GUARDIANS of FIRE

An Anthropological Novel of the Sentinelese

An anthropological novel about The Sentinelese who are an untouched race that live on North Sentinel Island. It is an inaccessible island in the Andaman Ocean, only 25 miles from a modern port settlement in the Andaman Islands off the coast of Burma, but belonging to India.

They are unknown and mysterious because they are so guarded and defensive. And they have been living the same way for thousands of years. With a belief in creation and benevolent spirits, they have a simplistic way of life, so basic they have no real concept of time as we know it. They will kill anyone who lands on their island unarmed, if they managed to cross the sharp coral reef which is dangerous in itself.

No one knows what they call themselves, but I did discover the real name of the island, as told by one who had left there and was recorded in a journal in the eighteen hundreds. I have woven the story of this person into the book. There are many repeated YouTube clips and stories on these remarkable people, but no one had any real clue as to their actual lifestyle, beliefs and language, for their words are unintelligible to other islanders as they have been isolated for so long.

In this book I reveal as close to what is possible as anyone has attempted. As you read this story you will learn that they are not 'primitive', for they are better equipped to handle the world they know, than we are of ours. They are simplistic and in some ways, even better off.

This novel is based on whatever scant information can be found from journals, historical data, books written from British officials who have visited the island in the eighteen hundreds and right up to the nineteen nineties when some limited but meaningful contact was made by an Indian anthropologist Dr TD Pandit. I have discovered much about these people while doing that research. Although a novel, it is based on accurate observation of similar tribes in the area.

I wrote this book because I wanted to know more about them myself. I can now share that with you as you journey with these amazing people over the last 200 years. You will be with them as they experience white humans for the first time, capture by the British, Japanese strafing in WW2, earthquakes and tsunami's. These are not only an isolated people but ones who are very resilient to that which goes on all around them which both fascinates and frightens them.

I hope this book reveals the need to ensure absolute protection of these wonderful, special, but highly endangered people.

Enjoy your discovery.