OBITUARY

Boa Senior. known as chaachii died on 26th January, 2010 at 11.30pm in the Port Blair hospital. She was the last speaker of Bo language. It pains to see how one-by-one we are losing speakers of Great Andamanese and the language is getting extinct. This is a very fast erosion of indigenous knowledge-base that we all are helplessly witnessing. She was the only member who remembered the old songs. Most of the songs on this website are sung by her. Though Boa had no one to talk to in her native language she was often sighted talking to birds in her language as she maintained that birds were her ancestors and understood her. She was very concerned about the death of the language and wanted the young generation to learn Great Andamanese. She remembered songs and would sing while working. I can not forget her full throated laugh which she obliged us with very often. In fact her each elicited sentence will be followed either by a smile or by a laugh as she was amused to hear herself. Boa Sr. was dislocated from her native place Mayabandar, North of Andaman in the early seventies by the government of India. All the Great Andamanese tribes moved to Strait Island, 53 nautical miles towards the east of Port Blair in early seventies so that they could interact among themselves and could be  protected from the outside inversion. Boa was respected by all her folks. She and Boro Sr. were friends and after Boro’s death in November 2009 Boa became very lonely.

Special mention should be made of the fact that her death was publicized all over the world and every TV channel of some importance in Europe, America and Australia covered her demise as the ‘Breaking News’. Some of the excerpts can be read at the link Media.  The journalists world over realized that with the death of Boa Sr., the world has lost the last link to an ancient civilization and an old language. She was a celebrity overnight but alas when she was alive no one knew of her!