Answer:
The Jarawa are a small society of hunter-gatherers who live on part of the Andaman Islands. These are in the Bay of Bengal, which forms part of the Indian Ocean. Today, the Jarawas occupy the western region of the South Andaman and Middle Andaman Islands. They moved into these areas over a century ago because of conflict with early British colonists in the mid-nineteenth century. Before the arrival of the British, the Jarawas occupied a larger area that included both the eastern coast and the southern parts of the South Andaman Islands. In September 2002, their population numbered 266. However, there are reports that their numbers are increasing, with some estimates placing their current population at 400.
The Jarawa territory is tropical in nature. The region has dense forests and receives rain for more than eight months of the year. The forests have a diverse abundance of plants and animal species. The Jarawas forage for food both in the forests and in the aquatic areas of the islands. Some of their main food resources include the wild pig, monitor lizard, honey, and a wide range of plant-based foods–roots, fruits, and shoots. Their aquatic resources mostly consist of different varieties of fish, crabs, shells, mollusks, turtle meat, and turtle eggs.
The Jarawas store honey in wooden buckets, and they cook their food in pit hearths. This involves creating a fire at the bottom of a pit and covering the flames and coals with pebbles. They place the raw food on these pebbles, and then cover it with another layer of pebbles. If they are cooking meat, they cover it with leaves. Finally, they cover the pit with loose earth. It takes roughly 3 to 4 hours to cook food in this manner.
Division of labor exists among the Jarawas. The men are primarily hunters, while the women forage for fruits, plant material, and aquatic resources. They mostly gather fruit that falls to the ground because plucking the fruit becomes difficult due to the height of the trees. However, they can pluck jackfruits off the trees, and the men undertake the task of climbing the tree and collecting the fruit. The Jarawas have not developed the technology to build canoes that can help them venture out into deep waters. Their fishing activities are restricted to shallow coastal waters, creeks, and fresh bodies of water. The men use bows and arrows, sometimes even to shoot fish, while the women use hand-nets made of plant fibers.
The Jarawas live in a nuclear family unit of parents and young children. When the children reach the age of six or seven, they stop sharing the sleeping space of the family. From this age, the boys live in a group of other unmarried boys, independent of their parents until they get married. Similarly, the unmarried girls also stay together, independent of their parents. Kinship plays an important role in Jarawa society. Relatives help each other in the construction of family huts and community huts.
Members of this society make tools and implements using materials from the forest; they cannot obtain iron or other metals on their own. The iron implements that they possess have come from wrecked ships and the settlement villages of colonizers. The Jarawas do not use any material for clothing. They cover their bodies with clay and draw designs on it when it dries. Traditionally, the Jarawas adorned themselves with objects such as shells, clay, leaves, and flowers. Recently, they have added cotton, thread, and wool, which they obtain from the campsites of outsiders who visit their area.
The Jarawa have always shunned interactions with outsiders. The greatest influence that connects them with outsiders (after initial skirmishes with the settling colonists) has been an arterial road that runs from north to south, linking four of the main islands. This road has divided their territory, cutting off their access to the eastern parts of the islands. The construction of the 340-kilometer–long road resulted in large-scale destruction of the forests (to make way for the road), and it reduced the area available to the Jarawas for hunting and foraging. The road has brought outsiders in close contact with them as well, resulting in outbreaks of various diseases. Most recently, in 2006, a measles epidemic caused the death of several Jarawas.
Besides the health risks, outside contact has brought other dangers to Jarawas. Outsiders may exploit their resources, such as timber, forest produce, and minerals, resulting in the destruction of their habitat and an end to their way of life.
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