Boa Sr (''

circa Circa is a word of Latin origin meaning 'approximately'. Circa or CIRCA may also refer to: * CIRCA (art platform), art platform based in London * Circa (band), a progressive rock supergroup * Circa (company), an American skateboard footwear com ...

'' 2 January 1925 – 26 January 2010) was an Indian Great Andamanese elder. She was the last person fluent in the Aka-Bo language. Boa Sr is not to be confused with another Great Andamanese tribal member, Boa Jr; the two women were not directly related. Boa Jr's late mother, Boro (who was also the last speaker of her language,

Aka-Kora The Kora (Cora) language, ''Aka-Kora'', is an extinct Great Andamanese language, of the Northern group. It was spoken on the northeast and north central coasts of North Andaman and on Smith Island. It has been extinct since November 2009 when it ...

) was Boa Sr's best friend and named her daughter in her honor.

Biography

Boa was born around 1925. Her mother, To, belonged to the Bo people and her father, Renge, belonged to the Jeru people. Boa's early life was spent in Mayabunder, a town on Middle Andaman Island. She was married at a young age to Nao, another member of her father's people, although both he and their children predeceased her. She regarded the Jeru language as her mother tongue. Boa Sr. lived through the epidemic brought by the British to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which devastated the Great Andamanese population, and also through the Japanese occupation of the Andaman Islands during World War II. In the 1970s, she and other Great Andamanese was forcibly relocated by the government of India to

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 ...

, a small tribal reserve east of

Baratang Island Baratang 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 of Port Blair. History Ranchiw ...

. Boa Sr. worked with

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 ...

, a professor of linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, since 2005. Abbi studied and recorded Boa's language and songs. Other members of the Great Andamanese speech community had difficulty understanding the songs and narratives which she knew in Bo. She also spoke the Andamanese dialect of Hindi, as well as

Great Andamanese creole The Jeru language, ''Aka-Jeru'' (also known as ''Yerawa'', not to be confused with Järawa), is a nearly extinct Great Andamanese language, of the Northern group. Jeru was spoken in the interior and south coast of North Andaman and on Sound Isl ...

, a mix of the ten indigenous languages of Andamans. Boa Sr. survived the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Suma ...

by climbing a tree. She later explained her escape from the tsunami saying, "We were all there when the earthquake came. The eldest told us the Earth would part, don't run away or move." Her husband, Nao Jer, died several years before she did and the couple had no children. She suffered from some vision loss during her later life, but was considered to be in good health until shortly before her death in 2010. Boa Sr. died at a hospital in

Port Blair Port Blair () is the capital city of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a union territory of India in the Bay of Bengal. It is also the local administrative sub-division (''tehsil'') of the islands, the headquarters for the district of South And ...

on 26 January 2010. Boa Sr., who was approximately 85 years old, was the oldest living member of the Great Andamanese tribes at the time. Boa Sr.'s death left just 52 surviving Great Andamanese people in the world, none of whom remember any Bo. Their population is greatly reduced from the estimated 5,000 Great Andamanese living in the Andaman Islands at the time of the arrival of the British in 1858.

Legacy

Stephen Corry Stephen Corry (born 1951) is a British indigenous rights activist, better known as the CEO of Survival International. He was asked to lead the organisation in 1984. In 1993 he became the chairman of the Free Tibet Campaign and remains on its ...

, director of the British-based NGO Survival International, issued a statement saying, "With the death of Boa Sr. and the extinction of the Bo language, a unique part of human society is now just a memory. Boa's loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands." Linguist Narayan Choudhary also explained what the loss of Boa Sr. meant in both academic and personal terms, "Her loss is not just the loss of the Great Andamanese community, it is a loss of several disciplines of studies put together, including anthropology, linguistics, history, psychology, and biology. To me, Boa Sr. epitomised a totality of humanity in all its hues and with a richness that is not to be found anywhere else."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boa Sr 1920s births 2010 deaths Last known speakers of a language People from North and Middle Andaman district Andamanese languages