ABSTRACT
Located in the Bay of Bengal, some 1,200 km from the east coast of India, the Nicobar Islands are one of the lesser-known parts of the country (Singh, 2003). This is despite the enormous publicity the archipelago received during the 2004 tsunami when thousands of indigenous Nicobarese, together with their physical artefacts, were wiped out in a matter of minutes. Aid efforts that followed, while essential and valuable in the immediate aftermath, rendered the Nicobarese more vulnerable than what they had been before and after the catastrophe.
