{"id":29650,"date":"2025-01-25T02:33:52","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T21:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=29650"},"modified":"2025-04-09T09:46:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T04:16:28","slug":"shompens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/shompens\/","title":{"rendered":"Shompens"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Shompens<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>They are one of the most <strong>isolated tribes<\/strong> on Earth.<\/li>\n<li>They are one of the <strong>least studied Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs)<\/strong> in India.<\/li>\n<li>They reside in dense <strong>tropical rain forests of the Great Nicobar Island <\/strong>of Andaman and Nicobar group of Islands. Around <strong>95% of the island is covered in rainforest.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Shompen have different origins from most Nicobarese, although both groups have <strong>Mongoloid ancestry.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The Shompen habitat is also an important <strong>biological hotspot<\/strong>, and there are two <strong>National Parks and one Biosphere Reserve, namely Campbell Bay National Park, Galathea National Park, and Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Shompens Population\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>Though according to the Census (2011), the estimated population of Shompen is <strong>229<\/strong>, the exact population of Shompen is unknown till today.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Most of them remain in the forest and have little or <strong>no contact with outsiders.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The Shompen are <strong>nomadic hunter-gatherer<\/strong>s,<strong> living in small groups,<\/strong> whose territories are identified by the rivers that criss-cross the rainforest.<\/li>\n<li>Being nomadic, they typically set up forest camps where they live for a few weeks or months, before moving to another site.<\/li>\n<li>They collect a wide variety of rainforest plants, but their <strong>staple food is the pandanus fruit,<\/strong> which they call <strong>larop<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>They also plant small gardens, cultivating lemon, chillies and betel, amongst other plants.<\/li>\n<li>Shompen <strong>speak their own language, <\/strong>which has <strong>many dialects.<\/strong> Members of one band do not understand the dialect of the other.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>They are of short to medium stature, have a round or nearly broad head shape, narrow nose, a broad facial profile, and distinctly exhibit Mongoloid features such as light brown to yellow brown skin and oblique eye features.<\/li>\n<li>They have nuclear families comprising husband, wife, and their unmarried children.\n<ul>\n<li>A Shompen family is controlled by the eldest male member, who controls all activities of the women and kids.<\/li>\n<li>Monogamy is the general rule, although polygamy is allowed too.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Shompen <strong>worship the moon, known as Houou, <\/strong>as their goddess, whom they believe created the universe.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Shompens FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1<\/strong>. What is the religion of the Shompen?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans<\/strong>. Their belief system is generally animistic.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2<\/strong>. Which Mongoloid tribes are in Andaman and Nicobar Islands?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans. <\/strong>The Andaman Islands are home to four &#8216;Negrito&#8217; tribes \u2013 the Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa, and Sentinelese. Whereas the Nicobar Islands are home to two &#8216;Mongoloid&#8217; tribes \u2013 the Shompen and Nicobarese.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q3<\/strong>. Which is the oldest tribe in Andaman Nicobar?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans<\/strong>. The Jarawa of the Andamans are the oldest existing hunter-gatherer tribal populations of the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deccanherald.com\/opinion\/development-of-nicobar-and-the-shompens-struggle-for-survival-3370240\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shompens are one of the most isolated tribes on Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":29651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29650","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=29650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}