on the island, but Port Blair authorities ordered an investigation into whether it had originated elsewhere. A further 15 Onge were taken to hospital with at least one critically ill. With their population estimated at only around 100 before the incident, the director of Survival International described the mass poisoning as a "calamity for the Onge", and warned that any more deaths could "put the survival of the entire tribe in serious danger". Bhopinder Singh, the Lieutenant Governor of the Andaman Islands, ordered an inquiry into the incident. Culture and religion The native Andamanese religion and belief system is a form of Animism. Ancestor worship is an important element in the religious traditions of the Andaman islands. The Andamanese probably had no government or clan leader, but made decisions by group consensus. Language The Onge speak the Önge language. It is one of two known Ongan languages (southern Andamanese languages). Önge used to be spoken throughout Little Andaman as well as in smaller islands to the north, and possibly in the southern tip of South Andaman island. Since the middle of the 19th century, with the arrival of the British in the Andamans, and, after Indian independence, the massive inflow of Indian settlers from the mainland, the number of Onge speakers has steadily declined. However, a moderate increase has been observed in recent years. , there were 94 native Onge speakers confined to a single settlement in the northeast of Little Andaman Island (see map above), making it an endangered language. The Ongan languages, to which Onge belongs, have been proposed by Juliette Blevins to be related to Mainland Asian languages, such as Austronesian. However, this proposal has not been well received by other linguists, such as Robert Blust, who concludes that the hypothesis is not supported by the comparative method (used in linguistics), and also cites non-linguistic (such as cultural, archaeological, and biological) evidence against Blevins' hypothesis. and George van Driem (2011), who considers Blevins' evidence as "not compelling", although he leaves the possibility open that some resemblances could be the result of contact/borrowing, a position also held by Hoogervorst (2012). Genetics Genetically, the Onge, as well as other Andamanese people, are distantly related to East Asian people. The Andamanese Onge show the highest affinity towards some Southeast Asian Negrito ethnic groups, such as the Aeta people, but also ancient remains of Hoabinhians, which are all characterized by Basal-East