Orenge Tribe

Quite a number of tribal communities have resided in every hook and nook of the places of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Orenge tribes are quite significant amongst them.

Over the years all these tribal communities of Andaman and Nicobar islands have drawn the attention of several anthropologists of not of India but through out the whole world. According to them, these Orenge tribes are most easily accessible tribes till the present day. Because of their friendly nature and easy accessibility for the past hundred years, many things are revealed about these tribes. Almost all of the research that was done on these Orenge tribes was published after the year 1950. All the scientists who used to work for the Indian Anthropological Survey did these.

The origin of these Orenge tribes has got a rich history behind it. Until the late 1940 and onwards, the Orenge were the only permanent residents of Little Andaman region. Before that time, these Orenge tribes led a long conventional way of living. After the 1890s , the British rulers took control of the whole island. The famous person, M.V. Portman ruled out a degree of British authority over the Orenge and creates direct contact with a tribe. He tries to maintain a cordial relation with these Onge tribes. From the beginning of 1900 and onwards, the Orenge had only sporadic contacts with their l British rulers and carried on their conventional life untroubled. In the beginning of 1950s , large number of other tribal community people have arrived the region.

To add to it, the Indian government brought myriads of refugees to the island. These new entrants carried along with them, new diseases and also created `ecological disturbances` that rapidly led to a huge degradation in the number of Orenge tribes in the whole Island. The period that followed i.e. in the British era and afterwards, it was also not very good for these Orenge tribes . However, these British worked , how little it might be, for the benefit of the Orenge tribes . In fact these Orenge tribes remained in their holy abode peacefully without any kind of disturbances. Today , all these Orenge tribes maintain their lifestyle intact .

Society of these Orenge tribes is distinguished by several of their cultural attributes. In fact some of the anthropologists claimed that this Orenga cultue is one of the ancient and enriched culture of Indian tribal community. As far as occupations are concerned, most of these Orenge tribes have adopted the professions of hunting. Some of them even have taken up to food gathering also. Apart from developing the art of building their own households, most of these Onge tribes have dressed up scantily. These Onge tribes too have got addiction to alcohols and drugs also.

Infertility and child mortality are some of the grave problems that have recently cropped up in the society of these Orenge tribes. Due to initiatives of the governments and also Ngos , facilities are being provided to these Orenge tribes so that these tribes can cope up with their problematic situations.

As far as occupations are concerned, most of these Orenge tribes have adapted to fishing. Some of them even tried their hands in hunting also The Onge are introvert and also enterprising amongst all the other tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Due to easy contact, many of these Orenge tribes have settled down in other places adapting to several other professions. What is also remarkable is that these Orenge tribes have been less affected by the natural calamity of Tsunami that had occurred in December 2004.

According to Dr. Vishvajit Pandya all of the Orenge tribal community have organized special ceremonies so that they can prevent tsunamis afterwards. These festivals have been performed after this earthquake.