Siapa tahu, suku Baduy dan Kubu juga mampu membaca
bakal datangnya bencana tsunami: ikan berlompatan ke
darat, ular pada menjauh dari pantai. Kemana mBah
Soel?
Salam,
RM
----------------------------
NATIONAL
QUAKE-ABORIGINE
Age old early warning systems saved Andaman tribes:
ASI
Kolkata, Jan 3 (PTI) The five aboriginal tribes
inhabiting the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, our last
missing link with early civilisation, have emerged
unscathed from the tsunamis because of their age old
"warning systems". "The tribals get wind of impending
danger from biological warning signals like the cry of
birds and change in the behavioural patterns of marine
animals. They must have run to the forests for safety.
No casualties have been reported among these five
tribes," ASI Director Dr V R Rao told PTI today. This
has promted the Anthropological Survey of India (ASI)
to propose its immediate documentation to save coastal
populations from similar disasters in future. His team
in the badly-hit islands reported the well being of
all five aborigines tribes -- Jarwas, Onges, Shompens,
Sentenelese and Great Andamanese. Early warning
systems developed by their forefathers and adapted
successfully by the tribals must have sent the first
alarm signals and given them time to run for safety,
he said. These tribes could be traced down to the
mesolithic and upper paleolithic era (from 20000 to
60000 years ago), he said. They had inherited a wealth
of indigenous knowledge that had not yet been
recorded. "Anthropologists have been recording these
aspects for long. But the question is to properly
document them and find means to create a national
resource base upon which a coastal signalling system
can be operated. "We have proposed to the Centre to
take up immediate documentation of these systems and
geomorphological changes triggered by the tsunami
since these would be fresh in the memory of the
tribals now," Rao said.
The team of ASI anthropologists along with government
officials of the islands' welfare department, however,
had reported some casualties among the Nicobarese
tribe, who date back to the Neolithic area (about 5000
to 7000 years ago). They inhabit 12 islands including
the devastated Car Nicobar, Charwa and Teressa isles.
"We have no confirmed reports on the number of
casualties among Nicobarese and would not like to
hazard a guess. Since the epicentre of the earthquake
was closer to the Nicobar island, the Nicobarese,
which are the most populated among the tribes (about
30,000), have been hit," Rao said. The Nicobarese, he
said, were not forest dependant and were primarily
horticulturists and agriculturists. The Shompens, with
a population of about 200, were the only Mongoloid
tribe in the region while the rest were Negroids and
had escaped the watery onslaught as they lived in the
higher forest areas. "The forest areas of both Jarwas
and Shompens are intact," he added. However, the ASI
was concerned about the earth eruption in the North
Sentenelese island, home to the Sentenelese tribes,
which had thrown up huge marine debris hitting the
tribe's marine resources adversely. Earth eruption
contributes to increase in coastal land. "The earth
eruption is not allowing them to harvest their marine
resources. Relief agencies will have to concentrate on
this aspect," Rao added. According to the latest
census figures, the Jarwas number about 270, the Onges
about 100 and the Great Andamanese around 45.
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Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc
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