A-Pucikwar

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The A-Pucikwar are one of the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal, and which form part of the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India.

Formerly, they stood as one of the ten or so distinct tribal groups identified at the time of the initial British colonisation of the islands in the 1860s, under the wider designation of Great Andamanese peoples. As the numbers of Great Andamanese progressively declined over the succeeding decades, the various groups either disappeared altogether or became amalgamated through intermarriage. By the 1901 census, the distinctions between tribal groups and subgroups had become considerably blurred, and by the start of the 21st century only approximately 50 or so individuals remained who could trace their ancestry and culture back to Great Andamanese forebears (including A-Pucikwar, but also other groups; some intermarriage had also occurred with Indian and Karen (Burmese) settlers).

Their language however (the A-Pucikwar language) was the only one of the Great Andamanese languages to survive, and is presently (as of 2005) spoken or known by approximately 25 individuals.

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