Things fall apart: Searching for a lost tribe

 “There is no story that is not true…. The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.”—Chinua Achebe, “Things Fall Apart”

“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”—Jesus to his disciples, Matthew 28:19

At some point between the afternoon of November 16, 2018, and the morning of November 17, 2018, 26-year-old American missionary John Allen Chau was killed by unknown members of a tribe that has occupied North Sentinel Island, a remote island in the Andaman Island chain in the Bay of Bengal, for perhaps 30,000 years.

Chau, who intended to preach the gospel and “declare Jesus” to the tribe, had paid local fishermen to drop him off on the island. These same fishermen observed tribesmen dragging his lifeless, arrow-riddled body on the shore the following day.

Chau and the fisherman knowingly broke several laws by breaching the three-mile exclusion zone surrounding the island, a restriction imposed by the nation of India, of which North Sentinel Island is a part. Chau also had been warned by many people that the tribe violently resisted contact and had allegedly killed fishermen who had visited the island. When Indian helicopters flew over the island after the 2004 tsunami, the tribesmen threw spears at them.

Chau himself had visited the island at least twice before in recent days. He attempted to preach and sing hymns to the angry, confused tribe members, who rejected the small gifts he offered and reacted violently. His diary describes his encounters with the tribesmen, who drew their bows and chased him back to the boat on the first day, while the women of the tribe yelled at him. The second day, a tribesman shot an arrow at him that pierced his waterproof Bible, and he noted in his diary that he might not survive a third attempt. Nevertheless, Chau carefully avoided military patrols and visited the island a third and final time, where he met his fate. According to friends, family, and his writings, he had been planning this for years.

The Indian government has announced that it will respect the tribe’s wish to be left alone and will not attempt to recover Chau’s body. Chau’s family has announced that it has forgiven his killers.

Predictably, public opinion is divided between those who believe that Chau was in the wrong and deserved his fate, and those who are sympathetic to his mission and believe that his killing was unjustified.

No matter which side you choose, you can’t deny that Chau knew the danger, both from the warnings of several people and from his own recent near-death encounters. Further, he was advised that his plan violated various Indian laws that protected indigenous peoples and the environment, and he studied and planned a way to avoid government patrols.

I have noticed that many of the anti-tribesmen pundits have mischaracterized Chau’s visit, omitting the events leading up to his fatal visit. Instead, they describe Chau as a hapless, naive fellow who cheerfully went to the island a single time, bearing gifts and the Word, and was brutally murdered in response to his sincere generosity. Some have wondered aloud why a “Stone Age” tribe should be left alone when modern medicine and technology, along with the prospect of eternal salvation, might be offered to them. A few have called for the United States government to intervene, a futile plea because Chau was unquestionably in the jurisdiction of India at all relevant times.

The pro-tribesmen folks, on the other hand, have gleefully posted gruesome memes and have cackled at Chau’s fate, which they see as yet another overstep by Euro-centric Christians who seek to impose their faith and world view on people who aren’t interested. People are angry at Chau’s arrogance and recklessness, disregarding his own safety and that of the tribe members, whose immune systems are not prepared to defend them against the germs of outside visitors. Chau in particular and missionaries in general have been criticized for polluting diverse and ancient folkways worldwide, bringing Christianity and Western culture to the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, Africa, and Papua New Guinea, in exchange for medicine or material goods.

Some of the confusion appears to stem from the idea of an “uncontacted tribe.” In modern times, there can really be no such things as a truly uncontacted tribe. Even indigenous residents of the most remote wilderness areas have had some exposure to modern life. If nothing else, they have seen countless aircraft flying over them at low altitudes to photograph them. Most have met loggers, fishermen, prospectors, and others who travel to remote areas. It’s safe to say that they prefer to be left alone, at least as much as they are able to decide that given their limited exposure to the outside world.

My perspective here comes from my understanding of wanting things to remain the same, but understanding that they cannot.

I was raised in a non-religious household, although we were vaguely Christian in a cultural sense, praying to a Christian God, celebrating Christmas and Easter, and generally subscribing to a view of the afterlife that included eternal paradise with Jesus and our deceased relatives. Because I grew up in a rural area with no religious diversity (almost a member of an isolated tribe myself), I became minimally aware of other religions through our three snowy television channels that we received over a weak signal from Atlanta. Rhoda Morgenstern’s family had no Christmas tree, I marveled, while the Ayatollah Khomeini deposed the Shah of Iran. Who were these people? I began to study world religions in earnest at that early age, an interest that has deepened.

Meanwhile, my heart was broken by the intrusion of the modern world as Atlanta’s northern suburbs, once a world away, consumed my mountain home. My grandmother had an outhouse, never took a tub bath, or drove a car. Now, there’s a Starbucks in Dahlonega. It was a lost cause. Everyone was thrilled to get a Wal-Mart. Spears and arrows would have been no match for urban sprawl. We were for sale cheap.

Still, I hadn’t considered the impact of Christian missionaries on other cultures until I was 21 and read Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart” in my undergrad Comparative Literature class. It broke open my brain and disturbed me deeply. It is one of the most influential books I have read to this day, easily one of the top two or three in my lifetime. We think we know best, but we don’t, and we ruin everything.

For these reasons, I am much more sympathetic to the position of the tribespeople of North Sentinel Island than I am to Chau’s plight, although it hurts me to see people laughing at his death. He had the best intentions and he sincerely believed he was saving people’s souls, no matter how limited his worldview was. Plus, he had a family and friends who have lost him and won’t be able to bury him, and I hate for them to witness people’s insensitivity in the face of that.

The tribespeople want to be left alone, and I think they are trying to keep things from falling apart. I don’t blame them. Once it’s done, you can’t put things back together.