Andaman & Nicobar & Mokkien
mood: 
contemplative
contemplative- Those tribes hit least were those most distant from the epicenter.
- The island which would have received the greatest impact was furthest south and thus may have sheilded some tsunami waves.
- Some folks (animist & Christian) sensed an impending danger.
- God clearly wants to save these little peoples.
- If we pray, God will listen.
- There is work underfoot to try to deceive ...
==> May God open the hearts of these tribes. The eyes of those who are deceived, the hands of those who can give help, and the door for Christ's servants to go.
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in the midst of all the tragedy and death, we have some good news to report. In our first email we lamented how several small tribes may have been wiped off the face of the earth by the tsunami before they had the chance to hear the Gospel. In particular, we were concerned with several groups on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the Mokkien (Sea Gypsies) of southern Thailand and Myanmar. In the days since, however, we have thankfully read a report that most of the Mokkien people are safe. The report started: "Knowledge of the ocean and its currents passed down from generation to generation of a group of Thai fishermen known as the Mokkien sea gypsies saved an entire village from the Asian tsunami. By the time killer waves crashed over southern Thailand last Sunday the entire 181 population of their fishing village had fled to a temple in the mountains of South Surin Island. "The elders told us that if the water recedes fast it will reappear in the same quantity in which it disappeared," 65-year-old village chief Sarmao Kathalay told the paper. So while in some places along the southern coast, Thais headed to the beach when the sea drained out of beaches -- the first sign of the impending tsunami -- to pick up fish left flapping on the sand, the gypsies headed for the hills."
From the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where more than 5,000 people were washed away by the waves, comes a different story indicating the tribes have survived. The Indian Air Force sent helicopters to the villages of several tribes to see if anything was left. The Intercessors Network report that as they did so, "arrows began flying at the helicopter..... The arrow attack was the surest sign yet that the tribe has survived the tsunami. Spotting a batch of 20 to 30 people on the North Sentinelese Island, the pilot shed altitude to take a closer look. If he had any doubt, it was removed when the tribesmen, known for their hostility towards intruders, fired the arrows. If a ground count eventually puts the number at 30, it will account for almost all the Sentinelese known to be inhabiting the island. Officials were upbeat about other tribes, too. “Our helicopters and naval ships have confirmed that the tribes Sentinelese, the Onges, the Shompens, the Great Andamanese and the Jarawas are all safe. They have survived nature’s fury,” said Arun Kumar Singh, the vice-admiral and director-general of the coast guard."
Praise God for this wonderful news!
Paul Hattaway
www.asiaharvest.org
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In response to the article below from the India Daily, I would tend to agree with Dave's comment @
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.p
Many in the Indian leadership really don't care whether the "Outcast" tribals live or die. Dark people don't matter in a world where light skin is a sign of status. The old aryan deception.
May God open the eyes of the Indian leaders & save these Outcasts who need the Lord Jesus!!
SUMMARY: Some tribes were hit hard. Animals had moved to higher ground. As had some "more primitive" tribes. Hypothesis of this article: They had retained the ability to sense the impending danger. Map & fotos accompany article.
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/0
Full Article follows:
Indian Military personnel is finally reaching the remote islands of Andaman and Car Nicobar. There is massive devastation especially in Nicobar Islands. The inhabitants in these islands consists of tribal and non-tribal mainstream population. Thousands of people are dead and the coastal areas just evaporated.
The total population before Tsunami of these tribes was approximately 28,000, which accounts for about 9% of the total population of these Islands. The other 91% population consists of mainstream settlers and the military personnel.
The rescue teams are observing some strange things as they are reaching these remote tribal areas for rescue and relief. While there is massive unbelievable devastation, the primitive tribes are relatively unaffected though most of them lived close by the ocean.
According to sources, these tribes moved to higher grounds. So did most animals during Tsunami in South and South-east Asia. The rescue teams are also finding interesting information from these untouched tribal people – they could view and hear the Tsunami coming and they moved to higher grounds way before the Tsunami came and earthquake shattered the islands.
Indian Military with all high tech equipments and especially the Air Force lost a full base with hundreds of personnel in this catastrophe.
As a matter of fact another correlation is also interesting – the more primitive tribes moved out to the higher grounds days before the catastrophe.
Nicobarese who are settled in the Car Nicobar Island, Nancowry group of islands and in Harminder Bay of Little Andaman constitutes more than 98% of the tribal population. The population of other tribes is very small and is declining over the past several decades. Andaman and Nicobar Administration under the Government of India have rehabilitated Great Andamanese in Strait Island and Onges in Dugong Creek and South Bay of Little Andaman Island. Shompens having a population of 157 live deep in the jungles of Great Nicobar Island. Jarawas, who live in the jungles of South and Middle Andaman were hostile till recently. In last couple of years, they have shown a willingness to come out of their isolated world and mingle with the mainstream population. The Sentinelese live in the North Sentinel Island and are still unapproachable. All the tribes are in a state of transition from their primitive life-styles to a more modern way of life. The Nicobarese were the first to adjust to this. They have almost lost their tribal nature and are as modern as any of the settler community.
The Onges and Andamanese are changing slowly. They keep many aspects of their tribal culture, at the same time have adopted many things from the mainstream population. The Jarawas have just coming out of their seclusion. The Sentinelese has not yet shown any willingness to shed their hostile attitude towards outsiders.
Stating that the devastation in Car Nicobar islands was total, General Officer-in-Command Southern Command Lt Gen B S Takhar on Saturday said, it would take at least take six months for things to become normal in the island. Though the tribals of Andaman islands were not much affected, there has been total devastation in car Nicobar islands mostly inhabited by the modern Nicobarese, Takhar, who undertook an aerial and ground survey of tsunami affected areas along the eastern coast, told the reporters.
Based on the reports we are receiving, Nicobarese who are most modern have lost the most in Car Nicobar and Nancowry group of islands. Very few of them sensed the incoming Tsunami. But the Shompens and Sentinelese who took some direct hit, lost little because of their remote viewing capabilities. They moved to higher grounds before.
According to some of the tribal leaders, earth communicates to them. And this time they could see it coming in their remote viewing periscopes.
Interestingly, in South and South east Asia which includes Andaman and Nicobar islands, it is now confirmed that animal bodies are not found because most of them moved to higher grounds days before the Tsunami came.
It seems if this correlation is anything close to correct, we may be gaining in so called “modern technologies” but we are losing in higher grounds of technical expertise, which may encompass spiritual science and paranormal technologies.
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Now, comment from another (Christian) perspective:
(see the end for the source)
Wave of anger in anguished islands
Tempers flared over the sluggish pace of relief efforts in the remote and restricted Andaman and Nicobar on Sunday as hundreds of bodies lay scattered around the islands a week after the tsunami struck.
A local government officer was manhandled by people angry at not getting relief supplies in Campbell Bay, the main town in the southernmost island of Great Nicobar, where widespread devastation has been reported. Police had to send reinforcements.
“The situation in Campbell Bay and Great Nicobar is very grim,” a senior island administration official said in Port Blair, the region’s capital city.
A group of more than 700 people remained camped on a hilltop on the island on the southernmost tip of the archipelago where they fled to escape the waves. “Absolutely nothing has reached them,” the official said.
The chain of more than 500 islands, most of them uninhabited, lie 1,200 km (800 miles) east off the Indian mainland and are dotted with military bases and listening posts.
Also home to hundreds of stone age tribespeople, many of the islands are off limits to foreigners and mainland Indians alike. Mistrust of outsiders by the military and local bureaucracy has compounded the practical difficulties of the aid effort.
Aid workers from foreign relief groups Medicins Sans Frontieres and Oxfam have languished in Port Blair, unable to reach the badly hit southern islands. Indian Christian groups complain local officials were hindering their attempts to take aid to the tribes, many of whom are Christian.
“We have been sitting here in Port Blair trying to send 100 volunteers... to Car Nicobar and other badly hit islands,” said an official of the Church of North India, an association of churches involved in relief. “But the administration is refusing to allow us access to some regions and this is extremely frustrating.”
Authorities in New Delhi say there are 812 confirmed deaths in the entire chain but the country’s army chief told reporters that in the worst-hit island of Car Nicobar alone, more than 1,000 corpses lay scattered. India raised its tsunami toll to 14,488 dead or feared dead on Sunday including 5,421 missing on the islands.
Most islands can only be reached by sea but last Sunday’s monster waves destroyed jetties. Rescue workers have been using small boats to land, but many inland roads are not cleared. Authorities say they are getting their act together.
“The momentum is picking up slowly, there are difficulties, bodies have to be spotted, identified,” Army chief NC Vij told reporters. The army is using sniffer dogs to find victims.
Authorities have started vaccinating survivors against cholera, typhoid and tetanus. “The main concern remains the threat of epidemic and the process of removing bodies continues,” said brigadier JM Devados, the overall relief commander for the Car Nicobar island, where thousands are dead or missing.
“Twelve of 15 villages have been washed away. Villages are ghost villages.”
Sitting astride vital trade routes heading west from the straits of Malacca, the islands offer India a vital foothold in South-East Asia and a counter to Chinese influence in the region.
Ruled directly from New Delhi, the islands housed a notorious jail during British colonial rule. Critics say the welfare of locals is low on New Delhi’s priorities.
“Times have changed but not mindsets,” a leading Indian national daily wrote on Sunday. “The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago is a collective second class citizen. Welcome to India’s in-house colony,” it said.
But amid the palpable grief, there were a few moments of joy. In the Andamans, a couple and their six-month-old baby lived off coconut water for three days before a military helicopter rescued them.
One mother’s search for her children
By Jonathan Charles
A desperate mother continues her desperate search. Zaira Banu gets up at six o’clock every morning to spend yet another day going from camp to camp looking for her missing children.
Resting for a few minutes, she told me she hasn’t seen her five-year-old son, three-year-old daughter and two-year-old boy since disaster struck, the moment a wall of water consumed the island of Car Nicobar, shattering her happy existence.
She says to me: “When the first wave came we were all together.
“Then there was a second and I couldn’t see them anymore.
“I held on to a coconut tree for 24 hours, up to my neck in water.
“Then I was rescued by a helicopter but there was no sign of my children.”
Zaira has listed the names of her children and other missing family members to hand out around the camps.
She has no photos - they and everything else she had were washed away.
Nowhere to go
Car Nicobar lies close to the epicentre of the earthquake which triggered the powerful sea surges, and has suffered more than most.
It was hit on all sides, first of all by the earthquake and then by the waves which came inshore.
Even at its highest point the island is only 12 metres above sea level, so when the massive waves came in with the sea surge, there was nowhere for people to go to reach ground higher than water level.
The Indian government is now managing to land planes full of relief supplies on the island’s military airbase. But getting it around the island will prove problematic as many roads are under water and bridges have collapsed. Zaira told me she is most worried about her two-year-old son Zahil. She hopes he is being looked after by somebody and has managed to get to higher ground - but she admits she is too upset to sleep.
Distress
We head off on her brother’s motorbike for the next stage of the search -heading to the office co-ordinating the emergency operation here.
She joins others crowding around an updated list of survivors brought to camps, hoping for good news. But the names of her children are nowhere to be found.
So she heads back to the camps, questioning anyone who’s come from Car Nicobar, an island where her children are just three among 10,000 people thought to be missing. That’s around half the island’s population.
Suddenly Zaira finds a neighbour from her village, another survivor from her home. She rushes towards her in vain hope. Distressingly she is unable to shed any light on what has happened to Zaira’s sons and daughter. So Zaira’s search, like that of many from Car Nicobar, must go on.
Editor’s note:
We give special attention to the Andaman and Nicobar islands, as they are among the weakest and feeblest in this drama: "Those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary. . . . And whether one member suffereth, all the members suffer with it." 1 Corinthians 12.
Andaman and Nicobar tribes
Andaman and Nicobar Islands are the abode of probably the most primitive tribes of the world. Out of the six aboriginal tribes inhabiting these Islands five, namely, the Shompens, the Onges, the Great Andamanese, the Sentinelese and the Jarawas are primitive tribes. The Shompens belong to the Mongoloid stock and inhabit the Great Nicobar Island whereas the other four primitive tribes belong to the Negrito stock inhabiting the Andaman Islands
The Great Andamanese are one of the four Negrito tribes of the Andamans. The Andamanese were defeated and killed in the famous ‘Battle of Aberdeen’ fought in 1859. The British conducted many punitive expeditions in which a number of Andamanese were killed. These tribes are now settled at Strait Island, about 60 Kms. north east of Port Blair. They speak the Jeru dialect among themselves and Hindi with outsiders. They no longer wear any distinctive dress that distinguishes them from their neighbours.
The Onges were traditionally spread all over the Little Andaman Islands. In 1976, they were rehabilitated by the government in two settlements at Dugong Creek, in the northeastern corner of the island, and at South Bay in Little Andamans. Onge is a Negrito tribe. Onges survived without dress for centuries. Today Onge men, women and children have started wearing all kinds of modern clothes. Use of traditional items of adornment like necklace made of shell, waist band and head band of bark fibre have been confined to ceremonail occasions and the Onges now like to have modern items.
The Nicobarese belong to the Mongoloid stock in the twelve islands communities, inhabiting different islands in the Nicobar group. The people of Car Nicobar island have totally given up the traditional dress of tassel or coconut leaf petticoat. They now wear modern clothes. They eat fish, mutton, beef, pork and chicken. Ninety eight percent (98%) of Nicobarese population profess Christianity. Only 2% of Nicobarese have adopted Islam. A sizeable number of Nicobarese have jobs, especially white-collar ones, in both government and private offices.
The Shompens are the only primitive tribe of Mongoloid stock. They are semi-nomadic, hunting, gathering and fishing tribes who practise simple horticulture and rear pigs. The Shompens are scattered over the whole of Great Nicobar Islands. The east coast Shompens remain close to the sea-shore or in the valleys while the west coast Shompens prefer the interior and the slopes of hills. The Shompens huts are of a primitive type and are invariably built with wood, cane and leaves.
The Jarawas are one of the four Negrito tribes of Andman Islands. They live on the western part of South and Middle Andamans. The word ‘Jarawa’ is derived from ‘Aka Bea’ dialect of Great Andmanese meaning ‘the other people’, ‘the stranger’. The Jarawas have a base camp which is of comparatively permanent nature and makeshift hunting camps of temporary nature. They are naked people but they adorn bark and shell necklaces, arm bands, waist bands for ornamental purpose. The material culture of Jarawas is confined mainly to making of bows and arrows. They hunt pig, fish, etc. After the Indian Independence, the refugee settlement took place in Andamans and Jarawas were pushed to the western coast of South and Middle Andaman.
The Sentinelese are well built, tall, Negrito tribe inhabiting the North Sentinel Island situated on the west of Port Blair. The Sentinelese are perhaps the only successful people on the earth to retain and defend their pristine life-style and territory till date against the waves of modern civilizations and for the same reason, little is known about their life style and culture. Interior huts of Sentinelese have never been visited. The coastal huts are mere wind breaks of temporary nature. The Sentinelese make and use outrigger parallel canoes driven with long poles. They also possess bows and arrows.
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Lars Widerberg
Intercessors Network
Storskiftesgatan 87
S-58334 Linkoping, Sweden
Intercessors.Network@Comhem.se
Phone + Fax: +46 13 213630
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