Posted on 05/29/2008 2:59:10 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Skin painted bright red, heads partially shaved, arrows drawn back in the longbows and aimed square at the aircraft buzzing overhead. The gesture is unmistakable: Stay Away.
Behind the two men stands another figure, possibly a woman, her stance also seemingly defiant. Her skin painted dark, nearly black.
The apparent aggression shown by these people is quite understandable. For they are members of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribes, who live in the Envira region in the thick rainforest along the Brazilian-Peruvian frontier.
Thought never to have had any contact with the outside world, everything about these people is, and hopefully will remain, a mystery. Enlarge Uncontacted tribe
Painted: In a thick rainforest along the Brazilian-Peruvian border, these tribespeople are thought never to have had any contact with the outside world
Their extraordinary body paint, precisely what they eat (the anthropologists saw evidence of gardens from the air), how they construct their tent-like camp, their language, how their society operates - the life of these Amerindians remains a mystery.
'We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist,' said Brazilian uncontacted tribes expert José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior. 'This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence.'
Meirelles, who despite once being shot in the shoulder by an arrow fired by another tribe campaigns to protect these peoples, believes this group's numbers are increasing, and pointed out how strong and healthy the people seemed.
But other uncontacted groups in the region, whose homes have been photographed from the air, are in severe danger from illegal logging in Peru and populations are being decimated.
Logging is driving uncontacted tribes over the border and could lead to conflict with the estimated five hundred uncontacted Indians already living on the Brazilian side. Enlarge Uncontacted tribe
The tribespeople are likely to think the plane that took this photgraph is a spirit or large bird
'What is happening in this region [of Peru] is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the 'civilised' ones, treat the world,' said Meirelles.
It is extraordinary to think that, in 2008, there remain about a hundred groups of people, scattered over the Earth, who know nothing of our world and we nothing of theirs, save a handful of brief encounters.
The uncontacted tribes, which are located in the jungles of South America, New Guinea and a remote and the beautiful and remote North Sentinel island in the Indian Ocean (the inhabitants of which have also responded to attempts at contact with extreme aggression) all have one thing in common - they want to be left alone.
And for good reason. The history of contact, between indigenous tribes and the outside world, has always been an unhappy one.
In our overcrowded world their very future hangs in the balance. Almost all of these tribes are threatened by powerful outsiders who want their land. These outsiders - loggers, miners, cattle ranchers - are often willing to kill the tribespeople to get what they want.
Even where there is no violence, the tribes can be wiped out by diseases like the common cold to which they have no resistance.
According to Miriam Ross of Survival International, which campaigns to protect the world's remaining indigenous peoples, 'These tribes represent the incredible diversity of humankind. Unless we want to condemn yet more of the earth's peoples to extinction, we must respect their choice. Any contact they have with outsiders must happen in their own time and on their own terms.'
As to who these people are, how they live their lives, what language they speak - we know nothing. 'Normally you can tell who tribes are by their language, how they wear their hair, how they adorn their bodies and so on, but in this case the photos don't allow us to get close enough to see,' says Ms Ross.
When anthropologists first overflew the area, they saw women and children in the open and no one appeared to be painted. It was only when the plane returned a few hours later that they saw these individuals covered head-to-toe in red. 'Tribes in the Amazon paint themselves for all kinds of different reasons - one of which includes when they feel threatened or are aggressive,' Ms Ross says.
'And they are almost certain to feel threatened by or aggressive towards a plane, which was where the photos were taken from. They are almost certain not to understand what the plane is - perhaps a spirit or a large bird.
'The jungle is fundamental to their lives and survival. It's their home, their source of food, the source of their culture etc. Without it, they could not exist as a people.'
Contact is usually a disaster for these remote tribespeople, who live a life probably unchanged for more than 10,000 years. Even if the loggers do not shoot them (which they often do) or force them off their land, diseases against which these isolated humans have no resistance typically wipe out half an uncontacted tribe's numbers in a year or two.
Ms Ross added: 'These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist. The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct.'
Nothing quite like the soft bigotry of arrogant elitists that assume the myth of the Noble Savage. They must be morally superior to us because they live such brutish, harsh-- and likely short-- lives.
Don't even think of letting them have that dastardly refrigeration.
Sure, there's nothing wrong with living a simple life. Much to be said for it actually. But to ascribe a moral superiority to lives lived largely in constant desparation devoid of "modern" comforts is just elitist and arrogant. I would note that the people who think these things still seem to go home to their nice comfortable suburban home with central heat and cable TV. ~They~ don't live in a hut and hunt for their next meal.
Liberals, especially environmentalists, want the few remaining humans to live like this.
If you follow the ideology behind many of the current environmentalist orthodoxies, the only real solution is a reduction of the human population to a few thousand primitives spread out around the world.
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Exactly. I am always sickened by the Treetard hippies who want to treat these humans like they are an exhibit in a zoo and somehow feel they shouldn't be given the advantages of modern society.
[... if the UN has their way they’ll be sending condoms and free abortions.]
And the UN troops can abuse their children. THEN we’ll send in the Social Workers!
Lucky for them they aren’t members of the FLDS sect, as I imagine their children are ‘in danger’.
Fascinating.
Do you have that game. If so, grab a screen shot of them so we can take a look.
Last uncontacted tribe? Just last night I got a call on my cell phone from this tribe. they wanted to know what was the hold up on their pepperoni pizza!
The woman seems to be wearing a skin tight body suit. Do they have those in the wilds? Also, she looks surprisingly shapely for a stone age type tribeswoman. I don’t recall many looking like that in all my years of perusing Natl Geographic. It might be Halle Berry in that retro Catwoman outfit.
Well, they must have a small carbon footprint. This is how the elitist liberals want you and me to live as well... that is if we are among the fortunate they allow to live.
The biggest change in people seen when we settled down to an urban existence and gave up the hunter-gatherer lifestyle was a LOSS of height and health. Hunter-gatherers typically experienced greater freedom and autonomy, greater height and health, and probably lived a better life than early urban humans.
As to if they are happy? What else do they know? Do you assume that without Starbucks and TV they lead miserable existences? They probably have a rich and varied life full of stories and laughter and the full interplay of human drama that everyone experiences.
Because libtards in academia tell us so. I was forced to watch a video series called “A poor man shames us all”in an Anthropology course I took. I never understand why we should be ashamed, but understood that according to the teacher anyway, their society was better because they had more “culture” and “lived off the land”, and had close family ties. Of course you know, we here in America don’t have anything like that do we?
Obviously means white loggers.
Why assume they are "uncontacted"? May be they are a splinter group of a tribe that has be in contact and decided - No Thanks. I say that because of the aggressive posture they are displaying to an aircraft. They know!
He should’ve dropped a Coke bottle in their camp.
Patriots :)
From what I have been shocked to read about the fate of the aborigines, I pray that no one tries to “help” them too much.
Let them have matches for a few weeks, then take them away and see how happy they are.
A: PC-ism. The notion of the noble savage is part and parcel of leftist dogma. They believe that living in Eden is possible and these societies are somehow un-infected by the greed and inequities of modern society.
What the lefties won't accept is the fact that any people or group will gladly exchange their way of living for much of the benefits of modern society. Give ‘em some medicine, beads, soap or a fragment of mirror glass and you've begun the cultural dilution - and they'll gladly take these things (or steal them). The other myth is that the primitives live some kind of pristine lifestyle. Facts are, these ‘innocents’ live under conditions of constant pagan fears, parasites, chronic disease, starvation, high mortality, protracted warfare and many other ills that make life as a part of a greater economy seem small.
I'm not saying that they should be assimilated and kicked off their ancestral lands, I'm just saying there is no purity or goofy notions of inviolate innocence to these people or conditions.
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