Jarawa Tribe – Culture and Physical Appearance

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Jarawa Tribe Andaman

Jarawa Tribe is one of the essential Tribal people in India and lives in Andaman Nicobar Islands. The name Jarawa came from the great Andamanese and meant strangers in one of the ten languages to monolingual.jarawa tribe

Lifestyle

Their main occupation is hunting and gathering fruits and other things. They never depend on others or the Government subsidy of any kind. They hunt in the sea and the forests for their feeding. Still, they wear animal skin as the clad to cover their bodies. They do not like to wear city clothes. The Government and social workers distribute the clothes and try to bring them into the mainstream of society. However, they are not accepting and agree to change their lifestyle.

Jarawa Tribe Culture

Their language is challenging for others to understand or learn. The speech follows a nine-vowel character system and twenty-six consonants at the phonemic level. Before the 19th century, the homelands were part of the South Andaman Islands. Jarawa Tribe’s physical appearance is solid. However, they had bad habits of taking more Opium and more quantity of Alcohol. Their surroundings caused diseases. So most fell ill and died. The subsequent made them migrate to the western Andaman Islands and made those places their homelands.

The people are very isolated and do not easily mingle with others. Some development has been increasing gradually in their social life due to the efforts of the Government and Social welfare Societies. Due to these efforts, they maintain regular contact with the outside world.

Trunk Road Controversy:

In 1970 the Government laid the Great Andaman Trunk Road through the western forests, where the Jarawa homelands are situated. After 1991 some tribal people started coming out from their forests for the settlements alongside the Highways. Due to the infrastructure development, the highway-surrounded areas were encroached on by business people. This caused me to file a lawsuit in the High court of Kolkata. The Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology and Bombay Natural History Society advocates for the Jarawa tribe. Finally, in 2001 the court directed the administration to protect Jarawa from encroachment.