The Bo were one of the ten indigenous tribes of the

Great Andamanese people The Great Andamanese are an indigenous people of the Great Andaman archipelago in the Andaman Islands. Historically, the Great Andamanese lived throughout the archipelago, and were divided into ten major tribes. Their distinct but closely relate ...

, originally living on the western coast of

North Andaman Island North Andaman Island is the northern island of Great Andaman of the Andaman Islands. It belongs to the North and Middle Andaman district, North and Middle Andaman administrative Districts of India, district, part of the Indian union territory o ...

in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

. The tribe spoke a distinctive Bo language, closely related to the other

Great Andamanese languages The Great Andamanese languages are a nearly extinct language family once spoken by the Great Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. History By the late 18th century, when the British first established a colonial presenc ...

. The native name for the language was ''Aka-Bo'' (''Aka-'' being a prefix for "tongue"); and this name is often used for the tribe itself. They were mostly forest-dwellers (''eremtaga'') with a smaller number of shore-dwellers (''aryoto'').George Weber (~2009),
The Tribes
'. Chapter 8 in

''. Accessed on 2012-07-12. They are a designated

Scheduled Tribe The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designa ...

. There are still a handful of people who identify themselves as members of the tribe living on a reservation on

Strait Island Strait Island is an island of the Andaman Islands. It belongs to the North and Middle Andaman administrative district, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The island lies north from Port Blair. History Strait ...

, but none can speak the original language.

Anvita Abbi Professor Anvita Abbi (born 9 January 1949) is an Indian linguist and scholar of minority languages, known for her studies on tribal languages and other minority languages of South Asia. In 2013, she was honoured with the Padma Shri, the fourth ...

(2006),
Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands
'. Lincom Europa.

History

The original size of the Bo tribe, by 1858, has been estimated at 200 individuals.George Weber (~2009),

''. Chapter 7 in

''. Accessed on 2012-07-12. However, they were discovered by the British only later, in the work leading to the 1901 census. Like other

Andamanese people The Andamanese are the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, part of India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands union territory in the southeastern part of the Bay of Bengal in Southeast Asia. The Andamanese peoples are among the various groups ...

s, the Bo were decimated during colonial and post-colonial times, by diseases,

alcohol Alcohol most commonly refers to: * Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom * Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks Alcohol may also refer to: Chemicals * Ethanol, one of sev ...

, colonial warfare and loss of territory. The census of 1901 recorded only 48 individuals. Census takers were told that an epidemic had come from the neighboring

Kari Kari or KARI may refer to: Places *Kari, Jhunjhunu, a village in Rajasthan, India * , a village in Mouhoun Province, Burkina Faso *Kari, Tikamgarh, a town in Madhya Pradesh, India * Kari, Iran, a village in Bushehr Province, Iran * Kari-ye Bozorg ( ...

and Kora tribes, and the Bo had resorted to killing all of their own who showed symptoms. Their number was up to 62 in 1911, but then decreased to 16 in 1921 and only 6 in 1931. In 1949, any remaining Bo were relocated, with all other surviving Great Andamanese, to a reservation on

Bluff island Bluff Island may refer to the following islands: *Bluff Island (Andaman and Nicobar Islands) *Bluff Island (Antarctica), Prydz Bay, Antarctica *Bluff Island (Hong Kong) Bluff Island, indigenously known as Sha Tong Hau Shan (), also known as Ung Kon ...

. In 1969 they were moved again to a reservation on Strait Island.Rann Singh Mann (2005)
Andaman and Nicobar Tribes Restudied: Encounters and Concerns
page 149. Mittal Publications. By 1980 only three out of the 23 surviving Great Andamanese claimed to belong to the Bo tribe. By 1994 their numbers had grown to 15 (out of 40).A. N. Sharma (2003),
Tribal Development in the Andaman Islands
', page 62. Sarup & Sons, New Delhi. However, tribal identities became largely symbolic in the wake of the relocations. By 2006 the cultural and linguistic identity of the tribe had all but disappeared, due to intermarriage and other factors. The last speaker of the Bo language, a woman named Boa Senior, died at age 85 in late January 2010.(2010)
Language lost as last member of Andaman tribe dies
'. The Daily Telegraph, London, 5 February 2010. Accessed on 2010-02-22.(2011

''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'', London, 10 February 2010. Accessed on 2010-02-22. Als
on web.archive.org
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References

External links

* http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/20102543519461807.html * http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7015540.ece * http://www.survivalinternational.org/films/last-of-the-bo-tribe * https://web.archive.org/web/20100209004900/http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/bo-tribe-extinct * https://web.archive.org/web/20100209082426/http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/boa-sr-last-member-of-bo-tribe-on-andaman-islands-dies/19346945 {{authority control Ethnic groups in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Scheduled Tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Extinct ethnic groups