The Last of Jarawas in Andamans leaving on handouts
As we drove from this capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands towards the Mayabandar forest reserve, four Jarawa children blocked the road with bamboo poles and demanded 'paan' (betel leaf) and 'biscut' (biscuits) in broken Hindi. The tribe with its population now down to 260 is getting dangerously dependent on handouts. Aged 12-15, the boys with paan-stained teeth let us move only when we promised to bring them paan and biscuits the next time. They refused to be photographed. One said: 'The flash will harm us.' Inhabitants of a dense rainforest in the Andaman Islands, the Jarawas have been living for thousands of years as isolated hunter-gatherers. Anthropologists everywhere were excited when they first made contact with the outside world in October 1997. Still, very little is known about the Jarawas -- one of the four Negrito tribes of the Andamans archipelago -- apart from the fact that they use rafts, live in oval huts and are excel...