Jarawa

This article deals with the people of the Andaman Islands - for the Nigerian language, see Jarawa (language) .

The Jarawa or Jarwa, proper name Ya-eng-nga , are an isolated indigenous people belonging to the Andaman people on the Andaman Islands . Today only about 200 Jarawa live, mainly in the west of the Middle Andaman Island and South Andaman Island .

The Jarawa are nomadic hunters and gatherers living in groups of up to 50 people . They avoided any contact with the outside world until the end of the 1990s, after which some Jarawa ventured out of the forest and visited the places and settlements in their vicinity.

The Jarawa are short, very dark-skinned and curly haired and are counted among the " Negritos ". Traditionally they live as hunters and gatherers in the tropical rainforests . They hunt wild boars , reptiles and birds with a bow and arrow . They use nets to catch fish , crabs and shrimp in the shallow water of the rivers and the seas near the coast. In addition, they collect fruits and other parts of plants. They still adhere to this traditional way of life today.

The Jarawa speak their own language, which is related to the Andaman languages ​​of the other indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands. Jarawa is a foreign name that means "foreigner" in the Aka-Bea language; the name is Ya-eng-nga ("people").

The Andaman Trunk Road , an expressway through the Andaman Islands and Jarawa territory, was opened to traffic in the 1990s. As a result, the Jarawa soon came into contact with the immigrant majority population of the Andaman Islands. However, these contacts caused health problems for the Jarawa and cultural conflicts on both sides. Measles epidemics occurred among the Jarawa in 1999 and 2006 and are controversial.

See also

• Sentinelese (on North Sentinel Island)
• Onge (in the Andaman Islands)
• Indigenous peoples of Asia (overview)

literature

• Heinrich Harrer : The last five hundred. Expedition to the dwarf peoples on the Andamans. Ullstein, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-550-06574-4 .

Web links

• Survival International : The Jarawa (portal page).
• Message: Jarawa people in India: dance video of indigenous women outraged human rights activists. In: Spiegel Online . January 11, 2012 . 
• Madhusree Mukerjee: North Sentinel Island: Civilization kills almost everyone on whose shores it lands. In: Spektrum.de . November 29, 2018 (related to Jarawa; Scientific American Editor ). 
• Press review: should indigenous peoples remain isolated? In: Eurotopics . Federal Agency for Political Education .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Denis Giles: Andaman Trunk Road: The greatest sin. In: Andaman Chronicle. March 9, 2013, accessed November 25, 2018.