The Vanishing People of Little Andaman

The film gives the audience a rare chance to explore the lives of the Negrito hunting-gathering tribe of this island now threatened with extinction. It is only the third film made on the tribe, and probably the only one ever broadcast. The indigenous tribes of the Andamans are said to be the purest Negrito (an anthropological term) group of people left in the world. It is not yet known how such a small group of Negritoes reached these remote islands and managed to remain so genetically unique. The documentary captures the Onges' traditional skills of fishing, making dugout boats and of surviving on their own terms with the forests. The film goes on to provide evidence of the havoc wreaked by government policies and the illegal felling of forests in what was declared to be a tribal reserve way back in 1957.