0:00

When it comes to work, communication

0:02

is key, even if you don't have a writing

0:04

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0:07

or passive aggressive can hold you back professionally

0:10

and hurt your team's productivity. Grimly

0:12

premiums advanced tone suggestions make

0:14

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0:17

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0:19

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0:22

focused alternatives. With Grimly's

0:24

help, you can build stronger relationships

0:26

at work, be constructive in the face

0:28

of challenges, and help your team get

0:30

things done. Grimly works where

0:32

you do so your team's projects get done

0:35

before the deadline, and with features like comprehensive

0:37

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0:39

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0:42

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0:44

The right tone can move any project forward.

0:47

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That's twenty percent off at gramley dot

0:58

com slash Podcast. Welcome

1:10

to Unexplained Extra with me Richard

1:13

McClain smith, where for

1:15

the weeks in between episodes, we look at

1:17

the stories that for one reason or other didn't

1:19

make it into the show. In

1:22

last week's episode, Always Already

1:25

we found ourselves journeying deep into

1:27

the Amazonian rainforest with the Maya

1:29

Runa tribe and acclaimed photojournalist

1:32

Lauren McIntyre. McIntyre

1:35

had traveled into the forest in the hope

1:37

of making contact with the tribe, only

1:39

to find himself hopelessly lost and

1:42

unable to return to his camp. Only

1:45

after an epic three weeks living

1:47

side by side with the Maya Runa,

1:50

during which he believed he might be communicating

1:52

telepathically with their chief, did

1:55

McIntyre finally succeed in

1:57

finding a way out. Sum

2:00

That McIntyre had taken it on himself

2:03

to locate the tribe in the first place might

2:05

smack of a certain kind of arrogance

2:08

that speaks to a bygone age of colonial

2:10

self importance. Certainly,

2:14

McIntyre's ambition to be the first

2:16

to photograph these people took

2:18

precedent over the tribe's evident desire

2:20

to avoid all contact with outsiders,

2:24

Though MacIntyre had never intended to

2:26

intrude in their lives quite to the degree

2:28

in which he claimed to have done. The

2:31

notion of wanting to make contact with such

2:33

a self isolating community remains

2:36

an immensely complicated one for

2:46

the Maya Runa. As it transpired

2:48

when they were first contacted in nineteen

2:51

sixty nine, after living in relative

2:53

isolation since nineteen ten, they

2:56

were grateful for it. The

2:59

word Maya Runa translates

3:01

to people of the river. After

3:04

getting embroiled in skirmishes with the

3:06

Peruvian government, they had been

3:08

forced to leave the riverside lands

3:10

where they thrived and moved deeper

3:12

into the jungle. Through

3:15

a combination of napalm and machine

3:17

guns, the Peruvian government,

3:20

with the support of the US Army's Southern

3:22

Command, had sought to annihilate

3:24

the tribe. When

3:27

they were finally located by Harriet Field

3:29

and Hattie Neeland in August nineteen

3:31

sixty nine, they were tired

3:33

of running. After

3:36

subsequent negotiations were set up

3:38

with the Peruvian government, the tribe

3:41

were able to return to their homeland. Although

3:45

it was contact with outsiders that threatened

3:47

their existence in the first place and

3:50

still does, it is also arguable

3:52

that this later contact is what has

3:54

kept them alive. In

3:57

the main. However, the clash of a

3:59

more dominant in culture against one

4:01

lesso rarely tends to end well.

4:05

Often, even just the language used

4:07

when discussing the idea of it can

4:09

be quite revealing. In

4:11

November twenty seventeen, self

4:14

professed adventurer Benedict Allen

4:17

faced criticism after he allegedly went

4:19

missing in Papa, New Guinea while

4:21

searching for the Yifo tribe. Much

4:25

like the Mayoruna in the nineteen sixties,

4:27

the Yifo also tried to maintain

4:30

little contact with the outside world. Some

4:34

media outlets, however, reveled in

4:36

what they saw to be Allan's plucky, adventurous

4:38

spirit, describing the Jaifo

4:41

as a lost tribe who were little

4:43

more than dangerous headhunters. Such

4:46

communities are also often described

4:49

as having been discovered, as

4:51

if they were rare precious metals with

4:53

no agency of their own. Such

4:57

groups are also often referred to as

5:00

being remote or worse, uncivilized,

5:03

as if there being anywhere other than

5:05

closed to an urban center classifies

5:08

them as being external to civilization,

5:12

and yet remoteness is only

5:14

ever a case of perspective. As

5:18

Lauren McIntyre came to understand

5:21

for the Mayoruna, at least

5:23

in the time he was making contact with them,

5:26

the concept of remoteness would be completely

5:29

incomprehensible if,

5:32

like them, you consider yourself

5:34

to always be a part of nature, as

5:36

opposed to separate from it.

5:39

To ever be remote in the purest sense

5:42

is an impossibility, since

5:44

nature is both everywhere and

5:46

always. For

5:55

self isolating communities and cultures,

5:58

such as the Mayoruna, there is good

6:00

reason to want to avoid contact with outsiders.

6:04

Indeed, history is littered with the blood

6:06

and lost ideas of those people

6:08

whose cultures were deemed inferior

6:10

and weaker than others, and

6:13

the damage can occur in many ways, from

6:16

the contracting of a disease that a community

6:19

had not previously experienced, to

6:21

becoming the victims of deliberate genocide

6:23

campaigns, and there

6:26

are more subtle ways too. The

6:29

extinction of a different culture or community

6:32

when it clashes with another is rare

6:34

in the modern age. However,

6:37

a culture considered less worthy by

6:39

a more dominant one will at

6:41

best run the risk of becoming significantly

6:44

diluted over time, while

6:46

at worst could be systematically

6:49

erased. Though

6:51

it is not strictly in the same sense, and

6:54

I can't claim to have any idea what

6:56

it's like to experience that level of

6:58

erasure. I couldn't

7:00

help but be struck by something related to

7:02

this when trying to write the last episode.

7:06

It occurred whenever I attempted

7:08

to search something online related

7:11

to the natural world. If

7:13

I typed glade, for example, the

7:16

first thing I'd see was not something

7:18

about a majestic forest opening of

7:21

dappled light and fresh dew drops,

7:24

but a domestic cleaning product specifically

7:27

designed to mimic the smell of the outdoors.

7:33

When trying to find anything with the word

7:35

Amazon in it,

7:37

it wasn't information about the largest

7:39

and most biodiverse tract of rainforest

7:42

on the planet that I found first, but

7:45

links related to the world's largest e

7:47

commerce company. And

7:50

when I searched the word jaguar, the

7:52

Mayoruna's own ancient god, it

7:55

wasn't information on the majestic felines

7:58

of the wild that I came across, but

8:01

information about a certain type

8:03

of car. Finding

8:06

this happening again and again, it

8:09

was hard to resist the sensation that

8:11

a different world was being mapped out around

8:13

me and slowly but surely

8:16

laid over the one I thought I knew.

8:21

This experience brought to mind a wonderful

8:23

book called The Lost words

8:26

written by Robert MacFarlane and

8:28

exquisitely illustrated by Jackie

8:30

Morris, inspired in part

8:33

by this very idea of vanishing

8:35

worlds, or rather

8:37

our seemingly blase acceptance

8:39

of it when it occurs,

8:42

even right in front of our eyes.

8:46

At first we lose the word, then

8:48

its meaning, and in some cases,

8:51

finally the very thing itself

8:54

can vanish too. It

8:57

is hard to know exactly what to make of all

8:59

this. Is it something natural

9:02

or something to be resisted, Although

9:05

it feels sad on one level that to think

9:08

one day the word jaguar might

9:10

only bring to mind the model of a car.

9:13

Much more so to think that in forgetting

9:16

its name, we forget to

9:18

care about it, while

9:20

on another level, the animal

9:22

was never ours to name in the first

9:25

place. To

9:27

day, sadly, tribes

9:29

like the Mayoruna are likely

9:31

to only be able to survive in isolation

9:34

for as long as the land they occupy is

9:37

deemed of little value to others.

9:41

This is one of the reasons given for the continued

9:43

survival of a small community of

9:45

people living on North Sentinel

9:47

Island, which forms part of

9:49

the Andaman Islands that lie between

9:51

the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

9:55

Though it isn't known how the tribe refers to

9:57

itself, outsiders have labeled

9:59

the group the Sentinels in

10:04

order to protect them from the corrupting influence

10:06

of outsiders. Their island

10:08

homeland, which falls under the jurisdiction

10:11

of the Indian government, has been

10:13

declared an island reserve. All

10:16

travel is prohibited within a three mile

10:18

radius, while the area is

10:20

also patrolled twenty four hours a

10:22

day, and this patrol is

10:25

not only for the tribe's protection. Like

10:29

many self isolating tribes, the

10:31

Sentinels are fiercely and unequivocally

10:35

protective of their territory. In

10:38

November twenty eighteen, despite

10:41

knowing this, twenty six year

10:43

old missionary John Alan Chow

10:46

traveled to the island intent on

10:48

converting the people to the Gospel of Jesus

10:50

Christ. There

10:53

was only one way it was going

10:55

to end. Are

10:58

you always taking care of your family?

11:01

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11:22

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11:56

to get started. That's t e

11:58

LA d C dot com

12:01

slash Unexplained podcast. Very

12:09

little is known about the Sentinels,

12:12

with some estimates suggesting their specific

12:14

ancestry could date back anywhere

12:17

between thirty to sixty thousand years.

12:21

Current population estimates have been

12:23

anything from forty to four hundred.

12:26

In twelve to ninety six, explorer

12:29

Marco Polo saw fit to describe

12:31

the general population of the Andaman Islands

12:34

as a most brutish and savage race,

12:37

having heads, eyes, and teeth like

12:39

those of dogs. They

12:41

are very cruel and kill and eat

12:44

every foreigner whom they can lay their hands

12:46

upon, he wrote. However,

12:49

in what is often par for the course when

12:52

describing others, it is

12:54

thought that Polo never saw or

12:56

interacted with these people himself, and

12:59

merely based the estment on rumor

13:01

alone. For

13:04

many years, the Andaman Islands were largely

13:06

ignored by others until the

13:08

eighteen fifties, when they fell under the

13:10

colonial rule of the British Empire and

13:13

were used in part as a penal colony.

13:18

When the first British Superintendent was

13:20

dispatched to the Andamans in eighteen fifty

13:22

eight, he instructed

13:24

that the indigenous population be

13:27

treated with the greatest forbearance

13:29

and humanity by the British, insisting

13:32

that their intentions towards the people of the

13:34

islands were of the most friendly

13:36

character. Unfortunately,

13:40

this message didn't get across

13:42

since, unsurprisingly, when the British attempted

13:45

to take ownership of the islands, they

13:47

met with some fierce resistance. However,

13:51

this was soon quelled when after

13:53

one skirmish in which fifteen hundred

13:55

Islanders attempted to scare off

13:58

their foe, they were massacre by

14:00

the guns of a British warship. Prior

14:04

to the arrival of the British, the Andaman

14:07

Islands indigenous population was

14:09

thought to be around five thousand. By

14:12

the time they relinquished control ninety

14:15

years later, it was estimated

14:17

to have dropped to round four hundred

14:19

and sixty. As

14:22

Adam Goodheart wrote in the American Scholar

14:25

magazine in two thousand, the

14:27

history of the period can be summarized

14:29

as a series of epidemics. As

14:32

the local population were one by

14:34

one introduced to pneumonia,

14:37

syphilis, ophthalmia,

14:40

measles, mumps, Russian

14:42

influenza, and gonorrhea. We

14:46

can only speculate as to how sexually

14:48

transmitted diseases made their way

14:51

into the population. As

14:54

for the Sentinels specifically, though

14:56

there had been rumors of a tribe of people living

14:59

on North Sentinel Island, due

15:01

to its relevant size and inconvenient

15:03

location, it had been deemed

15:06

unimportant. Then

15:08

in eighteen seventy nine, one

15:11

young colonialist, recently appointed

15:13

to the position of Officer in charge

15:15

of the Andamanese decided

15:18

to take a closer look. Nineteen

15:22

year old Maurice Vidal Portman,

15:24

the grandson of a viscount, set

15:27

off for the island shortly after his appointment

15:30

with a team of armed escorts and trackers

15:32

from other Andaman tribes. When

15:36

they arrived, however, they found

15:38

the place completely deserted, save

15:40

for a few tracks and a series of small

15:42

villages that appeared to have been recently

15:45

abandoned. Having

15:47

given up on their search, they chanced

15:50

upon an elderly couple and four children

15:53

walking back to their village. Portman

15:56

had them abducted on the spot and

15:58

taken back to his home in Port Blair,

16:01

the Andaman Islands capital town, to

16:04

observe their behavior. Almost

16:08

immediately, the islanders grew sick,

16:11

and within weeks the elderly

16:13

couple died, and

16:16

so it was that Portman's amateur

16:18

anthropological ambitions came

16:21

to a swift end. Children

16:24

were returned to the island soon after. After

16:29

this brief encounter, the Sentinel

16:31

Leaves had virtually no contact with outsiders

16:34

until nineteen ninety one, when

16:36

Indian government anthropologists finally

16:39

succeeded in completing a non fatal

16:41

engagement with them.

16:44

After years of trying to establish a relationship.

16:46

Their attempts were effectively abandoned in

16:49

two thousand and three, when it was

16:51

decided instead to enact a

16:53

policy of no contact with the group. In

16:57

two thousand and six, two Indian

17:00

fishermen drifted too close to North

17:02

Sentinel, Ireland and were promptly

17:04

captured and killed by the Sentinel

17:06

Leagues. Twelve

17:08

years later, missionary John Alan

17:11

Chow arrived to make his own

17:13

attempt at contact. Chow,

17:22

a missionary for the Missouri based organization

17:25

All Nations in the United States,

17:28

did not make his trip lightly. In

17:31

fact, he had been training for it for three years,

17:34

attending a missionary boot camp which

17:36

included undertaking role play exercises

17:39

of how to deal with hostile potential

17:41

converts. Chow

17:44

was enthralled to the Great Commission Jesus's

17:47

supposed injunction that Christians

17:49

must spread the Gospel to all people. Being

17:53

such a committed follower of this doctrine,

17:56

Chow became fascinated by the idea

17:58

of helping to convert the to the Lees,

18:01

whom he described as possibly representing

18:03

Satan's last stronghold on earth.

18:07

Having made his way to the Andamans

18:10

on November fourteenth, two and eighteen,

18:13

he took the next step and succeeded

18:15

in paying some local fishermen to sneak

18:18

him past the patrol boats and drop

18:20

anchor close enough for him to kayak

18:22

to the island. The

18:25

next morning, he assembled his

18:27

initial contact response kit, which

18:30

included picture cards for communicating

18:33

and dental forceps in

18:35

case he might have to remove any arrows,

18:38

the sentinels weapon of choice,

18:40

as well as some gifts which he hoped

18:42

to share with the islanders. Then,

18:46

after stripping to his underwear to appear

18:48

less threatening, he got into

18:50

his kayak and paddled toward the

18:52

shore. As

18:55

he drew closer, he was able to

18:57

make out a small hut and some wooden

18:59

canoes pulled up on to the beach.

19:03

Suddenly, a series of high pitched

19:05

voices rang out, followed

19:07

by the appearance of a handful of islanders

19:10

with faces painted yellow, rushing

19:13

down to the water line.

19:16

My name is John, shouted the missionary

19:19

from his kayak. I

19:21

love you and Jesus loves you. It

19:25

was only then that John noticed the bow

19:27

and arrows in their hands, watching

19:31

aghast as one of the group raised

19:33

one up and took aim.

19:36

John hurriedly flung them some fish

19:39

as a gift, and then paddled away

19:41

as fast as he could. Later

19:45

that day, he made a second attempt,

19:47

and this time succeeded in landing on

19:49

the island before being spotted.

19:53

Cautiously, he approached the hut

19:55

on foot, this time being careful

19:57

not to get within shooting range. Calling

20:01

out to them again. The islanders

20:04

suddenly emerged, whooping and shouting

20:06

for him to back off. Ignoring

20:09

them, John drew closer as

20:11

he attempted to parrot their words back

20:13

to them. When they laughed

20:16

scornfully in response, John

20:18

assumed the words were insults and

20:20

they were laughing at his ignorance. Undeterred,

20:26

John reverted to singing songs of worship,

20:28

and after a while the islanders appeared

20:31

to grow used to his presence. In

20:34

response, John's voice grew

20:37

in confidence. He

20:39

held up his Bible and began to

20:41

preach the gospel. Just

20:45

then he felt something

20:47

hit hard against the good book, turning

20:51

it round. He looked on in horror at

20:53

the sight of an arrow now sticking

20:55

out of it. Holding

20:59

his nerves as best he could, John

21:02

slowly pulled it out and then

21:04

offered it back to the boy who had fired it,

21:07

and made his retreat. When

21:10

he turned back, however, his kayak

21:12

had gone. With

21:15

no other option, John dived

21:17

straight into the ocean and swam

21:19

back to the fishing boat. That

21:24

night, John wrote in his diary

21:26

about how scared he was, fearful

21:29

that the beautiful sunset that was

21:31

occurring before him, as he wrote, might

21:34

be the last he ever saw. In

21:38

his final entry, he asked

21:40

God to forgive any of the people on the island

21:42

who might try to kill him,

21:45

especially if they succeeded. Shortly

21:49

after first light the following day, he

21:52

took another kayak back to the island. Later

21:56

that morning, as the fisherman waited

21:58

for John to return, they saw

22:00

movement on the beach. It

22:03

appeared the tribes people were burying

22:05

something in the sand. John

22:09

allan Chow was never seen

22:11

alive again. If

22:19

you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would

22:21

like to help support us, you can now go

22:24

to Unexplained podcast dot com forward

22:26

slash support. All

22:28

donations, no matter how large or small,

22:31

are massively appreciated. All

22:34

elements of Unexplained are produced by

22:37

me, Richard mc lane Smith. Please

22:39

subscribe and rate the show on iTunes,

22:42

and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts

22:44

or ideas regarding the stories you've heard

22:46

on the show. Perhaps you

22:48

have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.

22:52

You can reach us online at Unexplained

22:54

podcast dot com, or Twitter

22:57

at Unexplained Pod and

22:59

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23:01

Forward slash Unexplained Now.

23:12

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23:24

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23:26

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23:29

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Slash Unexplained Podcast. When

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