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TechnoratiThe Few Remaining Uncontacted Amazonian Tribes Deserve Protection: Expert
These remarkable pictures of Envira Indians were taken by Brazilian government officials during several flights over a remote part of Brazil's Acre state.
Painted a bright orange, two members of the tribe emerged from their huts to threaten the helicopter as it flew low over their small village.
Others could be seen in the background, apparently startled by the presence of the noisy machine in their skies.
"We did the over-flight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist,' said Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles, an expert on "uncontacted" tribes, who works for the Brazilian government's Indian affairs department.
"This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence."
Mr Meirelles said the tribe lived in six small communities, each with about six communal houses, in an area known as the Terra Indigena Kampa e Isolados do Envira, close to the Peru border.
In spite of the threat of the encroaching world, the number of Envira Indians is thought to be increasing, Mr Meirelles said.
But other "uncontacted" groups on the Peruvian side of the border, who have also been photographed by experts, were being pushed from their homes by illegal logging.
This could lead to conflict between the displaced tribes and an estimated 500 Indians already living on the Brazilian side, he said. Indians were also susceptible to contracting diseases from outsiders.
"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," Mr Meirelles said.
Survival International, a group London-based group which defends the rights of tribal people, estimates there are more than 100 remaining isolated indigenous tribes worldwide, with more than half in either Peru or Brazil.
"These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist," said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International.
"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."
© 2008 The Telegraph
15 Comments so far
Show AllWord seems to have reached them on the grape-vine. Nobody needs to be told the answer to the question: "If space-craft have really been seen, etc, why haven't they tried to contact us?" Just a wry laugh.
Well, if that's so, it makes for an incredible spectrum of people who are savvy enough not to want to have anything to with us. at. all. Who can blame them?
I don't think they're going to start a cargo cult any time soon.
"They're shooting arrows which means they know, possibly from experience, that civilization is their enemy." there is a posibility,........that all us worry worts are projecting what we know to be happening in our civilization...........to the natives......closer to nature, wich is what all us commoners have been drawn away from. thats the UNIVERSAL CONCiOUSNESS (sp) talkin' BABY!!! its on!! its so on. everyday another mind frees itself from the bonds of ignorance.......!! rejoice, were part of the end of the beginning. so are the natives......i have a feeling that they already knew what their future held for them.......like us, shooting Nibiru out of the sky, if it makes its rounds. what do we know.
Verily, our almighty Lord saith, Columbusfy them, for they art but heathen...
Let My "Golden Rule" rule. Do unto them what ye would wants them to do unto ye. As an eternally saved Christianite, I knoweth that twar I one of them acursed godless savages, what I'd want most is for some self-righteous, born again Christian busybody, to come saveth me from my evil ole ways and mercifully convert me to the eternal salavation of Chistianism, even at the point of an old fashioned sword, and/or a deadly modern machine gun, and/or hi-tech bio-AIDS germ warfare cluster bombs.
So verily I say unto thee, it be high time that our God, their Lord who art in Heaven, blessed be them poor godless heathen with the blessings of His koshered, fat-blessed, fast food, McChickenshit, mumbo jungle religions. Ceptin for, of course, any abominable amazonian homos for they shalt surely feel but the wrath of our merciful loving God and be cast down into a fiery jungle hell with 69 young virgins.. for eternity...
Praise be de holy sacred superstitions of our God, their Lord
I'm not sure anyone is advocating building a wall around them, but what is deranged about trying to let them live as they have been and as they choose, and finding some means to preserve the ecosystem they inhabit? Mainly by letting them be as they are?
This could be the "modern" worlds one last chance to say enough already, let indigenous people remain indigenous. I'm sure some anthros are licking their chops to get in there, along with corporate land and resource rapists, tourists, missionaries, etc.
They're shooting arrows at the moderns, can't we listen and back off, just once???
rebelnow, there's no chance in hell they'll be left alone. Besides, as moral as it might be to leave them alone, it would also be a little deranged to sort of build a wall around them, "protecting" them from the outside world.
But seriously, what is it going to take to make sure these people are left alone? www.survival-international.org
I wonder if they would let me join their tribe.
That's George, Dick, and Condi outside the Whitehouse.
They look tough. Maybe they could get jobs as "military contractors".
"Home to numerous indigenous Indian tribes, the Peruvian rain forest's most recognized Indian inhabitants were the Incas whose capital was in the Andes but whose empire extended into the cloud forest. With their large empire, the Incas had many contacts with the jungle Indians of Manu. At its height, the Inca empire spanned 3,000 miles (4,800 km) across South America. Inca territory was divided into quarters, with Cuzco, the city where the Inca Sun King resided, at the center. Communication between cities was facilitated by "chaskis," couriers who ran between locations to send information. "
I think it is important to make this point for it is not the indigenous people who were likely to have developed weapons, but the Incas (or other pyramidal civilizations) who would have offered them in trade... also, many (most) of the thousands of human sacrifices were taken from these indigenous tribes...
Imagine the changes this empire (and others) wrought throughout the indigenous world and what opportunities it awakened for fomenting inter-tribal suspicions and rivalries and alliances to hopefully obtain more security for ones group, family, etc....
"Population, is the elephant in the room. If there were much less of us."
You mean… corporate/military driven urbanization is the elephant in the room.
Small groups of humans living sustainably (though that is not proven in this case) ecologically dispersed (and the spaces between said groups, do not need to be large given that 1/16th of an acre of land is generally all that is required to adequately produce food for a practicing human herbivore) is certainly not an environmental problem.
Large groups organized into ELITE POWER STRUCTURES where a small number control all the resources and destroy, horde and otherwise control access based upon what they feel is in their power-continuing interests IS THE PROBLEM.
But, these 'primitive' groups could simply be surviving fragments of the Incan empire. There are similar groups in South America known to be originated from escapees of the European slave trade.
I was told some years ago that anthropologists who study early African societies often get a clearer picture from isolated groups that were formed by runaway slaves who escaped a few hundred years ago into the hills of South America and have remained isolated since that time from other influences.
It would be foolish to assume that these groups have social and other behavioral patterns that are continuous from earliest humans. Or, that they were never contacted by the Incans. Apparently the Incans did not directly control all the jungle communities, but they were in contact.
Population, is the elephant in the room. If there were much less of us.
Its neat that such tribes exist but I dont think the exotic nature of them is enough to stop logging or even influence decisions.
Meat eating humans need their soybeans so they can feed them to cattle.
There doesnt seem to be many issues that arent caused or linked to a meat and dairy diet.
Rush Limbaugh found it convenient to poke fun at these people on his Thur radio show--this from a man who flies over it all in his large private jet.
www.StudentsForTheEarth.org
They're shooting arrows which means they know, possibly from experience, that civilization is their enemy.