Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil

[harmonicon]

Source: BBC News

One of South America's few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru.

The Brazilian government says it took the images to prove the tribe exists and help protect its land.

The pictures, taken from an aeroplane, show red-painted tribe members brandishing bows and arrows.

More than half the world's 100 uncontacted tribes live in Brazil or Peru, Survival International says.

Stephen Corry, the director of the group - which supports tribal people around the world - said such tribes would "soon be made extinct" if their land was not protected.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/7426794.stm

[bananas]

1. They were spotted with red paint?

[Finn Polke]

7. Yep, Krylon brand in the can

Maybe these folks have had some contact??

[Lorien]

18. Human beings have been making red paint for thousands of years n/t

[Finn Polke]

31. Reply to Lorien and three formidable cats

Thank you, Lorien, human beings have been making red paint for many years, it's true, and I hadn't factored that in when formulating my previous reply.

Ancient humans, especially in the West, often painted their barns red because they added copper to plain, old white paint; it was easy because they had lots of copper.

I'm sure your cats knew that, though.

[Lorien]

35. Turns out that it's dye. From the article:

"They have also painted themselves with the red dye, urucum, commonly used by tribes in the Amazon. It is made from the seeds of a fruit similar to the horse chestnut. The seeds are ground into a paste to form the dye.

The body paint is most likely a show of aggression, possibly in response to the plane's first flyover."

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

2. I'll bet they have better access to health care than I do

and their curandero is affordable.

[Indenturedebtor]

3. Pass a law - Missionaries will be shot on sight. n/t

[asteroid2003QQ47]

14. Blasphemer!

Here's some food for thought-

Genocide of the Tasmanian Aboriginals

Excerpt from Edward Wilson's, "On Human Nature", in which Wilson described the case of the genocide of the tasmanian Aboriginals.

The British settlers nearly completed a violent genocide on them (they hunted them like game), which caused some outcry. Then a well-intentioned Calvinist minister showed up to lead the remnant to a reservation and to teach them about Calvinism. but this abrupt revolution in their philosophies and way of life was more than they could handle spiritually, and they simply stopped reproducing and died out within one generation.
Wilson maintains that the Calvinist minister, despite the best of
CONSCIOUS intentions, UNCONSCIOUSLY was "acting under the compulsion" of another instinct-the tribal-agression instinct-and was REALLY there to finish the genocide his own kind had begun, only by politically acceptable (and therefore most effective) means.

[Indenturedebtor]

25. I can't find reference of it online but when I was in Fiji

We found a mountain famous to the locals, where there had been a great fijian fortress. When the brits came they tried to force the fijians to convert to christianity, the fijians refused, and the british destroyed their fortress and staring burning anyone alive who wouldn't accept jesuslove.

Not an uncommon way of doing things. :puke:

[LanternWaste]

28. I think most western missionary organizations don't shoot

I think most western missionary organizations don't shoot natives or destroy their lands anymore. Same with anthropologists...

So I imagine it is pretty damned uncommon these days...

[Indenturedebtor]

33. Yeah the annexation of Fiji happened a couple hundred years ago

Well about 150 anyways but still. And they've actually outlawed Missionaries since then, even though we me some very friendly Muslim and Christian missionaries while we were there, and the churches there are basically taking over the country.

Believe it or not the Mormons are making huge strides, and some manner of protestant (can't remember) pretty much controls the goverment. They wield their "aid money" sent by donors here in the US to influence policy, much as the Corporations do here.

Fiji is a really wierd place. Many of the islands are off limits and still have indigenous peoples running around with wooden socks on their dangly bits. The Missionaries are doing everything they can to destroy their way of life. I think it's unconscionable.

[otherlander]

51. Welcome to my buddy list.

[Divine Discontent]

60. that's not funny. I know which "type" you're referring to, but it's still in bad taste

Advocating the murder of missionaries, or any human life, is ridiculous.

[Duer 157099]

4. Do you think, when they find out about the rest of the world

that they'll feel like they've been punked?

Like -- Oh wow, THANKS a lot for inviting US to the party!! Jeeze, you've got this whole modern world going on out there and NOBODY even bothers to tell us about it, THANKS ALOT MAN!

Do you think that's how they'll feel? And maybe a little embarrassed too?

Well, I think the teens amongst them will.

[harmonicon]

5. I doubt it

I think they'll be more pissed about being killed by illegal loggers or dying from diseases which they have no immunity to to be bothered about not knowing anything about television or slurpee machines.

[The Stranger]

12. Go see "The Gods Must Be Crazy" again.

[Lorien]

19. Seriously? No. My grandparents were Mennonites living in an Amish

community. The Amish are very aware of the "modern world" and they want no part of it. Both they (and Mennonites to some extent) saw the rest of us as hopelessly sad and materialistic people who don't put enough value on each other and nature. They may have a point there.

[JI7]

38. but the Amish do allow kids who reach a certain age to decide

for themselves. also, they aren't completely closed off. if they need to they do go to the "modern world" for things they may need.

Oprah did a show where she drove through the Amish area and interviewed some of them. the guy said they subscribe to newspapers and magazines to keep up about what is going on in the world.

[Xithras]

30. That's what happens to many of these tribes.

As romantic as the idea seems to us, living as a hunter-gatherer is a hard life. Most of these people will be dead before 40, the girls are mated and usually pregnant by 14 or 15 (lots die in birth with no medical care), and every day is spent wondering whether there will be food to eat that night.

That's why most of the Amazonian tribes vanished. They weren't wiped out, they just said "screw this" when they saw civilization and moved to town. Vaccinations, medical care, a regular food supply, a roof that doesn't leak...those can be tempting things to someone who has spent their entire life worrying about dying from a scratch or starving during the rainy season, or soaked under a leaky thatch roof in a rainstorm.

These isolated tribes are the subject of a lot of debate in South America. Given the choice, many would choose civilization, so many activists want to prevent the choice from even coming up by prohibiting contact.

[Hannah Bell]

32. Try: living in a slum, begging, stealing or doing irregular labor,

having your kids exposed to drugs...

That's the usual fate of aboriginal people at contact.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

34. "That's why most of the Amazonian tribes vanished. "

Yeah, the 25% of them who aren't dead of diseases for which they have no immunity.

[bean fidhleir]

45. I'm not sure where you're getting that, because it's the antithesis of a hard life

That's one of the objections the missionaries had: life was too easy for the people! It had to be *made* hard - as God intended.

The!Kung San people of the Kalihari, even within the restricted area allowed them by the "civilized" West for traditional living (only about 1/10 of the area they once drew from), spend only a few hours a day to meet their needs:

In reality, people in many gatherer-hunter societies devote remarkably little time to meeting their subsistence needs. As the research of anthropologist Richard Lee has indicated, each week, the !Kung San devote an average of only twelve to nineteen hours per person to gathering and hunting. Much more of their time is taken up by socializing with one another and engaging
in dances that sometimes put them into a quasi-religious trance. After considering their daily lives, another anthropologist concluded that the !Kung San might best be described as members of "the original affluent society" (Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (New York: Aldine, 1972), 1–39).

People living in modern societies measure affluence in terms of money and possessions, but for the !Kung San, affluence lies in the ability to enjoy abundant leisure. And it is their limited interest in material possessions that allows them to devote more of their waking hours to socializing and dancing than to gathering and hunting.

http://www.pineforge.com/upm-data/19285_Chapter_1.pdf

And while the "average lifespan" is low due to infant mortality (including infanticide), longevity for those who reach adulthood is the same as ours (I don't have a cite for that, but I remember I got it from Richard Lee's work)

[freedomnorth]

53. Keep reading Thomas Hobbes

QUOTE: and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

[Finn Polke]

6. What does "uncontacted" mean?

Does uncontacted mean we think the tribe has not had contact with us ever, or maybe not much, or what?

Blue jeans and digital watches might make a nice contact gift, some steel axe heads, maybe. Oh, well, that is IF we're allowed to contact them. Who decides?

[harmonicon]

8. no personal contact with the "modern" world, as I understand it

Obviously there is some awareness - they saw the plane fly over, for instance. I may be wrong, but I believe the respective nations governments set policies about contacting such groups of people. As the article points out, making contact is very dangerous, and best avoided, for the safety of the uncontacted folks. Something as simple as the common cold could prove deadly to the entire population. Often when contact is made, it is not through any legal means, but inadvertently by illegal logging camps, which have a history of murdering indigenous peoples. These loggers themselves may also be attacked by the native populations for invading and disrupting their territory.

[Finn Polke]

10. Thanks. Maybe we should contact them before the loggers do.

Is it ethical to keep promote and protect their isolation without accessing the possibility of offereing the uncontacted tribe innoculations against diseases that could wipe them out?

If loggers or the common cold can be lethal to these tribes shouldn't we make contact and offer them innoculations against some diseases. I don't really expect an answer to that question, just thinking about how perilous the situation is especially of their land had minerals under it, and of course, the trees are already there attracting logging companies.

[hisownpetard]

52. You think loggers would be harmful to them? How about bloggers?

[varun]

9. similar tribes exist in India's Andaman islands...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4314267.stm

After decades of efforts to bring the tiny population of what some anthropologists call "Stone Age aboriginals" into the mainstream, the administration in India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands has finally decided to leave them alone.
"It will now be our avowed policy to minimise unnecessary and inappropriate contact between the primitive tribes and settlers ," says Uddipta Ray, tribal welfare secretary in the government....

..."The less contact we have with them, the better is their chance for survival," says Dr Ratan Chandra Kar, whose services in saving the Jarawa tribe from a measles epidemic in 1998-99 have been highly acclaimed by the authorities.

"Every time a primitive tribe has developed much contact with the settlers, they have been hit by epidemics."

[Xithras]

27. The Andamans are a bit different.

Those tribes actually have been contacted, some regularly, but they choose isolation and want to stick to their original ways. The tribe on one island is quite violent about it and routinely kills people dumb enough to land there.

[TomClash]

11. Bourgeois capitalism knows no bounds

It must go everywhere, exploit everything and everyone.

Take that photo in 10-20 years and you'll see this:

[reclinerhead]

46. Not Starbucks

Missionaries will be there long before commercial business like Starbucks makes contact. They have hundreds of years of experience destroying cultures, after all.

(edit: grammah!)

[zanne]

13. I think this is amazing. Incredible.

I hope those people are left in peace.

[slackmaster]

24. My thoughts exactly

At least we can agree on something now and then.

:hi:

[thecrow]

15. They just may be the ones to teach us all how to live

after whatever man made disaster destroys the rest of us.
Even then, I'd bet we'd all miss our tvs and ipods and internet too much to listen.
In that case, they will be the ones who repopulate the world.

[ramapo]

16. Any chance they will be left alone?

No...

[Divine Discontent]

61. well, if our ancestors had been left alone, and intelligence hadn't multiplied

by learning what others had learned and sharing it, we wouldn't be using computers sending signals through the air to wireless routers, while eating strawberries flown in from Cali while enjoying some dark chocolate from France...

just saying.

they deserve their peace, and protection, however. Maybe someone from their gov't can be sent in and learn how to communicate a few things to them and ask them if they would like to be left alone or if people from university can visit with them and learn their ways, like others have said.

It's fascinating, regardless!



New Obama Items Weekly - The Good Stuff!
www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable

[bikebloke]

17. Leave them as a human seed.

Let them be. When the rest of us die off and nature returns (read "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman or see the History Channel DVD "Life Without People"), maybe their descendants won't botch things up.

[guitar man]

20. do they have a flag?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEx5G-GOS1k :shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

21. Same problem going on in Peru:

Oil Exploration in Amazon Threatens "Unseen" Tribes
Kelly Hearn in Jose Olaya, Peru
for National Geographic News

March 21, 2008
Driving along an oil company road in Peru's northern Amazon, Patricio Pinola Chuje looked out the window. He nodded beyond a green wall of rain forest.

"I don't know if they are in this area, but I know they are farther south in other places," said Pinola, an Achuar Indian. "They come out by the rivers."

"They" refers to unseen Amazon Indian tribes said to live in voluntary isolation in the western headwaters of the Amazon in Peru and Ecuador.

Global energy prices have fueled oil and gas booms across oil-laden Amazonian lands. But supporters of native groups say the boom is a bust for remote Amazon Indians, who suffer both physically and socially when exposed to the modern world.

"Isolated Indians are especially vulnerable to any contact, because they have no immunity to outsiders' diseases," said David Hill, a spokesperson for Survival International, a London-based group that defends the rights of uncontacted tribes.

Other groups add that Indians' rights to their traditional lands are increasingly being violated by development-hungry governments.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080321-unseen-tribes.html

~~~~~~~

Encounter Between Oil Prospectors & Isolated Tribe
Wednesday, 13 February 2008, 12:02 pm

Peru: Reports Of 'Encounter' Between Oil Workers And Isolated Indians
Unconfirmed reports indicate that a team prospecting for oil deep in the Peruvian Amazon has encountered a village belonging to previously-uncontacted Indians.

The men, who were working for the Canadian company Petrolifera, allegedly came across houses, paths and utensils. If the reports are true, the Indians are members of the Cacataibo tribe.

Two groups of Cacataibo Indians remain uncontacted, although their territory is cut in two by a major highway, and it has also been opened up for oil exploration by the government.
(snip)

Survival's Director Stephen Corry said today, 'If these reports are true, it's very worrying indeed. Whether true or not, this land belongs to the Indians; the UN says so, international law says so, Peruvian law agrees. The fact that the Indians are uncontacted does not lessen their rights. The company is invading Cacataibo land, and it will be responsible for the consequences.'

More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0802/S00145.htm
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2875254&mesg_id=2875254

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peruvian Tribe Takes on Oil Giant
Posted on: Tuesday, 25 March 2008, 13:35 CDT

Tribes in Peru are determined to turn the tables on oil companies that have set up operations in their territory.

The Achuar tribe, inhabitants of the Amazon Rainforest of north-eastern Peru for thousands of years, alleges that Occidental Petroleum has contaminated their territory by damaging their land and making their people sick, some even to the point of death.

Occidental, based in Los Angeles, left the region eight years ago. It said it denies any liability in the case.

"We are aware of no credible data of negative community health impacts resulting from Occidental's operations in Peru," said Occidental.

Tests for oil in Peru began almost 40 years ago when many foreign companies were given an open invitation to test and drill in the Amazon.

The Achuar’s spiritual leader, Tomas Maynas is the plaintiff in the suit that alleges Occidental Petroleum ignored industry standards and used out-of-date practices by dumping around 9 billion barrels of toxic waste into streams and rivers over 30 years.

He said animals deserted the land, fish died and crops wilted as a result of drilling in the region.

"The Peruvian state just wants to extract as much oil as they can from our land. They've made millions of dollars but we haven't seen it here,” said Maynas.

More:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1310837/peruvian_tribe_takes_on_oil_giant/index.html

[bean fidhleir]

48. "The company is invading Cacataibo land, and it will be responsible for the consequences"

Except that it won't.

Company officials should be tried for crimes against humanity. It's an invasion and land grab, exactly what the Nazis were hanged for.

But the wealthy are immune from all law.

[Judi Lynn]

22. Leave Amazon tribe alone, Brazil says

Leave Amazon tribe alone, Brazil says
Posted 32 minutes ago
Updated 28 minutes ago

The Brazilian Government has called for a newly-discovered tribe in the Amazon forest to be left alone.

Brazilian officials have taken photos of the isolated tribe living on the border between Brazil and Peru.

The Government says it released the photos to prove the existence of the tribe and to protect the tribe's land from illegal logging.

Fiona Watson from the indigenous rights group, Survival International, says the photos disprove Peruvian claims that the land is vacant.

The group says the discovery highlights the danger that encroaching civilisation poses to the Amazon.

"These people are very fearful, they've got their bows and arrows, they're shooting up at the plane," she said.

"They clearly want to be left alone. For these people to survive they must have their land rights recognised and protected."

More:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/31/2261078.htm?section=justin

[XemaSab]

36. Well if there are a Brazilian officials roaming the area

eventually these tribes will find us. :shrug:

[InkAddict]

23. YIKES, folks with no desire to "Follow the Yellow Brick Road"

of life because they have all they ever need - no need to seek a brain, a heart, courage - No need to see the Wizard(s) of Oz or to go home. Are we sure they're human?

[MilesColtrane]

26. If the past teaches us anything...

...it's that somebody is going to violate the Prime Directive eventually.

[Throd]

29. We must airdrop them bibles immediately...

...lest they burn in hell

[WheelWalker]

39. And innoculate each bible with measles so their new faith might be tested.

[Exultant Democracy]

41. and of course wine so that they can take communion and hand guns for self defense.

[classysassy]

37. I bet

my last peso those oil gangsters will be down there soon exploring for oil.

[TaffyMoon]

40. God Knows How This Will Affect Their Religious Beliefs.

[Judi Lynn]

42. The Republicans' statesman, Rush Limbaugh believes we want to hear his view on the tribe:

Fri, May 30, 2008 5:53pm ET
Limbaugh called Brazilian indigenous tribe "savages"

On the May 30 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh referred to "one of ... South America's few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes" -- recently photographed by the Brazilian government from an airplane -- as "these savages." Recounting the story, Limbaugh said, "They've spotted an isolated tribe in Brazil. An airplane flew over this hut, this thatch roof hut or something, and these savages are body painted in red and they're trying to shoot the airplane down with bows and arrows."

According to the BBC, "The Brazilian government says it took the images to prove the tribe exists and help protect its land" from illegal logging operations.

Limbaugh further stated, "Wait a minute. Why do we have to help protect the land of this tribe? Aren't they the essence of purity, according to the environmentalist communists? ... Why do we need to protect their land? They're doing a better job of it than any of us ever could protect our land. ... I mean, I'm sure these people -- not only don't they have to get rid of their incandescent light bulbs and go to these compact fluorescents, they don't have light bulbs. They don't have electricity. They don't have running water. This is the ideal. These people need to be contacted. We need to learn from this civilization, because this is where we're all headed if the extreme environmentalist communists get their way."

More:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200805300006

[BreweryYardRat]

54. If ever there were a candidate for a date with an arrow-frog poisoned dart...

Honestly, Rush, quit blathering about "environmental communism." Not only is there no relation, communism's been dead and rotting for nearly two decades. And if we'd been sensible about the need for clean energy and other environmental advances over the same period of time, even your grossly extravagant standard of living would be better than it currently is.

[Regret My New Name]

55. hah, I grew up listening to that asshat because of my step father...

I always wondered if he was purposefully dense in order to piss people off. He's like an internet troll who is pretending to be stupid just to see how many people he can bait... I just don't see how he could be real....

[hexola]

43. We should follow the Prime Directive, Captain...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive

In the fictional universe of Star Trek, the Prime Directive, Starfleet's General Order #1, is the most prominent guiding principle of the United Federation of Planets. The Prime Directive dictates that there can be no interference with the internal affairs of other civilizations, consistent with the historical real world concept of Westphalian sovereignty. It has special implications, however, for civilizations that have not yet developed the technology for interstellar spaceflight ('pre-warp'), since no primitive culture can be given or exposed to any information regarding advanced technology or the existence of extraplanetary civilizations, lest this exposure alter the natural development of the civilization. In addition to exposure, purposeful efforts to improve or change in any way the natural course of such a society, even if that change is well-intentioned and kept completely secret, are prohibited.

[conspirator]

50. But the greedy corporations are not the federation, they are the BORG n/t

[galledgoblin]

58. but the Prime Directive is always broken!

well, ok, maybe not in this particular instance, which is more akin to a starship just routinely noting that there is intelligent life on a planet and leaving it be...

but if something drastic happens to threaten these people (either because of the outside world contaminating them or because of something within their environment), I would support sweeping in to help.

[ohio2007]

44. Wonder how much contact they actually have to prevent this issue

The Ostridge Tribe won’t marry outside their own people, so
meet the two toed people. -
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fcf_1177714310



http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=270_1212162334

[Miss Carly]

47. here we go

I am sure before it's all over with, someone will decide these folks need to be "civilized"....no more arrows and bows, they will end up with guns, wearing wal-mart clothing, mcdonalds and starbucks planted somewhere in the area, driving thru the jungle in SUVS to an internet cafe. they will all have jobs working at the resorts that are built in the area for the pushy rude tourists.

I find it hard to believe these people have no knowlege of the rest of the world. But wouldn't it be nice to just take care of the families of the tribe, no Bush, no Iraq, no war on terror, no complaining about the price of gas etc. Smart people, too bad the rest of the world can't take a page out of their book.

Carly

[Judi Lynn]

49. Book just published on the Amazon indigenous people:

Amazon Ambassador
By CANDICE MILLARD
Published: June 1, 2008

TREE OF RIVERS

The Story of the Amazon.

By John Hemming.

Illustrated. 368 pp. Thames & Hudson. $39.95.

~snip~
For thousands of years, Indians have survived in the Amazon much more effectively and gracefully than any outsider could hope to. Unfortunately, since the 16th century, their survival has depended largely on avoiding not poisonous snakes or razor-toothed fish, but white men. In “Tree of Rivers,” Hemming charts the near wholesale destruction of Amazonian Indians by men who saw no value in the rain forest beyond rubber and slaves — and stopped at nothing to acquire them. Villages were repeatedly attacked, the men kidnapped, the women raped and the children savagely murdered. Once enslaved, the Indians were tortured or worked to death.

Tens of thousands of Indians were killed and entire tribes wiped out during the rubber boom of the early 20th century and the hundreds of years of slaving expeditions that preceded it. Those who survived either moved so far up the river’s tributaries that no outsiders could possibly reach them, or they fought back. As early as the 18th century, the Mura, enraged by the enslavement of some of their own, became, in Hemming’s words, “brilliant guerilla fighters. They used large bows and long arrows, and by holding one end of the bow to the ground with their toes could fire missiles with enough velocity to pass clean through a man.” As skilled in strategy as they were in combat, the Mura patiently waited near rapids, attacking when their enemies were at their most vulnerable and helpless in the roiling waters.

By the time Brazil established the Indian Protection Service in 1910, the Amazon’s people were, as Hemming describes one group, “implacably hostile and justifiably suspicious of all whites.” Explorers throughout the 20th century — everyone from Theodore Roosevelt to Hemming himself — learned this lesson firsthand as expeditions were attacked swiftly and silently. The Indian Protection Service attempted to make peaceful contact with the Amazon’s most isolated tribes, but in the end, it did more harm than good. “The first encounter was often done by skilled and well-intentioned officers,” Hemming explains. “But, almost inevitably, there was soon a terrible epidemic — measles, influenza or tuberculosis — for which there was no remedy or for which inadequate medical provision had been made. Also, all too often, when a feared tribe ceased to fight, its forests and rivers were invaded.”

Near the end of “Tree of Rivers,” Hemming invites readers to look at the Amazon through his eyes. As his title suggests, what he sees when he considers a satellite picture of the sprawling river is the outline of an enormous tree. “Twigs join branches that thicken as they move down towards a massive central trunk, which in turn broadens at its bole,” Hemming writes. The trunk of Hemming’s tree is the Amazon, the branches are its tributaries, the twigs their streams. After centuries of exploration and exploitation, the trunk of this great river system has been largely abandoned by its native inhabitants. The branches, however, are still home to scattered groups, some of whom have had no contact with the outside world. “Tree of Rivers” is a powerful reminder that it is our responsibility not only to protect them by leaving them alone but, if our paths do cross, to leave gifts rather than destruction behind us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/books/review/Millard-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

~~~~~~~~~~~

A book like this might help a few less thoughtful folks to see these beings as something more than a bunch of illiterate people wearing red paint who don't know about the "wonders" of our technology.

[Regret My New Name]

56. How do they survive without amazon.com ?

[Judi Lynn]

57. Highway poses threat to uncontacted tribe in Brazil

Highway poses threat to uncontacted tribe in Brazil
Monday, June 02, 2008

The uncontacted tribes in the forest borderlands of Peru and Brazil, such as those pictured last week pointing a bow and arrow at a plane, are facing a threat from something beyond their wildest imagining.

It comes from a thing of which they've never heard, being built to serve a people who they have no idea even exist. It is a road, and in time it could lead to their destruction.

The 711-mile Trans-Oceanic Highway, which will eventually link the Amazon river ports of Brazil with the Pacific ones of Peru, is the biggest threat to the indigenous peoples – uncontacted or otherwise – in that part of South America, says John Hemming, celebrated expert on Brazilian peoples and author of many books, among them the acclaimed Tree of Rivers. "The bad news," he says, "is that the Chinese have persuaded Brazil and Peru to cut a road through this region, and it's blazing ahead. In theory, it should not affect these peoples, and it won't go slap through their land. But when it's built, the settlers will come pouring in." And, as he points out, one main road grows spurs and side roads, allowing those who do directly threaten the tribes – illegal loggers and mineral prospectors – far better access to the uncharted areas than they have now.

There are, said Mr Hemming, thought to be 34 uncontacted groups in Brazil, and around 20 in Peru. Most live in forest that already enjoys some protection. But the damage can begin even before direct encounters occur, with incomers making tribes flee traditional territory and move into conflict with other groups.

More:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article3757785.ece

[Judi Lynn]

59. S. American Indians: Respect Uncontacted Tribes

S. American Indians: Respect Uncontacted Tribes
Thursday, 5 June 2008, 4:14 pm


South American Indians demand ‘respect’ for uncontacted tribes
An indigenous federation that defends uncontacted tribes across South America has demanded that Peru’s government respects the rights and lives of uncontacted Indians living in the remote Peruvian rainforest.

The demand comes after unique photos of an uncontacted tribe living in Brazil, near the Peruvian border, made world headlines. Other tribes in the region are believed to be at risk from uncontacted Indians from Peru fleeing into Brazil to escape illegal logging.

The demand was made by the International Indigenous Committee for the Protection of Uncontacted Tribes and those in Initial Contact in Amazonia, the Chaco and Eastern Paraguay (CIPIACI).

'The movement of isolated tribes into Brazil seems to be the result of the constant aggression and threats they have been facing on their land in Peru,' CIPIACI’s statement reads. 'Effectively, this kind of displacement has been going on for the last few years because of the invasion of their territories, mainly by loggers or missionaries who follow them and want to contact and evangelise them.

More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0806/S00085.htm