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NEW DELHI – John Allen Chau had to know that what he was about to do was extremely dangerous.
Mr. Chau, who is 20 years old, was floating in a kayak off a remote island in the Andaman Sea. He was about to set foot in one of the most remote parts of India, an island with an extremely enigmatic tribe whose members killed strangers for simply walking on their shores.
The fishermen had warned him not to go there. Few strangers had been there. And the Indian government's regulations clearly prohibited any interaction with the island's inhabitants, called North Sentinel.
But Mr. Chau did not listen. Instead, he pushed into his kayak, which he had packed with a Bible. After that, what happened is a bit mysterious.
But the police say one thing is clear: Mr. Chau did not survive.
On Wednesday, Indian authorities said Chau was hit by tribes when he landed and his body was still on the island. The fishermen who helped take Mr. Chau north of Sentinel told the police that they had seen men from the tribe dragging him on the beach.
It was a "misplaced adventure," said Dependra Pathak, police chief of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. "He certainly knew that it was forbidden."
Mr. Pathak said that Mr. Chau, aged 26 to 27, from Washington State, may be trying to convert the islanders to Christianity. Just before going on a kayak, Mr. Chau gave a long note to the fishermen. According to police officials, he had written that Jesus had given him the strength to go to the most forbidden places on Earth.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands nearby are beautiful spots lined with corals surrounded by corals in the Indian Ocean. The government controls access very carefully. on more than 500 islands, many areas are prohibited.
On November 14, Mr. Chau rented a fishing boat to Port Blair, the main town of the Andamans, to take him to North Sentinel. He waited for the darkness to go off, police officials said, so that it would not be detected by the authorities.
TN Pandit, an anthropologist who visited North Sentinel several times between 1967 and 1991, said that the Sentinels, which are officially about 50 in number, are hunting with spears and arrows fashioned from scrap metal covering their shores, are more hostile to strangers. other indigenous communities living in Andamans.
Once, when Mr. Pandit's expedition offered a pig to the Sentinelese, two members of the tribe went to the edge of the beach, "fused" it and buried it in the sand.
At another meeting, Mr. Pandit was separated from his colleagues and left alone in the water. A young member of the tribe on the beach took out a knife and "made a sign like he was sculpting my body".
"He threatened, I understood," said Pandit, "the contact was different with the Sentinelese," he added, noting that the Jarawa, another tribe, "invited us to come down and sing songs. "
Staying alone was very important to the Sentinelese, said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, a group that protects the rights of indigenous tribal peoples around the world.
"This tragedy should never have been allowed," Corry said in a statement, adding that the Indian government needed to protect the tribe against "other invaders."
Sentinel Gift Expeditions arrested in 1996. The Indian Navy is now imposing a buffer zone to keep people away. In 2006, the Sentinelese killed two fishermen who accidentally drifted to shore.
Police officials said that Mr. Chau knew what he was doing was illegal because he had chosen to go under cover of darkness.
According to the fishermen who helped him, they traveled several hours between Port Blair and North Sentinel. Mr. Chau waited until the next morning, at dawn, to try to disembark.
He put his kayak in the water at less than one kilometer and headed to the island.
The fishermen said that members of the tribe had shot him arrows and that he had withdrawn. He apparently tried several times to reach the island over the next two days, according to the police, offering gifts such as a small football, a fishing line and scissors. But on the morning of November 17, fishermen said they saw the islanders with his body.
The seven people who helped Mr. Chau reach the island were arrested and charged with culpable homicide not constituting murder and violation of the rules protecting indigenous tribes.
Another case was recorded against "unknowns" for the murder of Mr. Chau. But in the past, authorities have declared that he was practically impossible to prosecute protected tribesmen because of the inaccessibility of the region and the decision of the Indian government not to interfere in their lives.
In a blog published several years ago, Mr. Chau stated that he had coached football, worked for AmeriCorps and that he was "an explorer in the soul". Indian police said he had gone to the Andamans at least three times.
When asked what was the top of his imperative list, Mr. Chau wrote on his blog: "Returning to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India is at the top – there is so much to see and do over there!"
