Quote from: Shinawi on Apr 08, 2025, 04:31:51 PMI heard about the Sentinelese. I heard that North Sentinel Island is one of the most isolated places in the world, and that the Sentinelese are hostile to any outsider. I also heard that the lifestyle of the Sentinelese haven't changed since the Stone Age. I think the Sentinelese are hostile because of a bad experience with an outsider many years ago. I don't remember the details. And I'm not sure whether that part is true or not. There's also a possibility that visitors have introduced certain viruses onto that island. There was a friendly encounter many years ago. The visitors gave food and other supplies to the Sentinelese.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnGXaKF2rgs
Yeah...there has been some limited previous encounters between the Sentinelese and the outside world. Although given that specific encounter was more "controlled", nothing bad came of it.
As for Chau however, there is actually a feature length National Geographic documentary about him and his fatal visit to the Sentinel Island. The documentary doesn't simply ridicule Chau as an idiot with delusions of grandeur who simply went to the island on a whim (as the internet have done), but treat him with a degree of compassion and sympathy to try to understand what drove him to his (unintended) suicide mission, interviewing folks from different sides, those who support (or at least understand) Chau, his critics who accused his mission of having imperial or colonial mentality and also with excerpts from his own father's painful thoughts on it. Worth a watch if you are interested in the topic:
Utlimately though, even if someone doesn't object to missionary work, I imagine they will not condone the way Chau went about his missionary work on the island and that is certainly worthy of some criticism. Yes, to the credit of the documentary, it showed Chau actually carefully thought about this for years and made preparations to deal with what he expected to experience on the island, so he was not some yahoo vlogger just looking for cheap thrills. Still, his initial actions really could not have work. Him calling out passages from the bible in English to the Sentinelese, when clearly they have no idea what he was saying. That seem clearly to be interpreted the wrong way by the Sentinelese, as some kind of threat. Or holding out the bible when the Sentinelese have no idea what it was. It was ripe for misunderstanding...the Sentinelese assumed the worst, and given their general hostility to outsiders, it likely doesn't take much for them to conclude that.
Maybe Chau thought the bible would protect him (which it did when it partially blocked that arrow from hitting him), but he seem to confuse his own faith with the practical need to communicate with a tribe who has no idea who he was, what he was saying and what he wanted. He simply didn't do enough of the latter to make it work. I don't know...
