinelese people, as we know them, are one of the few tribes left in the world that live in real isolation.
North Sentinel Island is about the same size as the area of Manhattan in New York. It's part of the Andaman Islands, which are owned by India.
On North Sentinel, the people don't wear clothes — just strings around their heads, necks and waists. They hunt with spears, bows and arrows, and simple huts have sometimes been seen on the beach.
Anyone who has come close to the island has been shown very clearly that they are not welcome.
In fact, India's coast guard stops boats from getting too close.
It's easy to understand why the islanders might worry about visitors. In 1880, a European took four children and two old people from the island and moved them across the water to another island.
Here, the adults soon died and although the children were later returned, they may have been exposed to diseases that the island's other residents had no immunity to.
In 2018, an American named John Chau was killed by the Sentinelese when he went to the island planning to convert the people to Christianity.
The people of North Sentinel don't want visitors, but the world is only getting more interested.
