The Jarawa People

     These indigenous Andamanese islanders have long remained isolated from the rest of the world. The Jarawa people belong to the pygmy peoples of Asia. They have the same attributes as other Negrito tribes, and are mostly hunter-gatherers. Jarawas first populated the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal around 26,000 years ago.


     The first foreigners to have made contact with the Jarawa people in the 18th Century found there to be around five Jarawa tribes with a total population of about 7,000 Jarawas living in the Andaman Islands at that time. However, today only around 400 to 450 Jarawas are left.


     Outside contact brought diseases that killed a majority of these people in the 19th Century, and a more recent outbreak of measles has further diminished their numbers.

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