The Shompen or Shom Pen are the

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

of the interior of Great Nicobar Island, part of the

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n union territory of

Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...

. The Shompen 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 ...

Etymology and autonym

"Shompen" is possibly an English mispronunciation of "Shamhap", the Nicobarese name for the tribe. The Shompens living on the western side of the island call themselves ''Kalay'', and those on the eastern side ''Keyet'', with both groups referring to each other as ''Buavela''. A suggestion from 1886 that the Shompen call themselves ''Shab Daw'a'' has not been confirmed by modern research.

History of contact

Before the first outside contact with the Shompen in the 1840s, there is no reliable information about these peoples.

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

Admiral

Steen Bille Steen Bille (1565–1629) was a Danish councillor and diplomat. He was the son of Jens Bille and Karen Rønnow, and is sometimes called "Steen Jensen Bille". His father compiled a manuscript of ballads, Jens Billes visebog. As a young man Bille ...

was the first to contact them in 1846 and

Frederik Adolph de Roepstorff Frederik Adolph de Roepstorff (25 March 1842 – 24 October 1883) was a Danish philologist who worked in the Andaman penal colony in India, in charge of the Nicobar Islands, where he was shot dead by a convict. He studied the languages of Andaman ...

, a British officer who had already published works on the languages of Nicobar and Andaman, collected ethnographic and linguistic data in 1876. Since then very little has been added to the stock of reliable information on the Shompen, mainly because access to the Nicobar Islands has been restricted for foreign researchers since Indian independence. A polling station was set up in their area for election of 2014. Shompen people for the first time participated in the democratic process.

Society

In 2001, the population was estimated at approximately 300.

Shompen Village-A Shompen Village-A is a village in the Nicobar district of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. It is located in the Great Nicobar tehsil. Demographics Along with Shompen Village-B, the village has the highest population of Shompen people. Bef ...

and

Shompen Village-B Shompen Village-B is a village in the Nicobar district of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. It is located in the Great Nicobar tehsil. Demographics According to the 2011 census of India, Shompen Village-B has 11 households. The effecti ...

are home to most Shompens. Before the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami 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 ...

, the villages were home to 103 and 106 Shompens respectively. However, by the time of 2011 census, only 10 and 44 people were left in these villages respectively. They practice a

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

subsistence economy. In keeping with the tropical climate of the islands, traditional attire includes only clothing below the waist. The traditional attire for men is a short, thin loincloth made of bark cloth, covering only the genitals without a 'tail' of cloth in front. Decoration is limited for men, consisting of bead

necklace A necklace is an article of jewellery that is worn around the neck. Necklaces may have been one of the earliest types of adornment worn by humans. They often serve Ceremony, ceremonial, Religion, religious, magic (illusion), magical, or Funerary ...

s and armbands. Women wear a knee-length skirt of bark cloth, occasionally with a shawl of bark cloth covering the shoulders. Decorations include bamboo

ear plug An earplug is a device that is inserted in the ear canal to protect the user's ears from loud noises, intrusion of water, foreign bodies, dust or excessive wind. Since they reduce the sound volume, earplugs are often used to help prevent hearing ...

s (''ahav''), bead necklaces (''naigaak'') and armbands of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

(''geegap''). Both sexes are barefoot. The Shompen probably learned to make and use bows from the Nicobaris. The main weapons are the

bow and arrow The bow and arrow is a ranged weapon system consisting of an elastic launching device (bow) and long-shafted projectiles ( arrows). Humans used bows and arrows for hunting and aggression long before recorded history, and the practice was comm ...

. They do not use quivers but carry

arrow An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like stabilizers c ...

s by hand. Numerous types of

spear A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fasten ...

spear thrower A spear-thrower, spear-throwing lever or ''atlatl'' (pronounced or ; Nahuatl ''ahtlatl'' ) is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart or javelin-throwing, and includes a bearing surface which allows the user to store ene ...

s, fire drills and a hatchet are the main tools. A man usually carried a bow and arrows, a spear and through his loincloth belt, a hatchet, knife and fire drill. The Shompen are a hunter-gatherer subsistence people, hunting wild game such as pigs, birds and small animals while foraging for fruits and forest foods. They also keep pigs and farm yams, roots, vegetables, and

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

. Shompen huts are built to house 4 people, and villages are made up of 4 to 5 families. Once a child is grown enough, he makes his own hut. The lowland Shompen build their huts on stilts and the walls are made of woven material on a wood frame and the roof of thatched palm fronds, and the structure is raised on stilts. The highland Shompen build their houses on the ground, and the houses are made of the same materials as the raised houses. The interior is covered with mats, with sleeping mats on one end and tools and utensils hung on the walls and rafters. Cooking is done outside. In the late 1980s, the Shompens were living in ten groups, ranging in size from 2 to 22 individuals, scattered across the interior of the island. Because of their isolated way of life in the interior of the island, the Shompens were largely protected from the

that devastated the coastal regions inhabited by Nicobaris and the Indian population.

Language

The Shompen languages, of which there are at least two, are very little known, but appear to be unrelated to Nicobarese, an isolated group of Austroasiatic languages, and perhaps even to each other. They may constitute a

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...

Paul Sidwell Paul James Sidwell is an Australian linguist based in Canberra, Australia who has held research and lecturing positions at the Australian National University. Sidwell, who is also an expert and consultant in forensic linguistics, is most notable ...

(2017) classifies Shompen as a Southern Nicobaric language, rather than a separate branch of Austroasiatic.

Threat and Concern

Due to proposed Great Nicobar Development Plan, hectares of land on Great Nicobar Island will be reclaimed and may impact them. Which will affect population of 1,700 Shompens. Also this project will increase non-local population on the island which will affect the ethnicity of Shompens.

References

External links

* {{authority control Indigenous peoples of South Asia Ethnic groups in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Scheduled Tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Scheduled Tribes of India Nicobar district