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American Is Killed by Bow and Arrow on Remote Indian Island

nytimes.com

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Re: American Is Killed by Bow and Arrow on Remote Indian Island

#11

Post by yesenadam »

..a remote Indian island, North Sentinel, that I learned all about after it was mentioned on HN a couple of weeks ago. Small world!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island

..which led to reading about other "uncontacted peoples", a fascinating and sad story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples

edit: Oh, it was 8 days ago. I submitted this[1] ripping yarn about an American with an anthropologist father and Yanomami mother returning to South America to find his mother after 20 years. I'd read his father's book about his life, work and marriage years ago.

Bob Connolly & Robin Anderson's amazing Highlands Trilogy[2] is about a mixed-race man trying to run a coffee plantation while living between western society and his New Guinea tribe. His father was the first white man to contact the tribe.

Jared Diamond's The World Until Yesterday[3] brought home for me what human life was like until very recently. You couldn't travel far in any direction without the tribe next door trying to kill you.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18438586

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Contact_(1983_film)#The_...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Until_Yesterday

Re: American Is Killed by Bow and Arrow on Remote Indian Island

#12

Post by deanCommie »

> Mr. Pathak said Mr. Chau, believed to be 26 or 27 and from Washington State, may have been trying to convert the islanders to Christianity. Right before he left in his kayak, Mr. Chau gave the fishermen a long note. In it, police officials said, he had written that Jesus had bestowed him with the strength to go to the most forbidden places on Earth.

A perfect storm of Christian and American arrogance.

Re: American Is Killed by Bow and Arrow on Remote Indian Island

#13

Post by swatkat »

What he did was illegal. Access to the island is restricted for a reason.

>>> But Mr. Chau pushed ahead in his kayak, which he had packed with a Bible. After that, it is a bit of a mystery what happened.

Also, can these evangelists take a break? It's not 1600s anymore.

Re: American Is Killed by Bow and Arrow on Remote Indian Island

#14

Post by Apocryphon »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #5

I thought this was going to be another drunken mistake like the two fishermen who died in 2006. No, apparently, this guy thought he was going to bring Jesus to a bunch of famously xenophobic murderers. Any death is a tragedy, but it's hard to feel terribly bad about this one.

One man's delusion is another's deliverance. Some may snicker of Darwin Awards and all that, but this man died in a misguided and naive attempt to do good, not to exploit or harm anyone.

I'm sure his family and friends feel terribly bad about this tragedy.

Re: American Is Killed by Bow and Arrow on Remote Indian Island

#15

Post by cronix »

ProAm wrote: post #2

> a remote island inhabited by a tribe whose members have killed outsiders for simply stepping on their shore. I'm not sure what he expected.

I wonder if this young man also had to touch the red hot stove after being warned that it would burn him. Just another fine recipient of the "Darwin Award"...

> The fishermen said that tribesmen had shot arrows at him and that he had retreated. He apparently tried several more times to reach the island over the next two days, the police say, offering gifts such as a small soccer ball, fishing line and scissors. But on the morning of Nov. 17, the fishermen said they saw the islanders with his body.

Re: American Is Killed by Bow and Arrow on Remote Indian Island

#17

Post by swatkat »

Apocryphon wrote: post #14
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #5

I thought this was going to be another drunken mistake like the two fishermen who died in 2006. No, apparently, this guy thought he was going to bring Jesus to a bunch of famously xenophobic murderers. Any death is a tragedy, but it's hard to feel terribly bad about this one.

One man's delusion is another's deliverance. Some may snicker of Darwin Awards and all that, but this man died in a misguided and naive attempt to do good, not to exploit or harm anyone. I'm sure his family and friends feel terribly bad about this tragedy.

>>>but this man died in a misguided and naive attempt to do good, not to exploit or harm anyone.

May be he wasn't doing anything good from islanders' perspective.

Re: American Is Killed by Bow and Arrow on Remote Indian Island

#18

Post by whatshisface »

option_greek wrote: post #4

As horrific as it may sound, I hope his rotting body won't make the islanders sick. Human contact in the past had wiped out some of the Andaman tribes due to the lack of resistance to many diseases.

At least one of them deserves to get sick, they did kill someone after all. You could argue that it's not wrong to kill if you don't have any treaties between your respective states but then it wouldn't be wrong to spread disease either.

Re: American Is Killed by Bow and Arrow on Remote Indian Island

#19

Post by stock_toaster »

Apocryphon wrote: post #14
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #5

I thought this was going to be another drunken mistake like the two fishermen who died in 2006. No, apparently, this guy thought he was going to bring Jesus to a bunch of famously xenophobic murderers. Any death is a tragedy, but it's hard to feel terribly bad about this one.

One man's delusion is another's deliverance. Some may snicker of Darwin Awards and all that, but this man died in a misguided and naive attempt to do good, not to exploit or harm anyone. I'm sure his family and friends feel terribly bad about this tragedy.

> not to exploit or harm anyone

Isolated tribes often do not have the same built up immunities to common diseases. It may not have been intentional, but he could very well have killed them all, regardless of his motives.

Re: American Is Killed by Bow and Arrow on Remote Indian Island

#20

Post by classicsnoot »

runjake wrote: post #6
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #5

I thought this was going to be another drunken mistake like the two fishermen who died in 2006. No, apparently, this guy thought he was going to bring Jesus to a bunch of famously xenophobic murderers. Any death is a tragedy, but it's hard to feel terribly bad about this one.

"Murderers" is in the eye of the beholder. From their perspective, they are defending their land and people from invaders.

I wonder if your generosity in interpretation extends to modern cultures and their borders.
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