Today, I have a remarkably interesting story for you because technically there was not even a crime committed at all. Today I will be telling you a story of The North Sentinelese People who live on North Sentinel Island in Andaman Islands of India. But the Sentinelese probably do not even know that India exists…. You see they are the world's last Stone Age tribe. The Sentinelese are known for defending their island against all visitors to the point of murder. They have been living in isolation for 60,000 years, there is genetically a direct line between them and their pre-Neolithic ancestors. This is a Crime Story Episode 28: India’s North Sentinelese Murders.
Now I covered India’s legal system in Episode 26, but for this story we don’t really need to because the Rule of Law does not apply to the North Sentinelese. Let me explain The Sentinelese people are related to other indigenous groups in the Andaman Islands, a chain of islands in India's Bay of Bengal, but they've been isolated for long enough that other Andaman groups, like the Onge and the Jarawa, can't understand their language. None of the Sentinelese language is known to outsiders; anthropologists usually make a point to refer to people by the name they use for themselves, but no one outside North Sentinel Island actually knows what the Sentinelese call themselves.
North Sentinel Island is a small island of about 23 square miles. Which is mostly covered by a forest and is surrounded by Coral Reefs. The Sentinelese are thought to be direct descendants from the first humans who immigrated from Africa. According to a 2011 census effort and based on anthropologists' estimates of how many people the island could support, there are probably somewhere between 80 and 150 people on North Sentinel Island, although it could be as many as 500 or as few as 15.
Based on a visit to a Sentinelese village in 1967, we know that they live in lean-to huts with slanted roofs. The huts built facing one another, with a carefully tended fire outside each one. We know that they build small, narrow outrigger canoes, which they maneuver with long poles in the relatively shallow, calm waters inside the reef. From those canoes, the Sentinelese fish and harvest crabs. The Sentinelese do not know how to make fire and do not know how to farm, the truly live a hunter gatherer lifestyle. They only have simple tools such as a harpoons and bows and arrows.
One night in 1771, an East India Company vessel sailed past Sentinel Island and saw lights gleaming on the shore but the ship did not stop. A century later, an Indian merchant ship called the Nineveh ran aground on the reef. 86 passengers and 20 crew managed to swim and splash their way to the beach. They huddled there for three days before the Sentinelese evidently decided the intruders had overstayed their welcome -- a point they made with bows and arrows.
In 1880, a young Royal Navy officer named Maurice Vidal Portman took charge of the Andaman and Nicobar colony. He went to North Sentinel Island to see what was what. He found only hastily abandoned villages; the people seem to have seen the intruders coming and fled to hiding places further inland. But one elderly couple and four children where left behind. Portman and his search party captured them and carried them off to Port Blair, the colonial capital on South Andaman Island. Soon, all six of the kidnapped Sentinelese became desperately sick, and the elderly couple died in Port Blair. Portman somehow decided it was a good idea to drop off the four sick children on the beach of North Sentinel along with a small pile of gifts. We have no way to know whether the children spread their illness to the rest of their people, or what its impact might have been. In 1896, a convict escaped from a nearby Great Andaman Penal Colony on a makeshift raft and ended up on North Sentinel Island only to be killed by the Sentinelese. The British forces recovered his body, his throat was cut and is body was pierced by serval arrows. This kind of feels like an FU to Portman and what they did to the six North Sentinelese.
In 1974 a team of anthropologists tried to film a documentary with National Geographic. When a boat arrived at the island it was greeted by arrows from the Sentinelese one of which pierced the film directors’ leg. In 1981, Cargo Ship MTV Primrose became stranded on the reef of North Sentinel Island. The crew had to fight the Sentinelese until they were rescued a week later. The Sentinelese were seen scavenging the boat after words which set off the Bronze Age for them.
The only friendly interaction with the Sentinelese was in 1991 when an expedition visited the island and gave the Sentinelese coconuts and fruit, this encounter was recorded. They gave them other gifts like for live pigs, which they speared and then buried in the sand, or plastic toys, which got much the same treatment. But they seemed pleased with metal pots and pans, and they quickly grew very fond of coconuts. Later that day, when the anthropologists returned, they found two dozen Sentinelese people standing on the beach, and an interesting scene played out. A man raised his bow to aim at the visitors, and a woman pushed the bow down. The man responded by dropping the bow and arrow and burying them in the sand. These same people interacted with the Sentinelese and the Sentinelese being curious even touched the explorers. Later visits were met with hostility. In 1991, the Indian government set a 3-mile exclusion zone around the island to protect the Sentinelese from modern disease and outsider from the Sentinelese hostility. In 2005, after a Tsunami the Indian government attempted to check on the Sentinelese via helicopter an Sentinelese man took out his bow and shot an arrow toward the rescue chopper. At least the Indian government knew they were alive! In 2006, two drunk fishermen ventured to close to the island and the Sentinelese killed them and buried them in shallow graves, when Indian authorities tried to retrieve the bodies, the Sentinelese were aggressive and the authorities decided to abort the mission.
Finally, lets discuss the Crime Story. John Allen Chau was a 26-year-old American adventure blogger, beef-jerky marketer, and evangelical missionary in the year 2018. John was born on December 18, 1991, in Alabama but was raised in Washington state, the third and youngest child of Lynda Adams-Chau, an organizer for Chi Alpha, and Patrick Chau, a Chinese American psychiatrist who left China during the Cultural Revolution. Throughout his childhood, he loved camping, hiking and travelling, and excelled at various club, charity, and other extracurricular activities. John admired numerous explorers and missionaries including David Livingstone and Bruce Olson. He later attended Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma. John being an avid missionary had done previous mission trips to Mexico, Iraqi Kurdistan, South Africa, and Andaman Islands in 2015 and 2016.
John’s father described how when John “finally found the last frontier of unexplored land and people untouched by Christianity, he was excited, as if the place and the people were specifically left for him.” John then traveled to and established his residence at Port Blair in October 2018 through the organization All Nations, where he prepared an initial contact kit including picture cards for communication, gifts for Sentinelese people, medical equipment, and other necessities. In preparation for the trip, John was vaccinated and quarantined, and also undertook medical and linguistic training. John wanted to preach the Gospel to the Sentinelese. As stated before, the Indian government does not allow people onto North Sentinel Island for the safety of the Sentinelese and the outsiders. There is a buffer zone and if you cross it, you are breaking the law. If John would have asked for permission to teach about Jesus on North Sentinel Island he would have been denied. John instead paid two local fisherman 25,000 rupees (around 300 USD) to take him close to the island then John would use a canoe to reach the island. The fisherman were later arrested.
This is what John wrote in his Diary on November 15, 2018 about his first contact with the Sentinelese
“Around 0830, I tried initiating contact. I went back to the cached kayak and built it up, then round to the boat and got two large fish—one barracuda and one half GT/tuna. I put them on the kayak and began waving to the house we had seen. As I was about 400 yds out, I heard women looing and chattering. Then I spotted two dugout canoes with outriggers. I rowed past one, then saw movement on shore. Two armed Sentinelese came rushing out yelling at me—they had two arrows each, unstrung, until they got closer. I hollered “My name is John. I love you and Jesus loves you. Jesus Christ gave me authority to come to you. Here is some fish!”
I regret I began to panic slightly as I saw them string arrows in their bows. I picked up the GT/tuna and threw it toward them. They kept coming. I slid the barracuda off. It started to sink but my thoughts were directed toward the fact I was almost in arrow range. I backpaddled. When they got the fish, I turned and paddled like I never have in my life, back to the boat.
I felt some fear but mostly was disappointed they didn’t accept me right away. I can now say I’ve been nearly shot by the Sentinelese and I’ve walked and cached gear on their island. Now I’m resting in the boat and will try again later, leaving gifts on shore and in rocks. Lord protect me and guide me.”
John wrote in his diary on November 15, 2018: “Well, I’ve been shot by the Sentinelese. After that initial contact, some of the guys went spear fishing and caught what they call “cutt-a-la,” a grouper or sea bass with big lips—they caught two and each weighed about 30lbs. After first going poop in the water, I built the kayak and we put the two fish on top and, inside, my small pelican. [That] contained pencils, my contact response kit (for arrow wounds), abdominal pads, chest seal, dental forceps for arrow removal, picture cards, multivitamins, multitools (including one my brother gave as a groomsmen gift that has my name engraved on it) and, unfortunately, my passports. I had my waterproof Bible and some gifts: scissors, tweezers, safety pins, fishing line, hooks, cordage, rubber tubing and my new Speedo towel.
I set off toward the north shore. As I got closer, I heard whoops and shouts from the hut. I made sure to stay out of arrow range and as they (about 6) yelled at me, I tried to parrot their words back to them. They burst out laughing. Probably were saying bad words or insulting me. Then two dropped their bows and took a dugout to meet me. I kept a safe distance and dropped off the fish and gifts. At first they poled their dugout past the gifts and were coming at me, then they turned and grabbed the gifts. I paddled after them and exchanged more yells.
Here’s where this nice meet and greet went south. A child and a young woman came behind the two gift receivers with bows drawn. I kept waving my hands to say “no bows” but they didn’t get the memo, I guess. By this time the waves had picked up and the kayak was getting near some shallow coral. The islanders saw that and blocked my exit. Then the little kid with bow and arrow came down the middle. I figured that this was it, so I preached a bit to them, starting in Genesis and disembarked my kayak to show them that I too have two legs. I was inches from [an] unarmed guy (well-built with a round face, yellowish pigment in circles on his cheeks, about 5ft 5") and gave him a bunch of the scissors and gifts. Then they took the kayak. Then the little kid shot me with an arrow, directly into my Bible which I was holding in front of my chest.
I grabbed the arrow shaft as it broke on my Bible (on pp 933, Isaiah 63:5–65:2). The head was metal, thin but very sharp. They left me alone as I half-waded, half-swam through the broken coral to the deep where I knew their dugouts couldn’t reach [then] swam almost a mile back to the boat. Although I now have no kayak nor my small pelican and its contents, I’m grateful that I still have the written word of God.
LORD is this island Satan’s last stronghold where none have even had a chance to hear Your Name?”.
On November 16, the next morning, after a “fairly restful sleep” on the boat, he wrote, “I hope this isn’t my last notes but if it is, to God be the glory.” He stripped down to his black underpants, as former explorer had taken off his clothes so as not to spook the naked Andaman tribes. Then he swam toward land. The fishermen motored out to sea, as John had requested. Pieter V., the missionary whom John had consulted with in South Africa, had told him that he believed that the Jarawa tribe didn’t kill him when he landed because he had no boat. John also didn’t want the fishermen to have to witness him possibly being slaughtered. The fishermen carried away John’s diary and two letters. “I think I might die,” John confessed in it. But he comforted his friend: “I’ll see you again, bro—and remember, the first one to heaven wins.” The next day, the fishermen returned to the island. They motored along the coast, searching for signs of John Chau. Eventually they spotted something on the beach. They looked closer. It was a body in black underpants. And it was being dragged by the Sentinelese, with a rope tied around its neck.
The Port Blair Police Director described the situation as “a very, very strenuous case.” According to him, after discovering the body, the fishermen had rushed back to Port Blair and, crying, turned over John Chau’s journal and letters. John’s family was then contacted and his mother alerted the U.S. Consulate General in India, which contacted the Andaman police. In the subsequent investigation, the police chief had to decide: Could a people who didn’t recognize laws be prosecuted under them? Should John’s remains be recovered? John had written, “don’t retrieve my body,” and John family posted on his Instagram account, “We forgive those supposedly responsible for his death.” So, the police director decided the rights of the “uncontacted group needed to be respected.” The Indian government did try to recover the remains but due to the hostility of the tribe they abandoned plans.
John Chau was criticized by many about him possibly introducing diseases to the Sentinelese, breaking the law, among other things. All Nations, the evangelical organization that trained John, was criticized on social media for describing John as a martyr while expressing condolences for John's death. John's father also blamed his son's death on the missionary community for inculcating an extreme Christian vision within John. According to a report by The New York Times, the missionary training by All Nations included navigating a mock native village populated by missionary staff members who pretended to be hostile natives, wielding fake spears. The work of missionaries in general was questioned. The United Nations affirms missionary activity as a legitimate expression of religion or belief. For example, when Jesus sent his disciples, he instructed them to pray and then go, while showing them how to honor the dignity and humanity of others’ choices. Critics of missionary’s see them as a form of imperialism. Missionary tourism has come under fire in the past few years because if makes the missionaries feel good put if fails to help a community. Sort of you are giving a man a fish and not teaching him how to fish argument. What John Chau did was extreme, and it brings up many ethical questions about missionaries, rule of law, and the ethics of uncontacted tribes.
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