Rare uncontacted tribe photographed in Amazon

[agent46]

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Amazon Indians from one of the world's last uncontacted tribes have been photographed from the air, with striking images released on Thursday showing them painted bright red and brandishing bows and arrows.
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The photographs of the tribe near the border between Brazil and Peru are rare evidence that such groups exist. A Brazilian official involved in the expedition said many of them are in increasing danger from illegal logging.

"What is happening in this region is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the 'civilized' ones, treat the world," Jose Carlos Meirelles was quoted as saying in a statement by the Survival International group.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080529/sc_nm/brazil_tribe_dc

This news makes me feel deeply ambivalent for obvious reasons - at once a sense of wonder at what we can learn about ourselves from these people, and a sense of dread for the inevitable confrontations that are coming. The photos are almost fantastic. Someone must make sure their story gets told - these people are going to be needing a lot of friends soon.

(Unfortunately, the slide show seems to be interspersed with some rather grotesque off-topic photos. I surely hope it wasn't someone's idea of a joke.)

[shain from kane]

1. Logging is bad enough, but I hope that they are not surrounded by a huge pool of oil.

[semillama]

2. Hopefully, this flyby will be the last these guys see of the outside world

Brazil in recent years has become a lot tougher in their protection of "uncontacted" tribes. One thing to keep in mind is that "uncontacted" means officially uncontacted - there's no telling if there's been any accidental interaction between remote tribes and "modern" folks. But the remoteness of the tribes plus their cultural unwillingness to to contact with strangers is probably going to protect them, as long as Brazil does its part in keeping development and logging out of that area. Peoples like this tribe should be protected at all costs - if civilization ever collapses suddenly and catastrophically, it could be remote groups like them that ultimately ride it out and keep us from going extinct.

[oedura]

8. That would be a bad thing?

Trust me, the Earth would get on just fine without us.

[eleny]

3. I didn't see any off topic photos as i scrolled manually through the 10

Thanks for posting this story.

[Warpy]

4. The real danger is disease

because first contact exposes them to diseases of crowding to which they have no immunity.

Anthropologists in the region have to jump through an amazing series of health care loops to make sure they're not bringing any diseases to these people.

[shain from kane]

5. It can go both ways. Didn't gonorrhea come from the Aztecs? Of course, here they are just

discovered, and I'm already speculating that we'll have sex with them.



Corrected spelling.

[Warpy]

6. They always blamed syphilis on the Caribs

but Amerindians had only the mild cutaneous form of that disease. Syphilis as an STD was already well known in Europe before Isabella hocked the family jewels.

It's my understanding that gonorrhea had been described by the Greeks and only denied by Mother Rome until it could be blamed on Amerindians.

[soothsayer]

7. ooh, and untapped market! quick, let's sell them things!!

[RL3AO]

9. Did the aircraft drop bibles to them?