In our modern society, most people live their lives lurching from fix to fix from the digital syringe; relying on social media and telecommunication advances to feel connected to the world around them. Facetime, Instagram, LinkedIn, we froth it. Well, most people do. Some people want absolutely nothing to do with not only modern technology but with the rest of the world in general.
Around the globe, there are 100 or more "uncontacted" tribes, Indigenous peoples who avoid all contact with outsiders. Many of these people groups are in places like Brazil, Venezuela and Peru, probably hoping the beautiful rainforest they call home doesn’t get completely decimated by the white man.
Over the years, outsiders have made some attempts to build connections with such tribes, in the hopes of understanding their cultures and respecting their way of life (well, we’d like to think that was their intention anyway). But the title of the most “uncontacted” people today goes to the Sentinelese people, an isolated tribe living on North Sentinel Island located off the coast of India. And if weren’t for the noteworthy, and quite frankly, arrogant efforts of John Chau, a devout Christian missionary in 2018, we doubt we would have ever heard of them.
Growing up in Vancouver, Washington, John Chau had two passions in life: Outdoor adventure and Jesus Christ. He made it his life's mission to “defend his faith” by converting the Sentinelese people to Christianity, no matter the cost. The problem was, the Sentinelese people really wanted to be left alone and they had made that abundantly clear over the years.
In 1967, former regional head of India's Ministry of Tribal Affairs, anthropologist TM Pandit, first expeditioned to North Sentinel Island. Despite going with gifts and a kind heart, the Sentinelese warriors faced Pandit’s group with angry and grim faces, armed with long bows and arrows.
In the 1970s, the Indian government set up a policy to try to make contact with the Sentinelese with the ultimate goal of teaching them agriculture and forcibly settling them into their society. Ahh colonialism at its finest. Needless to say, that was a terrible idea and the Sentinelese people made it abundantly clear that they weren’t open to visitors.
Then in the late 1990s, after protests by Indigenous rights groups, the Indian government ditched attempts to make contact, and the Sentinelese have continued to express hostility to the outside world. These days, The Indian Government is protective of the Sentinelese and respects their wishes to be left alone. There are even laws that forbid taking photographs or making videos of the tribal groups.
But Chau was doing the Lord’s work, so different rules applied to him apparently.
Chau’s journey to North Sentinel Island in 2018 was a studied effort, involving four trips to the Andaman Islands in 2015 and 2016 in order to build local Christian networks. While there, he sojourned under a self-imposed 11-day quarantine, meticulously planning his approach to the elusive tribe.
In November 2018, undeterred by the island’s sovereignty and laws against unsolicited visitation, he convinced a local fisherman to sail to the island under the cover of darkness. This marked the beginning of three unfortunate encounters. On his first foray, the welcoming party of the tribe arrested his advance with a flurry of arrows, to which, in panic, he responded by throwing fish in their direction before quickly retreating.
But that would not deter this fervent young man. For his second attempt, Chau chose a more melodic strategy. He serenaded the tribe with worship songs and preached from Genesis, but this overture was met by an arrow to his waterproof Bible (which he removed and handed back to the child archer who fired it). It’s a scene straight from an Indiana Jones movie.
The third time, Chau set out alone; he knew the risks and didn’t want to inflict the sight of his death upon his fisherman escort. He wrote in his diary, “The people of the North Sentinel were damned”, and he was determined to save them. He also clearly penned his fears of death as a result of the mission. While the third time is usually the charm, it seems Chau’s persistence didn’t pay off because, from this visit, he did not return. He’d tried the patience of the Sentinelese people one too many times and was martyred for his efforts.
Chau's attempt to penetrate the barrier of isolation that the Sentinelese people have carefully maintained for centuries opens up a Pandora’s box of ethical and moral questions. While his zealous dedication is undeniable, his “mission” and subsequent death raise a crucial question about the sanctity of religious freedom and the respect owed to isolated cultures.
Believe what you want to believe but for the love of God, leave everyone else alone will you?
SOURCES:
5 of the Most Isolated Peoples on Earth | Discover Magazine by Stephen C. George Nov 28, 2021
The life and death of John Chau, the man who tried to convert his killers by J Oliver Conroy 3 Feb 2019
The Sentinelese: Who Are The Most Isolated Uncontacted Tribe On Earth? | IFLScience Tom Hale 15 June 2023
The man who spent decades befriending isolated Sentinelese tribe by Swaminathan Natarajan 27 Nov 2018
North Sentinel Island: How can the Sentinelese people avoid contact with the outside world? - ABC News by Liam Butterworth 22 Nov 2018
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[00:00:00] Rod: He kayaks to shore, he saw the huts and some canoes, he paddles up to the beach, several Sentinelese, apparently their faces were painted yellow, and speaking a language of quote high pitched sounds, rushed out towards him. My name is John, he says, I love you and Jesus loves you.
[00:00:17] Will: Let's go straight with English.
[00:00:18] Rod: It's totally gonna work. And the louder it is, the easier it is to understand.
[00:00:22] Will: The work of colonisers here.
[00:00:23] Rod: What do you do if the natives don't understand you? Speak louder! The islanders began to string their bows. He wigs out, he throws the fish he brought as gifts at them.
[00:00:32] Will: Throws the fish? Seriously, practice this shit man!
[00:00:35] Rod: He panicked, he panicked. He's on his own, it's only him and the Lord. It's him and Jesus as the co pilot.
[00:00:38] Will: Put the fish down gracefully.
[00:00:40] Rod: No, panics, throws the fish.
[00:00:42] Will: He throws the fish at them, you fucking idiot. Stabs someone with a tuna, he's got a swordfish and it's straight through his brain.
[00:00:49] Rod: Throws the fish, turns around, and quote, paddled like I never have in my life. So basically shits himself, flings fish, and fucks him off.
[00:00:54] There are around about a hundred uncontacted tribes around the globe. Around about a hundred.
[00:00:59] Will: Point of language are they okay with the word tribe here?
[00:01:02] Rod: According to every source I read, they have no opinion because they're uncontacted.
[00:01:07] Will: I just wanted to know first.
[00:01:10] Rod: Oh, this even some of the sources for this were places like I fucking love science and they would never get it wrong. And the Guardian.
[00:01:16] Will: Okay. So a hundred uncontacted.
[00:01:19] Rod: They call them uncontacted tribes. Now, uncontact doesn't mean totally lost, never heard of them. Yeah. But they're very isolationist comparatively speaking
[00:01:28] Will: more than uncle Darren, who doesn't come to Christmas.
[00:01:31] Rod: Yep. Even more so than him with his nine tractors, three ponies and a dog. So there are a few, like the bulk of them are in South America. It seems like of the hundred ish, 90 of them are in South America
[00:01:40] Will: in the Amazon sort of thing
[00:01:42] Rod: The whole lot. Yeah. Okay. I mean a lot in Brazil and around like, so There's one like these, Moxihatetema. They're from Brazil, Venezuela, and they're on the Yanomami reserve. Yeah, which is huge. 10 million odd hectares, 24 million acres.
[00:01:59] Will: Fenced off or something?
[00:02:00] Rod: I don't know. I don't think it's fenced because that would probably send bad messages. But in Brazil, who the fuck knows what's his name? Bolsonaro. Who's like, Oh, the Amazon? Log it. Let's just eat it. So there's heaps of different groups in the Moxihatetema, I tried about a hundred people and they've chosen to not only not interact with people outside, but also other yanomami tribes within.
[00:02:22] Will: So they've got double boundaries. Don't like the distant people and we don't like the close. I don't like our friends. Our neighbors don't like anyone.
[00:02:28] Rod: No, fuck you all. And the Yanomami I remember, cause when I was doing anthropology, like first year anthropology back in the eighties, every week you'd have a lecture and you'd have an ethnographic film and they're all these classics from the 1950s of English anthropology. And one was the Yanomami, the fierce people.
[00:02:43] Will: Okay. It's not bad. I mean, if you were choosing what your tribe was known for further around, fierce is all right 'cause it'd scare people away. Yeah. You don't wanna be known as the wussy people. We can take all their gold people, they will be good slaves people. That would not be a good that would not be a good, like in your branding department, not good.
[00:03:00] Rod: There are aerial photos of this particular subgroup, the Moxihatetema people. 2016 suggests they're not only thriving, they may have expanded. Anyway, so they're probably doing quite well. At least they were in 2016, according to aerial photos. Peru, another one. So Peruvian Amazonian region, home to several uncontacted tribes, including the Nomole, who were for decades considered to be among the last of these non contacted or rarely contacted folk
[00:03:22] Will: the last, but
[00:03:23] Rod: Recently, at least in the last few years, they've been it's been estimated six or 800 members of them have started to reach to outsiders. They've just started to go, Hey, can we they turn up at government checkpoints and stuff and they say, Oh, can we have some food . I don't know if they're desperate, just that they're like, well, you guys have got Coca Cola and chocolate. I don't know. That seems to be the way it is.
[00:03:42] Will: Well, you can imagine it could be, you know, a group gets to desperation and they're like, got to go to the outside or
[00:03:48] Rod: it's just like, you guys have got some cool shit that we don't. Can we have it? Also the outsiders call them the Mashco-Piro, which is apparently quite derogatory. Mashco means savage in the local dialect. But they call themselves the Nomole, which is like the kin or the relationships of the family or something. So those are a couple of the South Americans. There's also some in Papua New Guinea. As late as least into the 2020s, there may be somewhere in around 40 uncontacted tribes.
[00:04:11] Will: 40 Wow. Small-ish country. I mean, you know, rough as hell. Like, like country's a lot of trees and a lot of mountains. If you were to hide as a group of people
[00:04:19] Rod: yeah, take fjords and put trees on them and make them tropical. You've got Papua, New Guinea, it's crazy. So many of these uncontacted ones, they're basically live hunter gatherer lifestyles essentially. And they're pretty unkeen on interacting with the outside world usually, although Yaifo, so 2017, they generate a lot of buzz because a British explorer decided he'd go and hang out with them and he went missing.
[00:04:45] But then three weeks later, he turned up all good, but he had lots of little scarrings, you know, ritual things. And he was all, you know, he had a great adventure, et cetera. Apparently he was habitually on social media and he just suddenly went dark and everyone assumed all the cliche stereotype and he'd been headhunted and cannibalized. Like, no, he hadn't.
[00:05:01] Will: If you're going to make your story, that's the way to do it. You know, disappear for a while, turn up in a sewer somewhere covered in weird things.
[00:05:09] Rod: The title of the most uncontacted people today, anyway, goes to a mob who live in the Andaman Islands. And if it weren't for a let's call it the noteworthy effort of a Christian missionary in 2018, I certainly would never have heard of it.
[00:05:31] Will: Welcome to The Wholesome Show, the podcast that will face any peril to bring every human on earth to the whole of science.
[00:05:37] Rod: Yes, I bloody will.
[00:05:39] Will: I'm Will Grant.
[00:05:40] Rod: I'm Rod Lamberts and I will face any of it because all must be brought to the sciences whole. So the people of the North Sentinel Island. It's described as being about the size of Manhattan. So it sits between India and Myanmar in the Indian Ocean.
[00:05:53] Will: Yep, I got my visuals here.
[00:05:54] Rod: So the world calls these people on the North Sentinel Islands, the Sentinelese. But we have no fucking idea what they call themselves.
[00:06:01] Will: No idea. Oh, yes.
[00:06:03] Rod: None. They are just called, as far as we're concerned, the Sentinelese. So they're sort of under India's wing, sort of protection, but they're also sovereign.
[00:06:10] Will: So India nominally owns that land
[00:06:12] Rod: Or looks after them but they are a sovereign People as well.
[00:06:16] Will: Yeah. Okay. But not representation in the United Nations as far as sovereign people.
[00:06:20] Rod: And look, they don't know that and they don't give a shit.
[00:06:23] Will: That's so fucking cool.
[00:06:24] Rod: Could not give a rat's eye.
[00:06:25] Will: That's awesome. I love it.
[00:06:26] Rod: They have some neighboring islands and neighboring still, you know, quite a swim away, but basically zero contact recorded. So they have no physically touching territories, unlike the Peruvian.
[00:06:37] Will: Classic, you want to be isolated, an island.
[00:06:40] Rod: There's a mob called Survival International, and they look after, particularly they're interested in these uncontacted folks, et cetera. They were talking to IFL science, I fucking love science. And one of the spokespeople said, look, most uncontacted tribes have neighbors that might have some sort of trade or bump into them in the forest, but these guys literally have no one. So their isolation is unique.
[00:07:00] Will: So they're, they're a little bit more, their whole civilization is there a little bit Easter Island, a little bit cut off from the rest of the world.
[00:07:06] Rod: Unique. They're the only ones who have this setup. And so the world knows almost nothing about how they live, just snippets. So the census in India, 2011, they reckon 15 people live on the island, but the real figure seems to be more like a hundred.
[00:07:19] Will: 15 is not enough. It's not a civilization.
[00:07:21] Rod: It's not a civilization. It's an inbred family of people who are game.
[00:07:24] Will: It's Darren and his kids and yeah, some weird practices.
[00:07:27] Rod: Yeah. They have sister, brother, husband, uncle.
[00:07:29] Will: Oh, and the size of Manhattan could sustain a fair bit more than 15 people.
[00:07:32] Rod: Yeah. And I think it's pretty lush.
[00:07:34] Will: Well, it would be
[00:07:35] Rod: yeah, I reckon it's more like a hundred ish guessing. And so you can't really tell, but so people can go within a few nautical miles of the island legally and they can look at it.
[00:07:43] And they have often over the years and they reckon they live in probably three separate groups. Okay. They have two kinds of housing, either a large communal hut or these sort of temporary makeshift shelters have no, that have no walls. So basically roofs, they appear to be extremely healthy, thriving, well, as hell, they look proud and strong and observers, many observers, it seems have noted that they have, there are quite a few children and pregnant women
[00:08:06] Will: pregnant women would clearly be an indicator. Children is clearly an indicator of the success of of a group of people.
[00:08:13] Rod: Yep. And I assume a hundred issues enough to not make them get too inbred
[00:08:18] Will: I thought you need like 400.
[00:08:22] Rod: So they seem to be well, also like they really want to be left alone, like, not like, you know, mine, but it's like, fuck off. So why is one of the questions and you'll be amazed to hear there's a bit of history to this, for example. 1880. You're going to be shocked. Shocked. This is unprecedented.
[00:08:38] So British Royal Navy officer Maurice Portman, he sends a party to make contact with the people. He sends them onto the shore. So, apparently they got on the land and the islanders buggered off into the trees. Like they abandoned everything. And the British went, Oh, abandoned villages. There's not a lot going on here.
[00:08:54] Will: And they didn't smash them?
[00:08:55] Rod: No, they didn't. They weren't monsters. They did capture six people, because, you know.
[00:08:59] Will: Ha, just take a few!
[00:09:00] Rod: Hang on, let's collect a couple. An old man, an old woman, and four kids. That's probably the ones that was there, they're too slow.
[00:09:05] Will: Well, you couldn't get six kids. Like, that'd be annoying.
[00:09:08] Rod: It'd look weird too.
[00:09:09] Will: It would look weird. But it'd also, it'd be like, fuck, how do we Look after these things like at least you get some adults to look after them
[00:09:16] Rod: So yeah six people and they took him back to a nearby island that was, you know, had a base on it for the British. So as the quote runs, inevitably, they all got very sick. The elderly couple died and the colonists thought it'd be brilliant idea to just dump the kids back on the island. Fuck the oldies died, give the kids back.
[00:09:32] Will: Yeah, I know. I know. Look and yes, probably giving the kids back is good in some ways.
[00:09:37] Rod: Oh, look, they gave him gifts as well. Like here's some children and some trinkets, maybe a pot and a pan or I don't know. A hat with three corners.
[00:09:44] Will: I hat with three corners. I'd take that. Like no one doesn't like a hat with three corners.
[00:09:48] Rod: Whoever doesn't is a monster. So yeah, they gave the kids back, they gave them some gifts and the suspicion, pretty strong one is they probably gave them a disease or two, you know, sniffles, whatever. But they're still there. This was in 1880 and they're definitely still there. Flash forward 1967, former regional head of India's ministry of tribal affairs. He's an anthropologist, T. M. Pandit. He did his first expedition to the North Sentinel Island in 67. And he'd had a long, ongoing kind of relationship with the island, if not the people.
[00:10:20] He'd been a part of it. So initially the Sentinelese They'd hide in the jungle. They're like, Oh fuck, people are coming or even getting near us. And then when I hang on a minute, let's shoot them with arrows. Like I'm sick of hiding. And he said, look, anthropologists would bring selections of items with them to try and entice them as is, you know, let's see what might be useful to them. Live frogs. See what you're into. And the quote, he didn't interview this guy 2018. He did an interview with BBC and he said, look, we had brought in gifts of pots, pans, large quantities of coconuts, iron tools like hammers and long knives.
[00:10:50] We also had taken along three Onge men who are from a different island nearby to help us interpret the Sentinelese speech and behaviors. It didn't really help. Yeah. The Sentinelese warriors faced us with angry and grim faces and fully armed with their long bows and arrows set to defend their land.
[00:11:08] So they're like, yeah, cool. Whatever feck off. They didn't have much success, but they would still leave these gifts behind and try and cajole, you know, dances with wolves style.
[00:11:18] Will: You leave the gifts. The point is offering, an opening.
[00:11:21] Rod: The sources vary. There were one or two pigs tied up and left as a gift. And so the Islanders went, fuck that, killed them and buried them. We're not interested, we don't know what it is and we don't want it. Or we know what it is, but we don't care because it came from you and get fucked.
[00:11:33] Will: Yeah, it could be. How do they know that though?
[00:11:35] Rod: I don't know. That they died? They've seen animals.
[00:11:38] Will: No. How do we know that they killed them and buried them?
[00:11:40] Rod: On the beach, I think. They like literally killed them where they stood. Well, that's not from here. Bury it. Yeah, I don't have a hundred percent proof of that, but that was the impression I got. Moving into the seventies they set up a policy, the Indian government set up a policy to try and make contact with the Sentinelese with the ultimate goal of teaching them agriculture and forcibly settling them into their society. For your own good, the Indians had great mentors in being colonial monsters.
[00:12:06] Will: They, yeah, like they had recent experience with colonization. And obviously they would know how to do it better.
[00:12:11] Rod: And they definitely embraced it quite heavily. So they'd send boats and offer gifts to the tribes. The Sentinelese largely said no
[00:12:17] Will: they didn't go in and say, you too could be a farm worker, be part of the industrial machine? Would you like a factory job?
[00:12:22] Rod: Do you want to want things that you can't make or find yourself and then become
[00:12:27] Will: or how about a despondent urban life where you just consume things and then you work until you get sick and tired and die in your own poop? Could we offer that to them?
[00:12:36] Rod: Yeah, you can have that if you want. In fact, we're going to encourage you into it. Yeah, they were rebuffed, basically, with arrows. Fuck off. So, apparently a breakthrough came in 1991. The tribe came out to peacefully approach TM Pandit and his people.
[00:12:50] They approached them in the ocean, so they went out into the ocean to meet them. And Pandit says in this interview with the BBC again, we were puzzled why they allowed us. It was their decision to meet us, and the meeting took place on their terms. So we jumped out of the boat, stood in neck deep water.
[00:13:07] Will: See I was, you know, it's more dignified if you're sort of at the, at your hips. Like your ankles, it's like okay, but neck deep. Neck deep is great. Neck deep is a great place to have a conversation.
[00:13:17] Rod: That's our terms
[00:13:19] Will: I hope there's some shorter people that are like treading water hard during this negotiation.
[00:13:22] Rod: Low tide and not turning at the time, maybe at calm waters. They were distributing in this neck deep water, coconuts and other things, but they weren't allowed to actually come onto the island. But they were allowed that far. They actually met them
[00:13:35] Will: just slightly opening. Yeah. All right. We'll meet you out there.
[00:13:37] Rod: And look, a Pandit says, look, he wasn't particularly worried, but they stayed on alert about being attacked. He says they were talking among themselves, but we couldn't understand their language. It sounded similar to languages spoken by other tribal groups in the area, but not the same.
[00:13:52] And he says their team tried to communicate with them in some kind of sign language, but that didn't fly. So then it moves on to a memorable exchange, as he put it, where I was giving away coconuts. I got a bit separated from the rest of my team and started to get a bit closer to shore. A young Sentinel boy made a funny face, took his knife and signaled to me, I gather like this, that he would cut his head off. I immediately called for the boat and I made a quick retreat.
[00:14:16] Will: No, thanks. Thanks. Thanks all. That's as far as we need to go.
[00:14:19] Rod: That's a boy. So the kid says, wait till my dad gets here. Yeah. So he goes on to say the gesture of the boy is significant. He made it clear. I was not welcome.
[00:14:29] Will: So maybe the kids were in charge.
[00:14:31] Rod: That's the twist. It's coming.
[00:14:33] Will: Kid based dictatorship.
[00:14:35] Rod: Yeah. It's Lord of the Flies, but they were still adults. So no one knows why the Sentinelese first said, fuck you and then went, okay, maybe we'll hang with you and now we changed our minds again. Wasn't clear if anyone was dying of diseases, like it just wasn't clear. They just decided to turn it around again. So in the late 1990s, indigenous rights groups started to protest the Indian government, and they basically said, we're not going to try and make contact with them anymore.
[00:14:58] So, so the Indian government said, all right, we'll listen to the protest. They said, all right, leave them alone.
[00:15:02] Will: Just leave them alone. Good. Thank you.
[00:15:03] Rod: And the Sentinelese since then have continued to express hostilities to the outside world. 2006, two Indian fishermen They'd been out poaching in the waters around the island.
[00:15:15] Will: Okay. And so, so they're fishing, but they've stretched into the territorial.
[00:15:19] Rod: They're not supposed to. They probably got shit face drunk so they moored their boat.
[00:15:23] Will: That is colonization precedent though.
[00:15:25] Rod: Isn't it? Get smashed and do something dumb. Encroach, poach, get trashed
[00:15:31] Will: step over the line and then defend that line that you took while you were drunk. Oh Jesus.
[00:15:38] Rod: So the boat drifted, so I don't think they anchored well, and it actually hit the island. So they were killed. End of that.
[00:15:46] Will: So, well, at least we're establishing some idea of the policy here. There is a boundary here.
[00:15:51] Rod: 2014. So there's a mega tsunami in December of that year.
[00:15:56] Will: I was wondering, I didn't want to jump ahead, but the tsunami went all the way through that whole area.
[00:16:02] Rod: The Indian coast guard went, Oh, let's just fly over and see if they're okay. So as I was flying over a single dude comes out and just starts shooting arrows at the helicopter. Fuck off.
[00:16:11] Will: It's a sign.
[00:16:12] Rod: Yeah, they're fine. It's not clear whether he knew what they were or whatever he thought, but one thing he knew for sure is not us. Fuck off. So despite all this, Pandit, again, the former head of the region for the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, he said in this interview, from his experience, the group are largely peace loving, and he believes their fearsome reputation is unfair. He went on to say, look, during our interactions, they threatened us, but it never reached a point where they went on to wound or kill anyone, so they just A bit like,
[00:16:40] Will: well, anyone firing your bow and arrow straight at the head first shot, it's going to cause trouble that you don't need.
[00:16:47] First it's let's show that we have a bow and arrow. And then show that we can fire it and then show that we're accurate if we want. And then you gradually step up. You don't go straight for the eye.
[00:16:57] Rod: It's not like what happened. They killed Steve. I think it was a threat. I think they were trying to tell us something.
[00:17:02] Will: You could ask them, you could say, who do you care about the least?
[00:17:05] Rod: All of you, we are nothing, if not egalitarian. And he basically goes on to say, look, whenever they got agitated, we'd just back off. We're up to speed now on the Sentinelese and outsider interactions, but what about the missionary fella I mentioned at the top?
[00:17:19] Will: Yes, I was worried about him.
[00:17:21] Rod: John Chau. He grew up in Vancouver, Washington, not Vancouver, Canada. His family were members of the Assemblies of God. Oh. So the Pentecostal members believe things like the Bible is, you know, divinely inspired, infallible, authoritative.
[00:17:38] Will: There are many Christians that believe the Bible is divinely inspired. Like that's not an uncommon thing.
[00:17:43] Rod: They're like, it's only divinely inspired, but it is the infallible rule of all things. The Bible is the thing. It's perfect. Came out perfect straight from God's bum to the man's mouth.
[00:17:53] Will: God doesn't have a bum
[00:17:54] Rod: but we're in God's image. If I'm in God's image and I have a bum
[00:17:57] Will: he's a being made of light. God does not do poos.
[00:18:01] Rod: I didn't say it poos.
[00:18:02] Will: Well, why do you have a bum then?
[00:18:03] Rod: Why'd you make it weird? To sit on. I didn't say butthole. I said, bum. You go straight to the dirty
[00:18:08] Will: I do hope God shits. If there's a God, I hope it's God that shits.
[00:18:12] Rod: And it smells like fairy floss? Texture of caviar? Fucking horrible. Smells like fairy floss, texture of caviar.
[00:18:18] Will: Nah, see, I was going with, cause God's getting rid of it. It's purely satanic. Like it is going like.
[00:18:22] Rod: Ah, he poos straight into hell. So hell is God's toilet. That makes sense. Stranger Things were suggested than that. The assemblies of God also unknown that they're speaking in tongue folk, which I think is cool. If you're going to have a deep religion, do the audio and do that speaking in tongues. I think it's fucking awesome.
[00:18:39] Will: You'd be in for that.
[00:18:40] Rod: Fuck yeah I would. That's the fun part. So yeah, assemblies of God, or so it would seem he went to an intimate boutique Christian high school. 90 students across all seven grades. The quote as a child, he was consumed by two passions that became increasingly entwined, outdoor adventure
[00:18:57] Will: not a terrible thing.
[00:18:59] Rod: And Jesus Christ
[00:19:01] Will: again, not a terrible thing.
[00:19:03] Rod: So he was apparently very enthusiastic about the extracurriculars, and that's not a euphemism, like actual extracurricular activities. So he loved hiking, camping, travel. He meticulously documented his journeys and adventures in social media. So he's a modern guy. Gets out there and does stuff, wants everyone to see and know. He was very into a Pentecostal scouting organization called the Royal Rangers. And he attained a gold medal of achievement, which is apparently equivalent to an Eagle Scout, which I have no fucking idea, it means you're a very good American scout.
[00:19:33] He liked to post quotes on Facebook by a dude called Jim Elliott, who was one of five missionaries killed by a tribe in Ecuador in 1956. So he admired this guy's zeal. During high school, he went on trips, including a missionary trip to Mexico. And he came back kind of psyched up quotes from him. We can't be lukewarm. We need to know how to defend our faith.
[00:19:55] Will: Defend
[00:19:56] Rod: It's always defend. It's always battle. Yeah. I mean for many religions, but I dunno much about others. I know a bit about Christianity and there's always this fucking defense battle thing
[00:20:04] Will: just for me. This slipping between defending your own, fine. You know, you're in an argument, you're like, I believe this, and someone else says you, whatever. Fine. Versus going out and and converting new people, that's not defense.
[00:20:17] Rod: It's not defense. I'm going to go and defend it. You as I was just sitting here having a cigarette and a sandwich and you started shouting at me. This isn't defense right now. He goes on when we go out into our world, there are people that will just come and oppose us and they'll have questions and they'll have arguments. We can't just like go out there unprepared. We need to know what we believe and why we believe it. So he's strong.
[00:20:39] Will: It's not a dumb thing for any person in a religion to know what they believe and know why they believe it.
[00:20:43] Rod: Or just a person in general, what you believe and why. While he was at high school, he was also exposed to a missionary database called the Joshua project. That's where he found out about the Sentinelese.
[00:20:53] Will: Oh, did it have targets?
[00:20:56] Rod: Let me call it information.
[00:20:58] Will: Places where we haven't been successful yet, where we haven't defended our patch yet. Future defense projects.
[00:21:05] Rod: Yes. Let's go out and actively practically defend non attacked things. I'm not punching you out and stealing from you. I'm defending myself
[00:21:14] Will: in the future, future defense, defending my future self
[00:21:17] Rod: proactive defense. So the database said the Sentinelese were extremely isolated, noted that the Indian government banned all access to the North Sentinel Island and therefore
[00:21:27] Will: could listen to them.
[00:21:29] Rod: Then went on to suggest praying for the Indian government to allow Christians to quote, earn the trust of the Sentinelese people and also quote, live among them. It went on to assert, this is the Joshua Project database, that the Sentinelese, quote again, need to know that the creator, God, exists. And that he loves them and paid the price for their sins. They need to know that. Obviously.
[00:21:53] Will: Yeah. I'm just going back to not everyone needs to come to the whole of science. Not everyone needs to come to other things as well.
[00:22:01] Rod: Oh, other things. I agree. Whole of science. So after high school, Chau goes to Oral Roberts University. Oral Roberts, the famous evangelist. I love his name is Oral. It's great. O R A L. We're not fucking around. So he goes to Oral Roberts high school. I mean, sorry, university, which is super conservative.
[00:22:21] It forbids smoking, drinking, swearing. Any kind of sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage, the standard, just like our university.
[00:22:32] Will: I get that you can have an idea of God that says don't root until until you're married because rooting is the special thing. That's the making of the babies. It's just the idea that God is concerned about swearing.
[00:22:42] I just, I don't think God would be troubled. You made a whole universe and someone makes a sound that
[00:22:48] Rod: in an arbitrary language, arbitrary sound in an arbitrary language that is arbitrarily good or bad.
[00:22:53] Will: Like, like, is God really regretting that he invented swear words?
[00:22:57] Rod: Anyway, Chau was really into this. He loved the university. He loved their their morals and their attitudes. He was also described by people as being very easy to connect with as a person. So, you know, kind of charming, charismatic. He preferred one on one conversations rather than large group interactions.
[00:23:14] He was also good looking and received a fair share of female attention, but he was very humble. I mean, and look, there's nothing I read that suggested he, he was he seemed like a decent guy. Like he didn't sound like a terrible human. His morals and mind.
[00:23:26] Will: A bit of past tense in this sentence.
[00:23:28] Rod: Well, this is when he was at uni, he's not at uni anymore. 2014, he graduates, he's seriously focused on prepping for and going on Christian focused missions in general, but particularly in the back of his mind, the Sentinel Island, the North Sentinel Island. And this is his thing that Joshua project databases like. Sentinel Islands, man.
[00:23:48] So after graduating, he goes to Kurdistan to do outreach with refugees. It goes to Israel on a sponsored trip by a very right wing Christian organization. He went to a national outdoor leadership school course, trained as an emergency medical technician, spent three summers at Whiskey Town National Recreation Area in California, Whiskey Town.
[00:24:10] Will: That sounds like a place that the Christians could proselytize.
[00:24:12] Rod: I can't believe you'd be allowed to go there.
[00:24:13] Will: Like that should be on the Joshua project as well. Whiskey Town. Like number one, St. Helens, number two, Whiskey Town, we're going to conquer Whiskey Town and stop them.
[00:24:19] Rod: Sons of bitches. What are they into? So it's recreational in California and he worked as a ranger and emergency nurse and he lived alone in a small cabin. So three summers as a young man, he post Union, but young fella.
[00:24:30] Will: Well, that's gonna keep you from breaking the bounds of celibacy
[00:24:34] Rod: His adventures. He had some adventures while he was doing this. He once got lost. He had, he went on a 14 day trek with a couple of buddies, got lost. And to get back on course, they had to climb down a frozen waterfall to somehow find their way back to civilization, which is very kind of Shackleton.
[00:24:48] You know, it's very cool. Very cool. Another time he almost died cause of quote a gnarly bite from a rattlesnake. And apparently he went quite down before he went up again. So, you know, he had some adventures. He had some things happen. He learned some things like not terrible. The emergency medical technician thing, the outdoor education, like. Again, nothing about it sounds terrible.
[00:25:09] Will: Look, it's a great motivating force to get you to go and see the rest of the world. Go and seeing the rest of the world. You can just do anyway.
[00:25:16] Rod: No you must do it without fornication, smoking, swearing et cetera. He documented all the adventures. He's very social media savvy and active. So he ended up racking up a huge following and a beef jerky company said, we'd like to sponsor you as an influencer. Sure. It's the obvious thing. You seem Christian and holy. How about beaver jerky?
[00:25:34] Will: But he's a beef jerky guy. Does he suddenly have to start eating beef jerky when he doesn't like it?
[00:25:39] Rod: I assume you ate it the whole time. Did God say anything? Did the Bible say anything about the beef jerkies?
[00:25:45] Will: No, God would have had like a beef jerky animal ready to go.
[00:25:48] Rod: Good jerkey's delicious. Anyway. So the company wanted to sponsor him as an influencer. During this time as he was doing all this training and learning and service, he eschewed romantic liaisons and of course a full time career because he had to stay focused on his Sentinelese mission. Yeah. And it would be unfair to the career of the loved one.
[00:26:08] Will: It wouldn't be any good.
[00:26:09] Rod: No, because there are risks. So time for the real mission. 2015 and 16, he did four separate trips to the Andaman islands, but not to North Sentinel Island. So it's other islands around it. And he worked up a pretty decent network of local Christian folk. 2017, he went on a boot camp run by all nations, which is an organization out of Kansas city that works to see Jesus worshiped by every tongue, tribe, and nation.
[00:26:36] Will: Oh, but not everyone in every nation?
[00:26:38] Rod: Every tongue. I don't know if that means language or actual individuals, probably both.
[00:26:43] Will: I'm sure that's their high goal stretch goal is everyone, everywhere, everyone, everywhere. And the low goal is someone in every language.
[00:26:50] Rod: But I don't think they would admit out loud to the low goal.
[00:26:52] Will: No, but it depends who you're talking to. Low goal is a public goal. Yeah, that's true. No, we're not trying to get everyone. Internally, fucking everyone. Could you leave me alone?
[00:27:00] Rod: They like to also, the all nations folk like to inculcate a wartime mentality in true believers and coach them to quote, make strategic decisions in the battle we're waging against a real enemy. Obviously that is satan.
[00:27:13] Will: Yes. Well, of course.
[00:27:14] Rod: So that was 2017, 2018, October. He's psyched. He's ready. He's ready to rock. It's time to go and quote, bring Christ to Satan's last stronghold.
[00:27:25] Will: Could you, could you not call them Satan's last stronghold?
[00:27:28] Rod: Many sources, that's the quote. The Sentinelese people are
[00:27:32] Will: Couldn't you say they're neutral to this point? Ah, fucking hell.
[00:27:35] Rod: He's not saying they're evil. He's saying they're in the thrall of evil.
[00:27:38] Will: Surely he's from, you know Certain part of America, don't you look at New York is like Babylon. And it's like, look at them fornicating with outside marriage.
[00:27:47] Rod: I know. Like you sit on the subway and people be fucking unmarried folks.
[00:27:50] Will: Exactly. Surely that is Satan stronghold. And that's a stronger hold than some island.
[00:27:54] Rod: No, because at least there is the presence of Jesus in you.
[00:27:56] Will: Oh, okay. So the people know. These people don't even know.
[00:27:59] Rod: They don't even know what they don't know. Don't know. Yeah. Chau travels to Port Blair, which is a regional capital of the Andaman islands. He goes into a self imposed 11 day quarantine in which he went without direct sunlight. don't know why, like a vampire.
[00:28:16] Will: That's weird. I get not catch a cold right before you go. That's a good thing, buddy.
[00:28:21] Rod: Agree. 11 day quarantine is a nice thing to do.
[00:28:24] Will: It absolutely is. If you're drilling yourself down into the frozen lake under Antarctica, don't get yourself a cold before you get in there.
[00:28:30] Rod: Do not. So yeah, no direct sunlight for reasons unknown prayer and exercise, obviously. And he read the lives of the three Mrs. Judson's. It's a chronicle of 19th century missionary journaling, some description. So something missionary esk, of course, to go to the North Sentinel islands or go anywhere near them, you need official permission. So he didn't get that because why would you? I don't recognize your authority. I'll respond to a higher one
[00:28:58] Will: but I get it. I get it. He's like, he wouldn't have asked for forgiveness, not for permission because you're not getting permission. And once you've asked.
[00:29:04] Rod: No way in shit they would have said yes. So instead he paid some of the local Christian fishermen. So I assume part of the network he's made earlier.
[00:29:10] Will: Which of you fishermen is a godly fisherman? Like did you just go out to the port and say Looking for Christians with a boat.
[00:29:19] Rod: my impression is he probably already knew them because his previous trips. He paid them 25, 000 rupees. So the equivalent of about 500 bucks Australian, 300 of American to sneak him near the island.
[00:29:32] Will: Get me across the line into neck deep water
[00:29:34] Rod: 14th of November. So they sneak past coast guard boats. They get to the North central Island late at night and they anchor
[00:29:43] Will: are other boats like, sort of defending this perimeter all the time?
[00:29:46] Rod: I assume they're around. I don't think they'd kind of cordon them off, but there are cruising folk
[00:29:51] Will: just to keep an eye on people that are doing the kind of thing?
[00:29:53] Rod: Well, everything, that whole region, that all those waters are under, you know, control or observation. So yeah, 14th of November late at night, they anchor nearish the island. 15th of November, next day, makes his first approach. The fisherman would not go any closer to the island, so he strips down to his underwear because he thought it would make the Sentinelese more at ease with him if he's just in his knickers.
[00:30:13] Will: It is a great way to meet people.
[00:30:14] Rod: Ren and stimpy boxer shorts. So then in his undies he kayaks towards the shore. Quotes are, he saw a hut and some dugout canoes.
[00:30:23] Will: Did he choose his undies? Like, will you like, this is my meeting undies. Like, you know, when you look at your undies draw, this is your, yeah, it's date night tonight. Or, you know, I've got a big job interview. I'll put my lucky undies on or there's your meeting new folk undies.
[00:30:40] Rod: Do you have lucky undies? Are you wearing them now?
[00:30:42] Will: You're meeting a new people. You've got to choose your outfit and it's a lot of pressure to put just straight undies. The right undies. Well, you're not putting your raggiest undie on.
[00:30:50] Rod: Maybe that's more respectful and relaxing.
[00:30:53] Will: Maybe it is. I don't know. It's a lot of pressure to put on your undies.
[00:30:56] Rod: And so in those precious some undies. He kayaks to shore, he saw the huts and some canoes, he paddles up to the beach, several Sentinelese, apparently their faces were painted yellow and speaking a language of quote high pitched sounds rushed out towards him. My name is John. He says, I love you. And Jesus loves you.
[00:31:19] Will: Okay. Let's go straight with English. English will work.
[00:31:21] Rod: And the louder it is, the easier it is to understand.
[00:31:24] Will: Look, it's the work of colonizers here.
[00:31:26] Rod: It's true. What do you do if the natives don't understand you? Speak louder! The Islanders began to string their bows. He wigs out, he throws the fish he'd brought as gifts at them,
[00:31:37] Will: throws the fish?
[00:31:38] Rod: You're like, fuck.
[00:31:38] Will: No, seriously, practice this shit, man.
[00:31:41] Rod: He panicked. It's only him and the lord. It's him and Jesus is the co pilot.
[00:31:46] Will: Put the fish down gracefully.
[00:31:48] Rod: Panics, throws the fish
[00:31:49] Will: throws the fish at them. You fucking idiot. Stab someone with a tuna. He's got a sword fish and it's straight through his brain.
[00:31:58] Rod: Throws the fish, turns around and quote, paddled like I never have in my life. So basically shits himself, flings fish and fucks off.
[00:32:05] Will: Well, I'm kind of glad, but yeah, just rehearse a little bit. Think about how it might go.
[00:32:11] Rod: Later that same day. He says, I'm going to go back.
[00:32:14] Will: Yeah, of course. Like you've paid the guy five, 500 bucks.
[00:32:18] Rod: So he lays out more gifts. Oh, he's laying him out this time. Yep. He heads towards a hut, but he stays out of arrow range. About half a dozen or so of the Sentinelese emerge and began to quote, whoop and shout.
[00:32:30] He walks closer trying to hear what they're saying. He tried to, this is my favorite quote probably this whole story. He tried to parrot their words back to them. No. And that's what happens when someone speaks a language you don't understand. You go, oh, hang on. I think I've got it.
[00:32:43] Will: It is nice seeing colonization brought down to the one person . Like you know that this is the same person who did it in 1600, who did it in 1200, all the way back, exactly the same. Oh, maybe if I just
[00:32:54] Rod: what if I just make similar sounds? Fucking idiot. Thinking that's your go to. Oh, this sounds like what they're saying.
[00:33:05] Will: It's not possible to not be racist in that moment. You're going, what am I hearing?
[00:33:11] Rod: Do you know what's definitely also not possible? Ever to make sense, like ever. So he does that. He parrots the words back. Apparently the Sentinelese burst out laughing.
[00:33:22] Will: Oh, okay. That's a good reaction.
[00:33:24] Rod: He reckons they were probably saying bad words or insulting me. So he reckons they were like goading him into repeating terrible things. Bullshit. Even if they were, it doesn't matter. You were just making noises.
[00:33:34] Will: I'm going to say, I'm going to say laughter is a much better reaction than the other options here.
[00:33:39] Rod: Yeah. He does the obvious, he does the obvious thing next. What is the obvious thing? He starts singing worship songs and preaching from Genesis. Duh. That's your go to, right?
[00:33:50] Will: Well, you're being judged by God, so you might as well.
[00:33:53] Rod: So this apparently, this singing of songs and preaching from Genesis, caused them to pause for a moment. They kind of went, what the fuck's he doing?
[00:34:00] Will: It's like Guardians of the Galaxy.
[00:34:02] Rod: It is. They kind of went, he's doing the ding, and they were like, huh. Then a boy shot an arrow at him. The arrow hit his waterproof Bible. That is one of those lucky ones. It was my lucky cigarette case. That's why I didn't die
[00:34:17] Will: in missionary shops, there is the waterproof Bible
[00:34:20] Rod: that is also arrow proof.
[00:34:24] Will: I don't know why, you know, if you're buying, you know, a waterproof book, why not buy one that is like fully chest sized and like
[00:34:30] Rod: well, you're not expecting it to also need to be projectile proof.
[00:34:33] Will: That's the point. That's the point. You're going to get shot in the Bible. Like Teddy Roosevelt
[00:34:36] Rod: shot in the Bible. So it hit the Bible. He pulls the arrow out, gives it back to the boy, which is pretty fucking cool. That's cool. Like that's classy. Then he buggers off again. But when he goes back to try and find his kayak, they'd taken his boat.
[00:34:48] So it's a swim a mile or more, which is what 9, 000 kilometers. 1. 6. Yeah. Back to the fishing boat. That night he's in the fishing boat and he writes in his diary. I'm scared. I'm watching the sunset and it's beautiful.
[00:35:00] Will: Don't make me empathize with him.
[00:35:01] Rod: No, I'm going to. He then said he was crying a bit, wondering if it'll be the last sunset I see before being in the place where the sun never sets. He wrote to his family.
[00:35:11] Will: Colonization is hard.
[00:35:12] Rod: Colonization is not easy, right? Yeah. Like it's, it takes a lot to put yourself into that position. To his family. He writes, you guys might think I'm crazy and all this, but I think it's worth it to declare Jesus to these people. He didn't wanna die, but he accepted that he could.
[00:35:27] Will: Why didn't he just throw a Bible at them and run away ? Doesn't that count? Doesn't that count? Give a waterproof one.
[00:35:36] Rod: So he says, look, I don't wanna die, but I accept I could. And he says Here, I think I could be more useful if alive, but to you, God, I give all the glory of whatever happens. He ask God to forgive any of the people on the island who try to kill me, especially if they succeed . Next day he gets the fishermen to drop him off alone because he thought it'd be less threatened to the Islanders if there was only him, but also if things went quote badly It would spare the fishermen from having to quote again, bear witness to death
[00:36:06] Will: So the fishermen is coming in a bit closer this time?
[00:36:08] Rod: Yeah, it seems like it, but it's still, you know, a distance. So just before dawn, he starts plopping in towards the shore. He knew the risks, but he says, quote, the people of the North Sentinel were damned and he was determined to save them. So they killed him, Chau died. That was it. He died. That was the end of it. He didn't make it, which is why this story came to my attention.
[00:36:43] Will: So he was he on the island three times?
[00:36:45] Rod: Two and a bit
[00:36:45] Will: but third time's the charm?
[00:36:46] Rod: It was a charm. He got to go to God.
[00:36:48] Will: He threw the fish the first time. Second time he sang a song, got shot in the Bible. Third time, we know no more because he moved on to glory. But you can imagine the government on this island, you know, whatever is made up of kids or the grownups could say, look, first time, he's an idiot. Second time. We're a bit annoyed. Fuck buddy. Third time. Fuck this. Sorry. Just, it's not happening anymore.
[00:37:10] Rod: Other people got killed immediately. So he actually got quite a bit of leeway.
[00:37:13] Will: Well, he had a fish.
[00:37:14] Rod: A bunch of fish. High velocity fish, but fish nonetheless. So the Indian government, they're very protective of the Sentinelese and they respect the wishes to be left alone. They do now. There are laws which even forbid taking photographs or making videos of them and some of the other tribes around these islands. Good. The Indian police charged the fishermen who took charge of the island.
[00:37:33] Will: Good. Sorry, buddies.
[00:37:35] Rod: Yeah. Fuck you. You did a bad thing. And you knew it was illegal. Of course, they can't charge any of the tribe's people because the island has sovereignty and also What the fuck are you talking about? So, Pandit, T. M. Pandit, the dude who was in charge Way back in the 60s. Yep. He was interviewed again in the BBC 2018, just after this death.
[00:37:50] He said, look, the Sentinelese are a peace loving people. They don't seek to attack people. They don't visit nearby areas and cause trouble, which I think is an important one. They don't go out and fuck with people. They hang out where they are. And he said, this is a rare incident.
[00:38:02] And it is. We are the aggressors here. He told the Indian paper. We are the ones who tried to enter or try to enter their territory. Now about Chau, he says, look, I feel very sad for the death of this young man, but he made a mistake. He had enough chance to save himself, but he persisted and paid with his life.
[00:38:20] And it's true. He had chances. He was given two shots and he said, fuck it. I'm going to go in anyway for the Lord. Chau's family chimed in and said, they forgive the people responsible for his death. We forgive those reportedly responsible, they wrote in a statement on Instagram, the obvious, you know, the place of mourning.
[00:38:37] They go on. He ventured out on his own free will and his local contacts need not to be prosecuted for his own actions. So basically you did it champ.
[00:38:45] Will: Oh, fair enough. Fair enough. I mean, that that's the only decent thing you can say.
[00:38:49] Rod: It's civilized and the main source for the Chau part of this, which is a guardian article, they say they report on a lot of very strongly worded and very varied opinions about what Chau did and what he deserved or didn't. His parents basically though are very forgiving of the son's killer. They sounded pretty damn fucked off with the church though.
[00:39:07] His parents were like this church or these churches Manipulate and mess with the minds of these young people. They go out and do stupid things and get themselves fucking killed. Least or most uncontacted tribe or group of people in the world today
[00:39:24] Will: I've heard of them in the past and I've always been fascinated. I think I think it's a lovely story Of a tribe, you know, potentially it's internal ideological reasons, but whatever to go, no, this is how we live and we keep up a boundary, leave us alone. And you know what? I can leave them alone.
[00:39:41] Rod: I agree. Do what you want. And the really magical point for me is that Pandit guy saying, they never go beyond their boundaries and they don't mess with anyone.
[00:39:48] Will: But this is a perfect analogy for this Steve guy. They're tending to their own patch. Tend to your own patch. Leave it alone. Be the perfect person in your belief system. Don't go and don't go and tell other people that they're wrong.
[00:40:03] Rod: Oh, and look, I know there are people in many religions involved in many religions around the world and they're fine, but this version of it is culpable. Absolutely culpable, like these people encouraging and actually funding such folks to go out and do this. It's terrible. It's terrible. Don't do that. Leave people alone.
[00:40:21] Will: Yeah, totally. I think it's one of the most bullshit aspects of religion is the whole, you've got to make other people believe. You know, if the argument is good enough, then it works for you and surely God would be like, my argument is good enough and if you believe it, then you win.
[00:40:36] Rod: And if you don't, that's cool.
[00:40:37] Will: Well, you go to hell, but fine. But you don't have to go out and make sure people know about it.
[00:40:42] Rod: Leave people the fuck alone. Leave them alone.
