Completely Isolated: 67 Groups
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 20th, 2007
“Their lives do not include televisions, microwave ovens or cars.” No kidding. They forgot to mention iPods, iPhones, iMacs, and YouTube!
Story Highlights• More Indian groups than previously thought are surviving in Brazil
• Study: 67 Indian groups live in complete isolation
• Tribes risk extermination by encroaching loggers and miners, experts say
• Anthropologists: Most uncontacted tribes choose to remain hidden
Considering the news out of Asia of a feral and forest people, this recent story from Brasilia, Brazil, may be of interest. Here are some extracts:
Far more Indian groups than previously thought are surviving in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest isolated from the outside world but they risk extermination at the hands of encroaching loggers and miners…A study by Funai, the government’s National Indian Foundation, and seen by Reuters estimates that around 67 Indian groups live in complete isolation, up from previous estimates of around 40.
. . .
Funai reviewed old and new discoveries of footprints, abandoned huts, and other signs of human life in the thicket of the world’s largest rain forest.
“There are still vast unexplored areas and new indications of [Indian groups],” Marcelo dos Santos, head of Funai’s department of isolated Indians, told Reuters.
Brazil is likely to have the largest number of uncontacted tribes in the world, Watson said.
With a few exceptions, most of the uncontacted tribes, generally live like they would have when Portugal’s Pedro Cabral became the first European explorer to land in Brazil in 1500. Most hunt with blow guns or bows and arrows, dos Santos said.
Their lives do not include televisions, microwave ovens or cars.
Accidental meetings
Anthropologists say most of the uncontacted Indians are likely to know of white men or even have had accidental meetings with them but choose to remain hidden.
After a policy that sought to actively integrate Indians into Brazilian mainstream culture during the military dictatorship of 1964-85, the government adopted a policy of avoiding contact with isolated Indians unless they are in extreme danger.
Funai envoys for years tried to contact an individual in Rondonia, a state in the southwestern Amazon forest, because he is believed to be the last survivor of his tribe.
They tried to introduce him to an Indian woman to procreate. But the “Hole Indian” as he is nicknamed because he lives on branches over a hole, shot arrows at them, sending the potential bride running.
For the complete article, see site below.
We missed this one earlier this week. Thanks to Mark A. Hall for pointing this out to us.
Source: “Brazil sees traces of more isolated Amazon tribes”, January 17, 2007.
I wonder how long these people can remain isolated, given the rate of development and destruction going on in the Amazon Basin today? And if there are so many tribes of people who remain beyond civilized contact, I wonder how many more animal species may be out there?