Uncontacted peoples

What I find simply fascinating is that there are people on this planet that still essentially live in the stone age. The Sentinelese, as these people are known, live on this island and refuse to communicate with any outside people. We don’t even know what language they speak. In fact, when a helicopter tried to recover the bodies of the dead fisherman, the Sentinelese responded to the attempt with a hail of arrows. There isn’t much we know about them. What we do know is conjecture. There could be anywhere between 40 and 500 of them. The effect of the Indonesian earthquake and resulting tsunami of 2004 remains unknown. We know they hunt and gather, but we don’t know if they get into gardening. We don’t even know if they can manufacture fire.

Fire!

This absolutely blows my mind. I mean, I know there are people who are a bit backwards, such as aboriginal people, the Amish, democrats, Britney Spears and other trailer park denizens, but this culture may or may not have mastered freaking fire yet! They still walk around in loincloths (or less), scavenge metal flotsam from the beaches of their island, fish, hunt pigs, eat and reproduce. That’s it. When someone from the outside world approaches, they turn to each other, share a knowing wink, then they savagely kill them.

I brought this up with Matt, a coworker and good friend of mine, and we ruminated over this lifestyle. To each issue that seemed ideal, a contradictory reality appeared.

• Barbecue and bacon, every day.
• Then again, no pizza.
• Since we are all wearing loincloths, boobies!
• Unfortunately, you will probably see your mom’s, sister’s, aunt’s and grandma’s boobies everyday as well.
• Every civilization, since about 3000 B.C., has pretty much all had beer. Odds are there’s beer on the Sentinel island in some form.
• The aforementioned beer is not cold, ever.
• A typical day’s to-do list may include things like “wake up, scratch ass, get food, mate.”
• A typical to-do list would never include “get toilet paper, gas up jet-ski, watch football, keep sand out of ass-crack.”
• Corporate ladder climbing? I don’t think so! Debating politics? Not here, my friend!
• What does “sleep inside” mean? What is this “swim up bar” you speak of?
• No taxes, no traffic, no elderly people confused by, well, everything, in front of you, no deadlines, no lawyers, no chick flicks, no telemarketers, no smog, no dentist appointments, and I could go on and on.
• But then again, you have to see your grandma’s boobs and you wipe your ass with rocks and leaves.