Bare Mouth

## N'ge-Zathi Amane

Amane in her later years (drawn by exiled)

**N'ge-Zathi Amane**, nicknamed **Bare Mouth**, was the "Speaker" of the Sentinelese refugees following the North Sentinel Island Crisis. She later became a politician to provide a new perspective in the region.

## Biography

### Unusual Beginnings

N’ge-Zathi Amane was born in fall 2081 to an isolated close-knit family in a hunter-gatherer society. She knew no place beyond her small island, no more wisdom than what her elders did, no objective outside of survival. In her childhood she learned the foundations of hunter-gatherer survival, such as which berries are poisonous, which animals are edible, and how to craft a weapon for self-defense. Her life was blissful; she grew up not knowing about conflict and despair in the outside world.

Despite being completely isolated from the outside world, the island was not shielded from its consequences. Human-caused climate change had already started to affect the island by the time Amane was born. Her tribe took advantage of the emergence of new edible plants, creating a population boom. Seeing many new inhabitants meant more work for most females, but Amane was fine with the change. In fact, she appreciated new peers, which could definitely increase their odds of survival.

The initial boom soon followed a series of disasters, which young Amane was deeply affected from. First, an earthquake hit the island. Amane had learned from the elders that earthquakes were a message from the nature. Her extended family connected the earthquake to not finding a partner for young Amane, so they immediately looked for possible matches. Considered beautiful by her society, the girl was sent to the chief’s son Rezimge, who would later become the chief himself. They had seven children, but two of them would not reach adulthood.

The most significant catastrophe was a chain of typhoons that irreversibly harmed the island. During one, one of Amane’s older siblings left her in the shelter, never to come back again. She saw desperation in the islanders’ eyes. By late 2100s, the typhoons had killed most of the vegetation and prey on the island, stripping the Sentinelese of their necessities. Foreseeing their extinction, the chief ordered the islanders to evacuate the only home they knew. Not even a single tribesman would be left behind. The islanders made plenty of canoes, took what they deemed valuable, and sailed off the North Sentinel Island.

### A New Home

The Sentinelese canoes were found by the Indian Union’s listening posts. They were originally placed to keep outsiders away from the island, so the Union was unprepared for such a different event. The authorities immediately declared an emergency and kept the refugees in a well-prepared quarantine, likely to protect them from diseases. From the moment right after she was found by unfamiliar people possessing “magic,” Amane became suspicious. Her people were looking for distant virgin land, not magicians. Regardless, going with them was a more sound choice than eventually starving to death, as this could have been the only other piece of land. The Sentinelese did not know of anywhere beyond the island. The chief agreed with her and followed the fair-skinned “magicians” to their home.

The refugees did not know the “magicians’” language, so their communication relied on body language for a while. They were surprisingly adept at using universal gestures to express their basic messages. Chief Rezimge and his partners, including his main partner Amane, used their leadership to smoothen the primitive communication. Unbeknownst to them, however, the “magicians” had decrypted the Sentinelese language and started speaking it. Many tribesmen were scared, though the chief comforted them, saying that the “magicians” would have already killed them and not bothered to learn their language if they wanted to do so. The “magicians,” led by Dr. Padhya, introduced themselves as the Indians, and the official talks began.

What the Sentinelese needed, according to the Indian first contact group, was an “ambassador,” defined as “speaker” towards the tribesmen. Chief Rezimge wanted to step up, but Dr. Padhya objected that the speaker was also a gesture of trust. What the speaker said would express the beliefs and the needs of the entire people, not just the chief’s inner circle. The chief reluctantly convinced Amane to become the speaker. Amane was popular within the people and the chief’s inner circle, showing the best interests of both sides of the tribe. Amane agreed. She introduced herself as “Bare Mouth,” believing that her name was not familiar for the outsiders.

Dr. Padhya revealed the Union’s two-step plan to save the Sentinelese from extinction and told Bare Mouth that the first step was complete, and the vaccination campaign was successful. Chief Rezimge and Amane had accepted it because they trusted the Indians’ promise that vaccination could prevent their extinction. He expressed his intentions to expose the Sentinelese to the outside world. Amane saw it as a blessing from nature; her skepticism was gone by then. The Indian team had clearly worked to preserve her people.

Dr. Padhya’s team handpicked common people, mostly local Indians, to contact with the Sentinelese. Thanks to the vaccines, not many people became infected. The Indians were welcoming towards the previously territorial islanders, which Amane was glad for. The visitors would drop modern gifts, such as rulers and processed food. Most refugees would look in awe towards the “magicians’” bigger and better gifts. Amane and the chief were curious as well. They wanted to harness these gifts, so they could open up to the entire world. The locals were already welcoming towards them. Moreover, the Sentinelese had learned that their once rival tribe Önge had gone extinct 30 years ago, chiefly due to low fertility and climate change. Categorized as a Scheduled Tribe, they were living in a reserve, isolated from the rest of the world. Consequently, the chief wanted Amane to express their intentions.

On December 3rd, 2111, five years after the Sentinelese sought a new territory, they explicitly stated that they wanted to become a part of the global community. In Bare Mouth’s words, “The Sentinelese people want to become powerful and use gifts better, so we could not be left alone somewhere else only to to extinct.” She clearly did not want to share the same fate as the Önge. Dr. Padhya’s team addressed the problem by altering their plan. They were going to preserve their identity by giving the Sentinelese fertile land as a Scheduled Tribe, but the tribesmen favored integration over preservation. The Indians launched the new step by giving the small population everything they needed to integrate and adapt the modern life. Amane was sure that integration would not only save her people from extinction but also turn them into a small but respected community.

Most of the people followed Amane to the integration process. A few individuals did not desire to be integrated, so they were treated as if the integration process had not happened, joining with other Scheduled Tribes. Chief Rezimge and Amane were given seats in the local parliament, and the Indian Union made sure that all Sentinelese people lived a happy life. Many of them learned how to read, write, use tools, farm, and share their ancestral knowledge. Their children were welcome with open arms to Indian schools. Amane personally had accepted historians and anthropologists across the world to share her way of life before the disaster on her home island. Amane’s decision was a success. In October 2139, Bare Mouth shared her own name and ended the official integration process: “Chief Rezimge and her Speaker, N’ge-Zathi Amane declares that the great friends, whom we once thought were magicians, had gifted us with powers her ancestors could not even imagine.”

### Later Life

After securing a promising life for her people, Amane focused on bettering the lives of others. For official recognition, she married with his long-time partner, Chief Rezimge. He had gradually given away most of his power, which left his family in a more symbolic position. Despite this, his people would elect him and his wife into the local parliament. Boldly, Amane ran for a seat in the Union parliament in 2144, which turned out to be successful. Union voters valued the perspective of a former hunter-gatherer, an outsider on friendly terms. She eventually spent eight years in office.

During her time as an MP, Amane could form connections with other natives in the Pacific. Using these connections, she learned valuable information about them across the globe. The Ati of the Philippines were especially left in a miserable condition. Not as lucky as the Sentinelese in their integration process, they faced overpopulation and poverty. Amane was not satisfied. She launched a campaign to fundraise a considerable amount and called to encourage both governments to create new opportunities for them. Her people’s uplifting was living evidence that Pacific natives, given enough resources, were willing to work for a better world. The Filipino government did not believe in Amane’s idealism, so the talks were on hold. They wanted more solid evidence.

Amane challenged the decision. She welcomed a family of 30 into her people’s community. By giving them work opportunities as an entire community, the children could show their full potential, working for their benefactors. Half of the family got in a considerable career, and the rest could at least escape poverty. Amane believed this could show that even hopeless people would become global citizens if they were given opportunities. Impressed, the Filipino government decided to accept the initial goal. Therefore, Amane could save not only one but two people out of miserable conditions. She was given a Nobel Peace Prize in 2153 for shifting the world’s attention towards Pacific natives and granting the global community countless different perspectives.

After her career as an MP, Amane and Rezimge founded the Bare Mouths Foundation. Motivated by the extinction of the Önge, its primary goal was recording the lifestyles of Pacific natives, possibly even uplifting them into the global community. It was partially funded by the Indian Union and other rich countries of the region. Despite her old age, Amane could travel across many islands, meeting with the elders to preserve their identities and uplift them if they wanted to.

Amane’s life ended while working on her noble goal. In 2163, her starship on the way to Papua New Guinea crashed onto Port Moresby. There were no survivors on the ship, and twenty people on the island died from the impact. Later inspections found out that the eezo drive had failed, venting the engineering section. While the accident took away many lives, it eventually created many more human biotics. Even in death, Amane had changed human lives in one way.

## Personality

Amane’s most definitive trait was her altruism. By being the closest partner of the clan chief, she was seen as the “mother” of the entire tribe; her attitude was shaped according to the cultural norms of her time. She would protect the weak and not fear of sacrificing whatever she had if the situation demanded it. Sometimes, however, this could come off as a weak point in her personality, as she was vulnerable to possible exploitation.
Not only had Amane always considered her and her tribe’s best interests, but she could also cleverly approach a situation. She would look for anything suspicious and act with calculated risks, if any. This skill was essential while working as the Speaker and as a politician in her later life, always trying to better the lives of indigenous peoples of the Pacific.
Amane was a people person. She was popular among her tribesmen and during her political career. Her honest and peaceful approach to politics heralded many other indigenous people’s opportunity movements throughout the globe. Her helpful and motherly attitude also helped her gain more popularity and solidified her image as a morally good person.

## Physical Description

Amane was a typical Sentinelese woman, standing at only 1.42 meters. As a necessity in a hunter-gatherer society, she accumulated a considerable amount of muscle and fat, weighing in 55 kilograms. Even after being uplifted she would continue exercising; some habits would not die easily. Her arms and legs were scarred considerably, a consequence of her primitive early life. Amane was considered beautiful for her tribe and time. Her square jaw and uniquely shaped nose were very well above the standards. She had big dark brown eyes and curly hair which had already been greyed by the time the Sentinelese had contacted the outside world. Amane did not want to dye her hair; by the time of her death her hair had not turned completely white.
Knowing of no clothing before outside contact, Amane chose simple clothing. Because she would only wear skirt-like leaf complexes in her youth, the concept of wearing clothes seemed strange to her. She started out with underwear and slowly accepted to wear less revealing clothes. Once Amane finally got used to clothing, her choices were long, modest dresses and minimal makeup. She preferred lighter colors, especially light yellows and blues, to contrast with her dark skin.