{"id":24022,"date":"2025-07-06T17:10:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T11:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=24022"},"modified":"2025-07-07T17:35:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T12:05:25","slug":"onge-tribe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/onge-tribe\/","title":{"rendered":"Onge Tribe"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Onge Tribe Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration recently set up a Van Dhan Vikas Kendra for the Onge tribe at Dugong Creek under Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyay Maha Abhiyan to make them self-sustainable through coconut-based products.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Onge Tribe<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Onges are one of the most <\/span><b>primitive tribes<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in India. They belong to the <\/span><b>Negrito racial stock.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are inhabiting <\/span><b>Little Andaman Island,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the <\/span><b>most southerly island in the Andaman archipelago.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are <\/span><b>semi-nomadic<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> tribes and fully<\/span><b> dependent on the food provided by nature.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>religion <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the Onges is simple <\/span><b>animism<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><b>Neither ceremonial worship nor<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> any kind of <\/span><b>propitiation is practiced <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">by them. They <\/span><b>believe in different classes of spirits<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">-spirits of the wood, the sea, disease, storm, and ancestors.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Onge speak <\/span><b>their own language, which has no script.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span><b> colour of the teeth has a unique interpretation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> among Onges, who consider <\/span><b>pearly white teeth<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a <\/span><b>symbol of death<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. They continue to <\/span><b>chew the bark to impart a red colour <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to their teeth.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They <\/span><b>decorate their bodies <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and their <\/span><b>faces with white and ochre clay.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> On special occasions, they place a greater emphasis on <\/span><b>body ornamentation.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Until the 1940s,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the Onge were the <\/span><b>sole permanent inhabitants of Goubalambabey <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(the Onge name for <\/span><b>Little Andaman<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They <\/span><b>now shar<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">e the 732 sq km <\/span><b>island with around 17,000 settlers from India, Bangladesh, and the Nicobar Islands.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2018<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Onge <\/span><b>population <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">was also<\/span><b> decimated following contact with British colonists and Indian settlers;<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> it fell from 670 in 1900 to <\/span><b>only 96 members by the early 2000s.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>In 1976, the Onge were settled <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in order to have \u2018the basic facilities for hygienic living and protection against elements of nature\u2019.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They now <\/span><b>live in a reserve in Dugong Creek (Little Andaman) <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that is a fraction of the size of their original territory.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\">The Onge tribe is also <b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">one of the world\u2019s least prolific and infertile communities.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Infertility affects somewhat more than 40% of married couples.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/india-news\/van-dhan-vikas-kendra-set-up-for-onge-tribe-in-little-andaman-to-promote-selfsustainability-101751447056175.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">HT<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Onges, a primitive Negrito tribe of India, inhabit Little Andaman. They are semi-nomadic and fully reliant on nature for food and survival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":53779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1367,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-24022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-onge-tribe","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}