Jarawa Tribe
A tribal man with his bow looks on at the Andaman Trunk road in Jarawa reserve on India's south Andaman island in this undated handout photo. The Jarawa are one of four ancient "Negroid" tribes barely surviving on the Andamans. Last month, Indian scientists said DNA evidence suggested they were direct descendents of man's earliest ancestors, who migrated from Africa 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, only to be stranded on the islands by rising seawater. REUTERS/Handout

It now transpires that the video showing Jarawa tribal women and children dancing and singing for food, as filmed by tourists, is older than first thought. The video, released by British weekly The Observer, shows natives of India's Andaman Islands hopping and clapping, as a man orders them to dance.

Gethin Chamberlain, the journalist who uploaded the video, told The Indian Express the video was an old one; he apparently sourced it from tour guides and local sources and does not know when it was shot.

The undated video first came to light on the Web site of The Guardian on Jan. 7, and was later picked up by two Indian news channels. The video

It is not clear when the video was shot; I understand it was in the last few years, said Chamberlain, via e-mail, to The Indian Express. There is no date stamp but the file suggests a camera phone, which brings it closer to the present, Chamberlain added.

Meanwhile, the Press Trust of India quoted the Andaman Director-General of Police (DGP), S. B. Deol, as saying the footage was from a 10-year-old video taken in 2002.

However, according to Chamberlain, the video is certainly far more recent than the 10 years plucked from the air by the police.

Pramod Kumar, a research scholar from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, agrees with Chamberlain. He claims the video is not that old.

Though the faces in the video is not clear (the faces has been blurred in the video shown by Times Now), but one can be certain that is a new video as the girl is wearing a maxi. This is a new phenomenon, probably done after coming in contact with the outsiders as Jarawas don't wear maxi or any clothes. Also one cannot ascertain whether this has been done in connivance with the police as in the video one can also hear a male voice saying 'someone is coming please stop', said Kumar, who knows the Jarawa language, to The Times of India.

Watch the video here...

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