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Decline of a Tribe: and Then There Were Five
The last surviving members of an ancient Amazonian tribe are a tragic testament to greed and genocide
They are the last survivors: all that's left of a once-vibrant civilisation which created its own religion and language, and gave special names to everything from the creatures of the rainforest to the stars of the night sky.
Ururu, front left, with the last members of the Akuntsu, in a picture taken before she died this month. Most of the tribe was massacred by loggers in about 1990
Just five people represent the entire remaining population of the Akuntsu, an
ancient Amazonian tribe which a generation ago boasted several hundred
members, but has been destroyed by a tragic mixture of hostility and
neglect.
The indigenous community, which spent thousands of years in uncontacted seclusion, recently took an unwelcome step closer to extinction, with the death of its sixth last member, an elderly woman called Ururú.
Considered the matriarch of the Akuntsu, and shown in these pictures (which were taken in 2006, and are the most recent images of the tribe), Ururú died of old age, in a hut built from straw and leaves, on 1 October. News of her death emerged last week, when the tribe was visited by human rights campaigners, who have spent the past decade campaigning to preserve their homeland from deforestation.
"I followed the funeral," says Altair Algayer, a local representative of Funai, the Brazilian government agency which protects Indian territories. "She died in a small house. We heard weeping and rushed over, but she had already died." Ururú's death means the entire population of the Akuntsu now consists of just three women and two men. All of them are either close family relations, or no longer of child-bearing age - meaning that the tribe's eventual disappearance is now inevitable.
The slow death of this indigenous community is far more than an unfortunate accident, however. Instead, it represents the long-planned realisation of one of the most successful acts of genocide in human history. And the fate of the Akuntsu is seen by lobby groups as an object lesson in the physical and cultural dangers faced by undiscovered tribes at so-called "first contact".
Much of the Akuntsus' story is - for obvious reasons - undocumented. For millennia, they lived in obscurity, deep in the rainforest of Rondonia state, a remote region of western Brazil near the Bolivian border. They hunted wild pig, agoutis and tapir, and had small gardens in their villages, where they would grow manioc (or cassava) and corn.
Then, in the 1980s, their death warrant was effectively signed: farmers and loggers were invited to begin exploring the region, cutting roads deep into the forest, and turning the once verdant wilderness into lucrative soya fields and cattle ranches.
Fiercely industrious, the new migrant workers knew that one thing might prevent them from creating profitable homesteads from the rainforest: the discovery of uncontacted tribes, whose land is protected from development under the Brazilian constitution.
As a result, frontiersmen who first came across the Akuntsu in the mid-1980s made a simple calculation. The only way to prevent the government finding out about this indigenous community was to wipe them off the map.
At some point, believed to be around 1990, scores of Akuntsu were massacred at a site roughly five hours' drive from the town of Vilhena. Only seven members of the tribe escaped, retreating deeper into the wilderness to survive.
Those seven were not formally "contacted" until 1995, when Funai investigators finally made it to the region and were able to have a 26,000-hectare area of forest protected for them. They included the late Ururú, who was the sister of the tribe's chief and shaman, Konibú.
"We know little of what Ururú's life was like," says Mr Algayer, who was among the Funai team that first discovered the tribe. "In the 14 years that we have been with her, she was a happy, spontaneous person ... She recounts that she had four children who were all shot dead during the massacre. We don't know who her husband was or how he died."
One other member of the group of seven, known as Babakyhp, was killed in a freak accident in 2000, when a tree blew over in a storm and landed on her hut. The others, who still survive, are Pugapía, Konibú's wife, who is roughly 50 years old, their daughters, Nãnoi and Enotéi, who are around 35 and 25 respectively, and a cousin, Pupak, who is in her forties.
Evidence of their suffering is visible in bullet wounds which both Konibú and Pupak showed to cameramen making a documentary about their struggle - Corumbiara: they shoot Indians, don't they? - that was filmed over the last 20 years and has just been released in Brazil.
It is also evident in a simple fact: on its own, the Akuntsu gene pool cannot allow it to survive another generation. Since tribal custom will apparently not allow outsiders to marry in, it is therefore effectively doomed.
The Akuntsu story is not unique. Even if they escape persecution, communities that have never encountered the outside world often face tragedy. Typically they lose between 50 and 80 per cent of their population in a matter of months, since they have no immunity to common diseases.
Ancient ways of life are also frequently corrupted by the arrival of outsiders. Though indigenous tribes rarely have much interest in material possessions, and often don't understand the concept of money, their traditional clothes and rituals are vulnerable to change.
Campaigners now hope the fate of the tribe, which will be publicly highlighted by Ururú's death, will persuade the Brazilian people to further strengthen government protections for indigenous people.
Stephen Corry of Survival International, a human rights organisation that has been working with Funai, said: "The "Akuntsu are at the end of the road. In a few decades this once vibrant and self-sufficient people will cease to exist and the world will have lost yet another piece of our astonishing human diversity.
"Their genocide is a terrible reminder that in the 21st century there are still uncontacted tribes in several continents who face annihilation as their lands are invaded, plundered and stolen. Yet this situation can be reversed if governments uphold their land rights in accordance with international law.
"Public opinion is crucial - the more people speak up for tribal rights, the greater the chance that tribes like the Akuntsu will in future survive."
- Posted in
25 Comments so far
Show AllEnforce the laws that are already on the books. I'm sure that someone went to the Brazilian government and said "hey they're shootin' Indians", and they just looked the other way.
Furthermore, it sounds like a defaulted loan to the IMF or World Bank is involved!
If governments were tough on this they would call out their army to protect indigenous protesters. Sadly they have to dig up Brazil's resources to pay their debt.
actually, not only did Brazil liquidate its debt with the IMF in Dec/05, but as Lula announced during this year's G20 summit, Brazil will LEND money to the IMF. we need to realize the scale of what we're talking about here - the Amazon River Basin, is roughly the size of the forty-eight contiguous United States, covering about 40% of the South American continent and includes parts of eight South American countries. the Brazilian government does invest a lot of resources in research, preservation, defense and protection of the region's indigenous populace. unfortunately, the same companies that are destroying America's natural resources and our own native populations, opening our national parks for logging, mining and tar sand extraction, have been operating in South America for decades at a much more vicious level.
Lets see and end to importing Brazilian hardwood to furnish new homes in America and Europe, lets demand that American pharmaceutical companies stop their devastating extractivism in the region, that way we'll cut the incentive to destroy the Amazon and its people.
Nearly every day, I read or hear something in the news that makes me cry instead of my usual reaction: angry ranting and/or exploding head. Well, this is today's story that has brought tears to my eyes and will again, I'm sure, for several days whenever I stop to reconsider it and place it into larger contexts.
Chalk up another blood-soaked victory for capitalism.
kgarry
"no gods, no masters" --m. sanger
Sickening...
And was anyone punished? At the very least the killers should have been executed along with their families, without benefit of trial. Take them out to the jungle and shoot them. If it's good enough for the Akuntsu, it's good enough for the Brazilians. For good measure, throw in the cops and the politicians and the military who let it happen. And their families. Nor is this just about the Akuntsu. The destruction of the Amazon rainforests leads to the destruction of the current biosphere, which means the destruction, ultimately of human civilization. Brazil allows it. For profit. Humans: chittering, empty-headed monkeys.
"Brazil allows it"
lets consider a couple of things
the Amazon is larger than India - try ostensively patrolling that
Brazil was the victim of a well-documented CIA orchestrated military coup in 1964, resulting in 21 years of US-backed brutal dictatorship, in which great minds, culture and democracy were mercilessly quashed in windowless basements while American corporations were granted free reign. Henry Ford started devastating the Amazon and ruthlessly decimating the indigenous population in 1928 with the founding of Fordlândia, a 4000 sq mi tract along the banks of the Rio Negro, for the sake of extracting rubber for cars bought by Americans. there are currently over 100 pharmaceutical companies depleting the Amazon, most of them American. if, here at home we cant get health reform due to corporate lobbying, imagine what our companies are getting away with in Brazil
The modern way we live today, makes a mockery of what was our long held success as a species on this planet and there is no clearer example of this than with the fate of indigenous peoples, such as the Akuntsu. This sad and pathetic monument to modernity's unfettered advance is however, more than just a footnote to the existence of the Akuntsu. It is a warning that portents no less than the same fate for the rest of us and one we shall regret and be cursed for if we continue to ignore the suicidal bent of our ignorantly destructive and callously murderous ways.
Tribal cultures have existed for tens of thousands of years, evolving into the maximum level of a sustainable lifestyle. Civilization has existed for four to six thousand years, and has proven to be a poor substitute for evolved tribal cultures. Tribal cultures always die when contacted by civilization, for civilization is an aberration, a disease, a madness. It is not only murderously greedy, but it is suicidal. Tribal cultures have much to teach us, but I doubt if we will listen. The next few decades are, I fear, the last for the species Homo Sapiens.
The single largest killers of the Natives of the South and North American Continents was disease.
The reason that Europeans were resilient to these diseases whereas the Natives in the Americas were not has at its roots the domestication of Animals. The largest KILLERS were due to diseases that jumped the species barrier from Animal to man.
Since Europeans had domesticated animals and lived in close proximity to them for many years, they became resistant while at the same time being carriers.
Note that this tribe had thrived for thousands of years simply living WITH nature. They did not try to remake the forest into something it was not. They adapted to the land and ate what it offered them INCLUDING meat and plants.
This is something we have to relearn and we have to relearn it quick. The best teachers of such a lifestyle are the Aboriginal tribes. We do not have to become luddites and set aside all technology, but we can certainly learn to adapt to nature and teach ourselves much more sustainable lifetsyles then ones based upon massive consumption.
Bring America Back !!!!
We have the identcal problem here, as the Amazon, our Native Tribes of Honesty, Integrity, and Morality have gone extinct lo many years ago !!
***Where have all the good people gone, long time passing. !
Bless the poor Amazonians, for they shall be in the tents of the heavens with their gods.
The United States demonstrates what a great superpower can be built on the skeleton of genocides.
I guess other nations are following the American Dream using the same time-tested methodology.
Money driven growing populations spill into sustainable ones.
Today in America there are perhaps only one quarter of a million American Indians remaining who practice the traditional ways of their ancestors as best they can after the American Genocide. Much of the old teachings are gone forever. Yet American Christians pursue the Traditional American Indians with a vengence. Despite the clear evidence that these efforts are Cultural Genocide the practice continues. Unless mitigated, in a few short years the remainderment of traditional beliefs and practices will be gone forever. If your Christian church has missionaries among the Native Peoples, STOP GIVING MONEY TO THE CHURCH. That is the only way it will end and American Traditional Indigenous Culture will survive.
As for International Corporations who engage in genocide for profit, STOP BUYING THEIR PRODUCTS. Only then will the beast be tamed.
Either of the above is not much to ask but will you do it?
"Stone"
My people have a proverb:
"If your heart is pure and your intentions are honorable you will have the strength of ten"--and yours seems to be pure, and your intentions honorable.
In reality, there are just over 2.2 million Native Americans on the 'rolls' of the Tribes in the USA. In order to be acceptable as a 'Tribe' by the US Government the 'Tribe' is required to a member of a treaty, or have some other 'antique' references by or to the US Gov. The Seminole of Fla. never signed a Treaty, as neither did many other tribes, but the fact that the US Government 'warred' with them using the US Military to carry out the directions of the US Gov makes them accepted.
Unfortunately most of the Tribes with exception of maybe some of the Alaskan Tribes, and including to a small degree the Native Hawaiians have lost there original cultural and ethnic identity as well as cultural traditions.
The Native Americans you see at the "Pow Wow" are descendants of the original peoples but have been heavily 'Christianized', and there cultures raped and disregarded by the 'Missionary Doctrines' of the Christian Denominations.
I remember members of my own family telling stories from as late as the early 19th century that if you could "pass" as 'white'--change your name and 'move away' from the Tribal identity---you were a fool not to do so, the US Gov. had made life for many tribes miserable. Some of my own family members did just that, while some of the others were members of the 'missionaries to their own people'.
Then, 'Hollywood made it popular ' to be an "Indian" and so now many Native American people are content with 'dressing up in their regalia and dancing for the white folks at the Rodeo'
Now however, there is a 'new twist' in the 'tangled web'. Uncle Sam never thought of much past the tip of his own 'pecker'----and now there are as many as 18 million Americans with Native American Ancestors who were 'lost to the rolls'---(according to the 2000 census). Now the DNA of Native Americans being so distinct, and with tribal markers beginning to show in the DNA; the US Gov. may some day have a major problem with -disassociated Native Americans---making claims using there DNA as EVIDENCE (which is accepted in even the ultra conservative Supreme Court)---.
So this short message to the USA by a 'Son of his People': you can steal most anything and get away with it, but when you steal an entire continent you can never hide and there are no statute of limitations---and someday the USA may have 18+ million 'pissed off people' with a legal claim to major portions of that continent---and they will have military experience (as I and many do), as well as the motivation to 'file a claim'---even by 'using force' if necessary.
Someday there will be an 'accounting'-----
"If the USA were another nation the USA would invade the USA to keep the world safe, and they would be justified."
As long as American corporations are given free rein in the world, we will have more of these tragedies. Look at the US - we can't even get a fair health reform policy due to the health insurance cartel and our spineless legislators.
We will overturn any government that dares to obstruct our corporations who run this country.
The tragedy of this is mind boggling.
As Brazil will be hosting the olympics this is a good time to save the links in favorites for quick reference. The indigenous peoples regularly seek international letterwriting from caring people throughout the world
The Socio Environmental Institute (ISA- Instituto Socioambiental) in Brazil has developed an English section on the Indigenous Peoples - with translator buttons for daily news postings. An amazing site
http://pib.socioambiental.org/en
For letters and petitions
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
and Survival International with the link above after the article
Weekly News postings in English
http://www.cimi.org.br/?system=news&eid=275
Every bit of help counts - from now until the olympics the indigenous peoples in Brazil will continue to be in the news. Please save, explore and use the links
Its just amazing that so many posters here are so desperate to blame Americans and America for everything they automatically blame it for this.
No American Corporations were involved in this, no Americans were involved as Survival International made quite clear.
If you want to blame people for buying Brazil's products go right ahead, many country's do buy them , including us. But false knee jerk judgement's like these are becoming all to common on CD.
"But false knee jerk judgement's like these are becoming all to common on CD."
Exactly. Your knee-jerk judgement is included.
Surely, you must know which corporations were complicit (and which country they are from) as you state that "no American Corporations were involved". Please share....
Making the connections is something we need to do.
Heres a link about the Akuntsu
http://pib.socioambiental.org/en/povo/akuntsu/13
If you search out "Brazilian logging and the US market" you begin to get Greenpeace research on logging:
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/our-role-in-stopping-the-illeg
You also begin to see the profile of logging leading to encroachment on Constitutionally protected rights, the massive financing of development projects, the scope of the market for noble woods in the US, the presence of Bunge, Monsanto, Bayer and others in massive monoculture (when the rest of the world economy was tanking, these were seeing record profits)
On the western border with Peru it was Hunt oil (US) that was involved in the Amazonian conflicts there. The US PR company that was hired by the Micheletti coup in Honduras also has worked for Hunt oil.
The power of extractive activity led to Peru's government disregarding its own legislation, international treaties on indigenous rights - and it took people dying and international pressure to get that government to acknowledge abrogation.
These things do not occur in a vacume and there is a very identifiable domino effect.
Hopeful news, new findings of a 15 year study says "Give forests back to local people to save them" - don't give them to governments
http://www.newscientist.com/topic/climate-change
Make It Happen In Copenhagen!
We, too, "often don't understand the concept of money."
What the hell is a Credit Default Swap anyway. Is that where if I don't pay you and you don't pay me, the guvment intervenes and bails both of us out with taxpayer, er, Federal Reserve dollar denominated promissory notes backed by the full faith and credit of, er, the bankrupt Treasury that has bankrupted our Social Security Trust Fund I've been paying into all these decades.
Bunch of ignorant Brazilian indigenous anthropologies. Ten thousand years of solitude and they still can't figure it out. They deserve everything that happens to them. They probably can't even pronounce "Pepsi." Scum. No respect for capitalist diversity. People like that don't deserve their own language. And forget the possibility that they know of the Abrahamic One God.
Hey Mordechai, where are you when we need you? Or are the tears streaming down your mortified face? Can't see the keyboard? You should have learned to touch type.
One other relevant thing: soy products contain estrogen mimicking chemicals that cause males to require Viagra. Welcome to the wonderful world of chemistry, and genocide. By other means...
-30-
Over and over and over again. Where's Maxpayne to tell us we have to stop bringing up these "old news" items about genocide of natives. This genocide business is so much a part of the territorial imperative that, now that lots of money equals more territory, the health insurance corporations are into genocide (with smooth PR labels, of course) too.
For those who think this is about indigenous tribes only, I just want to tell you that, if you live in a large city and are short on cash, you are next. Health insurance corporations are not racists or bigots; they'll screw anyone. It's not personal, just capitalism.
Thank you.
My husband is a conservation biologist who has fought for years to save habitat for endangered species of primates and raptors.
Habitat is the key word. We must figure out how to make this world livable and safe for every living thing.
I am a life long ocean swimmer and have been watching the vibrant life forms of the sea disappear at an alarming rate due to pollution.
I have been saddened by the demise of the bigger species like the white rhinos.
The list is too long but the important part is that we must remember that we are on that list.
As the indigenous peoples go so will we beginning with the weak and so on.
It is just a matter of time.
I have been in the Amazon and had the privilege to meet and hang out with some tribal people there who live in harmony with the natural world.
The light in their eyes and their stress free smiles makes you believe in God.
You rarely see a smile like that on a Western person unless it is a small infant.
This story makes me feel very sad.
Since the decimation of native populations was brought up, isn't it interesting we just celebrated a day for the man that brought small pox, slavery and a few other fine items to the New World. If I were Italian, I wolud not be happy and, besides, he was working for Isabella, Queen of Spain, the sweetheart the killed, tortured or drove out anyone not Catholic.
And Columbus' year, 1492, was when they cranked up the Inquisition. What it Hell were we celebrating?
We must buy hardwood furnishings for our homes. We must use products like whale and dolphin meat, like ivory and rhino horn, even oil, coal and natural gas. After all you are what you eat as it were.
And we must pay for all the consequences of the use of these items, down to the very last cent.
Till now, all that has been paid for is extraction. The term long used is exploitation. It has been God. No getting away from it. The absurdity is amply demonstrated as the worshippers continue burning not only lost tribes but also neighbours, brothers and sisters in this tradition.
Strangely enough it is the 'primitives' killed who have always seen the simple truth that only a child 'who is charmingly the centre of the universe' cannot see. There is evidence that the 'primitives' have always thought the extractors are crazy. They have always been right. There are enough left to avoid disaster. They are the wise, the ultimate sophisticates. Even as they have died their statement has always been friendly but absolute.
Absolute? Well have a revelation! It is easy! Follow the clear signs! Look ahead and see the Absolute! That 'Kingdom of Heaven that except ye be as little children ye shall not enter' right at the core of modern culture.
And be frightened all ye adults as little children. Better still, have faith and give yourselves to your God today! Go on, burn, baby burn. Do it! Do it now! With God your Idol. Pay the debt!!!What a way to go!!
But leave the children so that they may enjoy their brief but supremely deserved sojourn at the centre of the universe, turn to the loving wise and carry on.