Uncontacted Tribes Discovered In Brazil (PHOTOS)

The BBC reported last night that an uncontacted tribe had been discovered on the border between Brazil and Peru.

According to the Guardian, there are around 100 uncontacted tribes in the world. "Survival International estimates more than half are in the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon."

The National Indian Foundation, a government agency in Brazil, took these photos and published them Thursday. According to CNN, "it tracks "uncontacted tribes" -- indigenous groups that are thought to have had no contact with outsiders -- and seeks to protect them from encroachment.

They and their relatives apparently live in six communal shelters known as malocas, according to the government, which has tracked at least four uncontacted groups in the region for the last 20 years.

The photos were taken during 20 hours of flights conducted between April 28 and May 2.

More photos here.

Comments

[jjwest11]

09:36 AM on 06/06/2008

Read this is you get a chance. A good take on these folks: http://culturematters.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/uncontacted-indians-contact-an-anthropologist/

[BobOnThis]

10:51 AM on 06/02/2008

And the race is on to see who can exploit them them first.. wonder what they have that belongs to me?

[Mariam]

11:57 PM on 06/01/2008

wow this is so amazing that people lived so long in that jungle and they just have been found. We should leave them.

http://www.zarinas.com/

[LivingStardust]

08:49 AM on 06/01/2008

Leave

Them

Alone

[SnapShots]

11:21 PM on 05/31/2008

If this is true:

-it's sad that they are now fearful of some new 'force' out there in the world
-please leave them alone and never freak them out like that again
-they are my new sustainability heros.
-the dark person's skin may be dyed? in mourning? shaman?
-the big, older hut is communal/ceremonial?
-Imagine the wisdom in their basic core values
-they have thousands of years of knowledge alive in their culture
-native plants
-horticulutre
-animal kingom
-medicinal practices
-spirituality
-earth & cellestial knowledge and legends






undoubtedly freaked out about the fly over and will be forever fearful.

[SayonaraSnot]

08:35 AM on 06/01/2008

Oh, FFS, stop exoticizing them.

See: Noble Savage

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

[WillSweet]

03:09 PM on 06/01/2008

I agre with what you say but find it impossible to believe that they haven't seen planes before. They are undoubtedly aware that others exist. But definitely LEAVE THEM ALONE.

[hillpill]

02:48 PM on 05/31/2008

If they're not with us
They're against us

[1rewd1]

01:30 PM on 05/31/2008

Oh look ... it's our non fossil fuel, no carbon foot print future.

[neoconscums]

12:13 PM on 05/31/2008

Call me cynical. But, are you sure these are not some wise guys pulling some stunts in the middle of the Rain forest. I bet these people are dinning on Caviar and chilled white wine as we speak!!! Come to think of it. With all the footprints of the Sasquatch gathered over the years we have yet to bag the sucker!!! Yeah! whatever happened to the nest of the MISSING LINK? Inquiring mind wants to know.

[johnnyjust]

12:12 PM on 05/31/2008

I hate to break the fantasy, but people are pretty much the same everywhere you go.

There are tribal disputes, there is hatred, there is love, there is family, there is envy, there is abuse, there is greed....etc.

When the Pilgrims landed near Plymouth they found three different tribes fighting each other over who owned this land or that. Same was true all over the U.S., with tribes constantly fighting each other and pushing tribes off land they wanted.

Sin is innate in all humans. You're not exempt; neither are they. And pretending these folks are any more peaceful or in harmony with nature than anyone else is living in a fool's utopia. They are destroying the rain forest! Don't you care about their carbon footprint?

[bajaboy]

01:17 PM on 06/01/2008

The tribe picturred in this article are NOT the ones destroying the rain forest. That honor goes to the "civilized" residents of Brazil.

[ltfcrazy]

11:58 AM on 05/31/2008

These people will be fine and we will all leave them to be whatever they want. That is what's best and that is what will happen.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

01:14 PM on 05/31/2008

Likely their greatest threat is epidemiological: They must avoid almost all contact with the invading Brazilians who are vectors for EVERYTHING. Secondly, they may require some aid--even technical--in repelling invaders bent on usurping the resources of THEIR territory.

Is it possible that these natives can repel Brazilian invaders with weapons technology that primitive?

[Yappa]

11:38 AM on 05/31/2008

The color of their body paint is so bright that it looks like a commercial dye. I'm not sure you could find that bright red or black in nature.

If the picture is real, then the idea of people doing low fly-bys is very distressing. There should be better protection for people like this. Even if the people in the plane pretend to be doing good, they're acting like papparazi at a celebrity wedding. Brazil and Peru should have legislation making this sort of thing illegal.

This reminds me of the inhumane treatment of the Hadzabe in Tanzania, who are now subjected to "eco tourism".

[SayonaraSnot]

08:39 AM on 06/01/2008

Um, actually the most popular red dye is - literally - ground up bug.

http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/bugjuice.asp

[TimmySlagle]

10:07 AM on 05/31/2008

Here's a side of the story I didn't realize until watching it on the news last night:

These pictures were released by a group that want to close the area from oil drilling and timber harvesting. People fighting to cut and drill claim that these people did not exist, the environmentalists claim they did.

Did it occur to anybody that these photos might be staged?

Few here are foolish enough to believe the alien video was real, but no one doubts the authenticity of these photos. Looking at them a second time, it looks a lot like a Hollywood set.

[PennP]

01:15 PM on 05/31/2008

Some of the comments are gone! Yesterday, I'd responded to someone who thought it would be great to live the primordial life, saying I'd miss books, penicillin, and indoor plumbing. Someone replied that she'd miss computers, Starbucks, and something else. But those comments are gone for some reason.

To the point of your question, though, I also suggested that the pictures might be a diorama of the Yanomamo. I thought I was kidding.

[TimmySlagle]

02:04 PM on 05/31/2008

Yeah, the moderators have been a little touchy on this thread. I had about twenty posts completely wiped off already.

If you don't agree that indigenous tribal customs are more civilized, enlightened and moral than Western Civilization, you aren't allowed to post on this topic (start countdown to deletion).

One question I raised, "why it is alright for these people to fashion spears (which don't exist in Nature) but wrong for other people to make computers?"

[guajiro]

01:18 PM on 05/31/2008

It isn't just Brazil that protects it's indiginous people's, a concept Americans have never lived through, other countries do as well. I spent many years in Mexico and can attest that even there the government, as corrupt and bad as it may be, makes a modest effort at retaining it's indiginous people's culture intact. Brazil, Peru, Argentina, and other South Latin- American countries do as well, even in the face of the corporate, economic hardliners who would destroy anything and everything for a temporary economic gain. In the same way that the American pilgrim and the early American inhabitants of Boston, Massachussetts, Salem, etc., hold a place of fondness and pride in America's cultural memory, the indiginous people's do the same for the Latin countries south of the U.S. border.

[PatA]

08:43 AM on 05/31/2008

Obviously, they are frightened by the intrusion of the flights. Does is surprise us that "we", once again, know what everyone else needs? No.
I also believe that it is entirely wrong to publish the photographs. Now, every tom, dick and harry will suit up to go "rescue" them.
Yup, I'm Choctaw Indian and look at us.

[davidly]

08:07 AM on 05/31/2008

"Primitives" whose only interaction with the modern world has heretofore involved projecting their archaic hand missiles at our superior aviation devices probably won't believe we've made contact until we start abducting them.

[moderndude]

07:32 AM on 05/31/2008

sad, seems like 98% of the posters here are just wannabe comedians..

[ltfcrazy]

11:54 AM on 05/31/2008

The other 2% are here to critique the rest.

[morenot]

06:55 PM on 05/31/2008

It makes you wonder how irrate they are at other cultural bigotries. They are tired of this old routine of human beings adapting to survive. It is pretty lame to keep seeng the same outfits and dumb possessions where ever these characters show up. You'd think some of them would see how tired this stuff has gotten and do something original once.