The Land of Naked People: Encounters with Stone Age IslandersOn a lush, remote island, modern civilization has recently made contact with what may be the last group of Stone Age people. The Sentinelese wear no clothes, do not know how to start a fire, and have fervently rejected the intrusion of outsiders. But that is changing, writes Madhusree Mukerjee, who has had exceptional access to that island and the others that make up the Andaman chain in the Bay of Bengal. Over seven years, Mukerjee found that other aboriginals on the islands have abandoned their ancient ways for enticements such as motorcycles and plastic toys. The price: outsiders have taken critical land, introduced serious diseases, and left the natives with a broken sense of self. This book offers unprecedented insights into the processes of colonization and modernization, the persistence of harmful myths about "savages," and the perennially fraught relationship between light- and dark-skinned peoples. Mukerjee gives us a fascinating look at a world nearly gone. Combining anthropological findings with historical accounts and personal travel stories, she lets us glimpse a primeval, disappearing humanity. |
Contents
First Brush | 1 |
Great Andamanese | 11 |
Savage | 13 |
Uprooted | 25 |
Native Morals | 44 |
Civilized Vices | 54 |
Death | 62 |
Life After Death | 72 |
Jarawa | 143 |
Hunted | 145 |
Visions of Control | 159 |
With the Enemy | 168 |
State of War | 178 |
Where Worlds Touch | 186 |
The Taming of Tigers | 192 |
On Full Modernization | 205 |
Onge | 79 |
A Fiery Arrival | 81 |
Sugar and Starch | 89 |
Gifts Traps | 98 |
Cultural Exchange | 110 |
Outsiders and Other Ghosts | 119 |
Falling Apart | 128 |
Assimilation | 134 |
End of the Road | 214 |
Small Earth | 223 |
Origins | 234 |
Acknowledgments | 243 |
245 | |
251 | |
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The Land of Naked People: Encounters with Stone Age Islanders Madhusree Mukerjee No preview available - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
aboriginals Acharya Andaman Homes Andaman Islanders Andaman Trunk Road Andamanese Andamanese languages anthropologist arms arrows asked baby Bada Raju bananas beach Bengali boat bows British Calcutta camp canoe captured Car Nicobar Cellular Jail Cipriani clothes coconut contact mission dark died Dugong Creek Dulu eyes face fire fish forest friends gathered hair head Helfer Hindi Hut Bay Indian Jarawa Jarawa boy Jarawa reserve jetty jungle Kadamtala killed land later leaves Little Andaman lived looked Middle Andaman Mouat naked natives Nicobar Nicobarese night North Sentinel numbers officer Onge Onge's painted Pandya police Port Blair Portman Prakash Raja returned Ross Island Rutland Island savages Sentinelese ship shore shot shouted South Andaman spirits Strait Island Tirur told took Topsy trees tribal tribe turned turtles Venkateswar village visitors walked watched welfare staff who'd woman women wrote young
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