Indigenous peoples across the world no longer seem doomed to extinction

NORTH SENTINEL has few visitors, which is just as its 150 or so residents want. The 30,000-year-old tribe on the tiny island in the Andaman archipelago in the Bay of Bengal has had almost no contact with the outside world since 1991. So when John Chau, a young American missionary, paid some boatmen to drop him off on the island last month he was greeted with bows and arrows. The same happened in 2006 to two Indian fishermen who drifted ashore when they were asleep on their boat. All three were killed.