I have mixed feelings about this book. Its about the various Stone Age tribes in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, their history and how degrading, demeaning and decimating all contact with modern people has been to them. The modern people were firstly the British, then the Japanese and now the Indians who own the islands (although the islanders themselves have never been consulted about the transfer of their sovereignity to any foreign power).

The history is confined to contacts over the last three centuries or so; nothing written is available from the tribespeople themselves and no-one seems to have asked them of their oral history. Modern stories are mostly from the point of view of the Indians whose policies of aggression, bribery and totally ignoring the desires of the local populace in favour of their own industries and resettlement of Bangladeshi people are more or less a continuum from the rule of the British in that part of the world.

The author had to get permission to visit the tribal areas. She was aware that each added modern contact would threaten the survival of the tribes still more and acknowledges that she is part of that process. She nevertheless proceeds to try and get permission and when it is refused, goes ahead with her visit anyway. This is where I have a real problem with her stance of 'what have we done to the noble savage: we've done so much it can't hurt if I go too and take them some cloth and tobacco bribes'. Geez....

One tribe, the Sentinalese, live on a very isolated island, which the author also tries to reach but gets no further than a boat off-shore. These people have kept their freedom and seem to be living in their own way. No-one has yet got past their bows and arrows to penetrate the interior to begin logging and selling their patrimony. It will happen, but let's hope that their aggression and the world's eye keeps modernity just off shore. ( )