In my prior post, I referred you to two sites that spoke`about the Sentinelese, somewhere between 50 and 259 natives who live on North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal. They are thought by many to be members of the oldest known living tribe on Earth, which has lived there for over 60,000 years. And they seem to live now as they did then.
Except for a beach, the island, about the size of Manhattan in New York, is totally covered by jungle trees, making it invisible to the outside world...so that what we "know" about the Sentinelese is based, to some extent, on conjecture. The Sentinelese fend off with spears, and kill anyone trying to come ashore ...and submerged reefs surrounding the island make it virtually impossible for large boats to reach the beach. They seek no outside contact. India, which has jurisdiction over the island, has imposed a law which prohibits any ship from coming within 3 miles of the island. I applaud India for respecting their "leave us alone" wishes.
The Sentinelese apparently have not discovered how to make fire, have not invented electricity. In fact, they have not invented oars and propel their wooden rafts by pushing long poles against the ocean floor. Thus they can go no further out than to where the depth of the ocean does not exceed the length of their poles.
In a couple of other sites on the Internet, the Sentinelese were referred to as "savages".
Sentinelese couples enjoy hugging and cuddling on the beach for long stretches of time at the same time...something we might do well to do.
They have survived for tens of thousands of years without, in all likelihood, monetary currency, man-made medications, health-disability-unemployment insurance, food stamps, income taxes and a thousand other of our "necessities"...something we ought think about.
When the British somehow managed to kidnap a few of them years ago, they found that the immune systems of the Sentinelese have no defense against a host of modern diseases rampant in the "civilized" world, which suggests that those diseases are not present on the island...something we might wonder about.
Yes, perhaps the Sentinelese are less curious than we are, less imaginative/inventive than we are, less driven than we are, less knowledgeable than we are. I would love to know what kind of family life they have, whether they believe in one or more Gods, what, if any, is their educational system, and do they have a government, and if so, of what type.
They do not kill their own (like the 160 million we killed in 20th century wars, or the 500,000 we murder each year, or the billion plus abortions we have performed in the past 30 years).
And they appear to be so much freer than we are. They do not seem to find happiness so elusive.
So we might ask ourselves this question: Who are the savages?
Except for a beach, the island, about the size of Manhattan in New York, is totally covered by jungle trees, making it invisible to the outside world...so that what we "know" about the Sentinelese is based, to some extent, on conjecture. The Sentinelese fend off with spears, and kill anyone trying to come ashore ...and submerged reefs surrounding the island make it virtually impossible for large boats to reach the beach. They seek no outside contact. India, which has jurisdiction over the island, has imposed a law which prohibits any ship from coming within 3 miles of the island. I applaud India for respecting their "leave us alone" wishes.
The Sentinelese apparently have not discovered how to make fire, have not invented electricity. In fact, they have not invented oars and propel their wooden rafts by pushing long poles against the ocean floor. Thus they can go no further out than to where the depth of the ocean does not exceed the length of their poles.
In a couple of other sites on the Internet, the Sentinelese were referred to as "savages".
Sentinelese couples enjoy hugging and cuddling on the beach for long stretches of time at the same time...something we might do well to do.
They have survived for tens of thousands of years without, in all likelihood, monetary currency, man-made medications, health-disability-unemployment insurance, food stamps, income taxes and a thousand other of our "necessities"...something we ought think about.
When the British somehow managed to kidnap a few of them years ago, they found that the immune systems of the Sentinelese have no defense against a host of modern diseases rampant in the "civilized" world, which suggests that those diseases are not present on the island...something we might wonder about.
Yes, perhaps the Sentinelese are less curious than we are, less imaginative/inventive than we are, less driven than we are, less knowledgeable than we are. I would love to know what kind of family life they have, whether they believe in one or more Gods, what, if any, is their educational system, and do they have a government, and if so, of what type.
They do not kill their own (like the 160 million we killed in 20th century wars, or the 500,000 we murder each year, or the billion plus abortions we have performed in the past 30 years).
And they appear to be so much freer than we are. They do not seem to find happiness so elusive.
So we might ask ourselves this question: Who are the savages?
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