The Sentinelese: The Last Semi-Bicameral Society?
Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:43 am
Several very primitive societies such as the Sentinelese and the Jarawa still populate the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean and continue to this day to live in a "Stone Age existence."
"It is not certain whether, outside the Andaman Islands, there still exists any community that has had as little contact with civilization as the Sentinelese. Pandit and his colleagues say there is none. Several American anthropologists I have spoken to agree with them" (Goodheart).
They have thus far aggressively resisted all attempts at contact by modern people and explorers (killing several people with arrows). The tsunami in 2004 once again focused attention on them.
Could these be the last semi-bicameral societies?
I use the term loosely as similar pre-modern tribes discussed by Lévy-Bruhl seem to have developed consciousness, or at least certain aspects of it, but still relied to a great degree on auditory hallucination.
Perhaps we will never know, as no one understands the culture or language of the Sentinelese or the Jarawa.
For more see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarawa_%28 ... Islands%29
The Last Island of the Savages by Adam Goodheart
George Weber's "Lonely Islands"
"It is not certain whether, outside the Andaman Islands, there still exists any community that has had as little contact with civilization as the Sentinelese. Pandit and his colleagues say there is none. Several American anthropologists I have spoken to agree with them" (Goodheart).
They have thus far aggressively resisted all attempts at contact by modern people and explorers (killing several people with arrows). The tsunami in 2004 once again focused attention on them.
Could these be the last semi-bicameral societies?
I use the term loosely as similar pre-modern tribes discussed by Lévy-Bruhl seem to have developed consciousness, or at least certain aspects of it, but still relied to a great degree on auditory hallucination.
Perhaps we will never know, as no one understands the culture or language of the Sentinelese or the Jarawa.
For more see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarawa_%28 ... Islands%29
The Last Island of the Savages by Adam Goodheart
George Weber's "Lonely Islands"