Devi takes care of some of Her own

[Guest guest]

This article was taken from the Star Tribune...It goes to show that

when you are truly in tune with nature all things can be revealed

 

Ancient tribe comes out of hiding, safe after tsunami

, Associated Press JIRKATANG, India -- Armed with bows and arrows,

seven men from the ancient Jarawa tribe came out of the forest

Thursday for the first time since India's isolated Anadaman and

Nicobar islands were shaken by an earthquake and battered by a

tsunami.

 

In a rare meeting with outsiders, the men said all 250 members of the

tribe escaped inland and were surviving on coconuts.

 

``We are all safe after the earthquake. We are in the forest in

Balughat,'' said one of the men, Ashu.

 

Even though the Jarawas sometimes meet with local officials to

receive government-funded supplies, the tribe is wary of visitors.

 

``My world is in the forest,'' Ashu said in broken Hindi through an

interpreter in a restricted forest area at the northern end of South

Andaman Island. ``Your world is outside. We don't like people from

outside.''

 

Anthropologists estimate the island's more primitive tribes of

Jarawas, Great Andamanese, Onges, Sentinelese and Shompens have

dwindled to only 400 to 1,000 people. Most of the territory's 350,000

people are members of the larger Nicobarese tribe and ethnic Indians.

 

Some DNA studies indicate the tribes' ancestors may have left Africa

70,000 years ago and passed through what is now Indonesia before

settling on these islands, scientists say.

 

Government officials and anthropologists have speculated ancient

knowledge of the movement of wind, sea and birds may have saved the

indigenous tribes from the tsunami that killed 901 people and left

5,914 missing on the islands. But Ashu and his companions refused to

talk about how they avoided the devastating waves.

 

The seven Jarawa men - wearing only underwear and amulets - emerged

from the forest to meet at this outpost with government officials,

who were accompanied by two reporters and a photographer for The

Associated Press.

 

Ashu, who said he was in his early 20s, gave his name and those of

three others of his tribe as Danna, Lah and Tawai. Like many south

Indians, they use only one name.

 

The men stopped the AP photographer from taking pictures. ``We fall

sick if we are photographed,'' Ashu said. In the past, tourists who

have tried to take photographs have had their cameras smashed by

tribesmen.

 

Ashu showed off his bow, arrows and a metal box containing ash with

which he smears his face and forehead during ceremonies.

 

He gestured with his hands and asked for ``khamma'' - water in the

dialect used by the Jarawas - and drank from a bottle offered to him.

 

When asked what they typically eat, Ashu said pork and fish killed

with arrows. ``And we like honey.''

 

He said tourists sometimes throw packages of cookies from buses,

adding: ``We don't like when tourists throw things at us. They should

give it to our hands.''

 

Plus, packaged food upsets their stomachs, he said. ``We prefer to

eat green and roasted bananas. Ripe bananas make us sick.''

 

The Jarawas didn't have any contact with government authorities until

1996. A year later, tribesmen stormed a police outpost and killed a

guard with arrows. But relations with police have calmed, said an

officer, who called the Jarawas ``good friends.''

 

Relations with townspeople seem more prickly. Ethnic Indians

expressed wariness of their neighbors from the forest, and both sides

remain as far apart as they were nearly a decade ago when contact

with the tribe was first made.

 

During the height of summer, when water holes dry up, Jarawas often

come into town looking for water. Their presence frightens some

villagers, and police sometimes are called in to persuade the

tribesmen to leave.

 

Ethnic prejudice is evident. When asked whether tribespeople live

near town, an Indian shopkeeper, Muthuswamy, sniffed: ``Jarawas don't

live here. Only humans.''