May 30, 2008: Uncontacted Indigenous People
 

http://cellar.org/2008/tribe1.jpg

This story has made the rounds all over a variety of sites. These tribal people are a group living along the border between Brazil and Peru, and are known as an "uncontacted tribe." As in, these people are completely unaware of the existence of millions of other people living modern lives on the planet. With the exception of the occasional airplane they see flying overhead, of course, which they usually shoot a few arrows at just to be sure.

http://cellar.org/2008/tribe2.jpg

I don't know about you, but that blows my mind, that there are people still so completely (and deliberately) isolated from the rest of humanity. Makes me wonder what's truly humane. If a child were locked in a basement his whole life, but given basic life necessities, it would still likely be called abuse. The director of Survival International, Stephen Corry, had this to say:

"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." So this culture of people is considered a separate species now? Are we benevolently protecting their way of life (without their input as to whether they would want that,) or arrogantly treating them like animals?

The rest of the story:
http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=17381

Clod, are you suggesting that you think civilization needs to be incorporated into these peoples' way of life? Do you believe that allowing these people to live the way they do is abusive? Maybe you are saying the opposite....?

I don't know. I think it's arrogant to think we know what's best for them, either way. To deliberately refuse to contact them might be just as inappropriate as forcing them to use modern plumbing. Lots of tribes have successfully kept their culture even after encountering people from Western cultures. Some have chosen to incorporate modern things into their lives, some haven't.

I think you are probably right. For some people, there must be a "I know what's best for them" mentality that takes over, so I guess I figure someone is going to come along and screw things up for them. :(

But we must make sure everyone, even in the remotest Amazon, has a chance to see Sex in the City. :rolleyes:

How did that work out for the Aztecs and Mayan cultures?

millions of modern people? Really? That sure is a lot. :P

Here's my point of view: they will be contactd, one way or another. Eventually, the modern world will catch up to them, no matter how hard we try. Space on the planet is finite, after all.

Would you rather them learn about the existence of modern man when a bulldozer takes out their lean-tos, or should they have a head start?

Well strictly speaking, there are a whole lot of people on the planet whose lives are pretty similar to these tribes. Those are some nice thatched huts they have there!

I think, given their remote location and the conditions their culture has evolved to live in, they would lose more than they gained by contact.

I have no doubt it will happen at some point, but for the time being ignorance is bliss. Or if not bliss, then at least a continuation of a centuries long way of living, which has at least worked well enough to ensure survival.

Yea, I mean they have gotten along without anyone for so many years it is beyond me why anyone would think they have to go in there and screw things up for them. Leave them alone.

Really? I readily admit that it could be my own ignorance, but I can think of lots and lots of counterexamples (virtually everywhere European nations ever colonized, say) and not very many cases of what you're describing.

Mind sharing with the class?

I read about these folks in this morning's paper and thought about them for an hour or two, did a little research, including looking back over a book called "Yanomamo, the Fierce People," by Napoleon Chagnon, left over on my shelf from grad studies in 1968.
Then here they are on IOTD!
A couple of thoughts: The threat to the tribes along the Peru-Brazil border comes almost all from Peru. Brazil has done some good things with newly contacted tribes, including a hands off policy.
A quote today from a Brazilian official implementing that policy says it well: "While we are getting arrows in the face, it is fine. When they become well-behaved, they are finished."

The Prime Directive

The Sub Prime Directive

Obviously colonization would overwhelm any tribe, especially since that was usually one of the main goals. Who is colonizing these days? The kind of contact we're talking about is researchers going in to talk to them, to learn their language and their culture. There are hundreds of contacted tribes still in existence today, both alongside these uncontacted ones in Brazil and Peru, as well as all across Africa and Central and South America.

I think deliberately hiding from them and keeping them in isolation lowers them to the level of a scientific experiment. They are humans, and our greatest strength as a species is sharing knowledge with each other. They might have a cure for cancer, for all we know. The policy should be leave them alone if they want to be left alone.

Why is there a guy in a gorillasuit in both pictures?

Those poor, poor people. They don't even have a Mal-Wart. How much longer can they survive?

Is it just me or is their skin color VERY red or VERY black? Too bad we don't have some close-ups! We should secretly study them or something

The red ones seem to be the ones shooting arrows at the chopper. I wonder if they color their designated bowmen brightly, like nature puts bright colors on poisonous critters?

That looks exactly like my sims game!!

Im not convinced its legit

I would have no idea what the hell to do concerning this.
Just, wow.

We could test 'em.;)

Damn tax evaders.

The archers and the guy in the gorilla suit are trying to scare the chopper away from the tribe's big ball of aluminum foil.

That's Frank's foil. ;)

Nope! Not Frank!
 

Dude Bruce - that is totally not "Frank". It's some savage chick.

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/2664/tribechicker4.jpg

LJ that must have been one of your best posts eva!!!
:D
lol! That rocked!!!

Well, whoever or whatever he/she is, he/she's using a hula hoop.

I think it makes sense to leave these people in their original state. I mean, we want to leave unlogged forests and shit, right? Why not leave a culture that sprang from that hopefully virginal arboreta?

There's a theory that goes something along the lines of "How will we know how shit is supposed to work if we fuck with it before we've learned everything about it?" I think leaving these people relatively unsullied falls under that heading.

Besides, they've now got some bitchin' new tales to tell around the fire about how Og chased off the flying monster with his mighty bow and magickal incantations. I mean, its not like they've got scriptwriters standing by to go on strike like we do...

Point one: Seems to me all discussions about what is "best" for them are moot, if coming into contact with us is going to kill off 50% of them due to lack of immunity to our diseases.
Point two: Seems to me that showing their pictures and pinpointing their locations--"Here they are! Let them alone!"--is tantamount to screaming "Don't think of feathers!" Doomed, either way.

Maybe the opposite, spudcon.
1. Tribespeople hear "giant silver wasp" approaching and spring into action according to time-proven plan.
2. Hot "savage chick" parades out into a clearing, attracting attention of chopper pilot.
3. Chick removes blouse and brassiere, drawing chopper in.
4. Archers pop out and bring chopper down.
5. Sheet metal and other chopper parts added to big ball.

The pictures are necessary to prove to the government they are in fact there, so the government will make laws to protect their turf from loggers and farmers. Also, they are not revealing exactly where this tribe is.

I wish I could concur. Unfortunately, the Brazilian government took the pictures, and allowed as to how this tribe is on the boarder with Peru and threated with Peru's logging. I can't feel optimistic for them.

Tombstone has a good point Bruce. Also, given that the governments of both countries have little to no control in the logging areas of the rainforest at present (hence the call for other countries to refuse the import of hardwoods) it seems likely the tribe will be assimilated into generator dependency within the next ten years. How else will they keep their Cocoa-Cola cold?

I think you may have stumbled onto the truth, Imigo. Meanwhile, the rest of the civilized world is protecting them, when it's the poachers and land grabbers who need protection!

Clearly the best course of action is to make them into a reality TV show.

Drop a Coke bottle containing a camera into their village and see if they go all "Gods must be crazy".

It's their only chance. If the governments of Peru and Brazil do nothing, these people are definitely fucked, in the next ten years. The only way they might do something, is making the governments, and the World, aware of these tribes.

Hence the need to get some rangers or seals to go hide a bunch of cameras and turn them into a international reality show! :D

What's their infant mortality rate? How many of them die of starvation when local food is scarce and traded food is unavailable? How many die of diseases long since cured by modern medicine?

Every one of those deaths are people sacrificed to the idea of cultural purity. What's the preventable death count that we're willing to force on them by refusing contact?

These people aren't a science experiment in post-colonialism white European guilt. The are people, and have a right to shared benefits of human advancement.

If you go in there, you'll probably be their food.

Why should we be obligated to contact them? It's their turn to call.

Wait, I thought we were avoiding them for their own good. Now you tell me it's actually for our own good?

I say leave them the hell alone. We don't know shit about what's "best" for them. So many people on here sound like we'd be doing them a big damn favor by bestowing ourselves on them.

How many advanced humans slip/fall/die in their showers everyday? Car crashes? Mall shootings?
Maybe these people should come save us! :eek:

Too late. I've already sent that one an e-mail.

I don't understand this kind of reasoning. If someone in this tribe gets cut, and the cut gets a bacterial infection, would that person be better off with or without penicillin? If you think without, then you and I are using a sense of the word "better" that is simply unfathomable to me.

Communication, progress, advancement of knowledge, trade, these are the normal practices of human society, and you'd better have a damn good reason for preventing them. The prevention of them costs lives - not theoretical, notional lives, actual people who die because we did not share with them knowledge that would have saved them.

Why is the act of forced cultural isolation in Myanmar a moral outrage, while in this case it's some higher "enlightened" obligation to withhold from these people the incalculable benefits of participation in human society.

Why not just drop a cell phone and ask them all these questions? Oh and lets drop in a few IPods. Steve Jobs wants to control them.

For goodness sakes, Just have our people call their people . . .

They will probably live their lives to the fullest, as long as their chief forces them to wear seat belts and helmets. And as long as every member pays the Tribal Witch Doctor General one buffalo for Universal Health Insurance.

The sooner we contact them, the sooner we can get their money.

18 years...


Now I ask. What would they do if they actually stuck an arrow into the tail rotor.. Four tons of aluminum, steel, plastic, cameras, radios, seats, carbon fiber, and 100 gallons of gasoline crashes down on them and ignites in the middle of their village.. :eyebrow:

They know nothing about that: I wonder what the heck they made of the giant flying bug buzzing above them?

Have we learned nothing from the sleestacks?

How many of them starve in the midst of plenty? How many of them are unable to access medical care that their fellows take for granted? How many of them work in backbreaking poverty to ensure the more powerful of them live in luxury? How many of them face rape and violence on a day-to-day basis due to the breakdown of their social structures?

Not all that the modern world offers is beneficial. What's the infant mortality rate in the Sudan, in Zimbabwe, in Mogadishu? What's the life expectancy in the shanty towns of Rio? How much modern medicine is available in Bangladesh?

Modern civilisation relies upon inequity. The market as we understand it cannot bring the benefits of prosperity to all, there is always a loser. This is the case even in wealthy nations. What's the life expectancy of a black boy in the projects? What's the infant mortality rate in the poorest parts of europe?

They will not be sharing in many of our advances, but for all we know they may not be sharing in some of our less savoury civilised practices either. There was a tribe contacted for the first time about tqwenty years ago (can't recall its name now). They were a collectivist society to a large extent. If there was plenty nobody starved. If there was scarcity, all hurt. Their culture has been fundamentally altered by modern contact. A new elite has become separated off from the rest and a new group of poor who have not succeeded under the new system. They have become fragmented and their young are leaving in droves to do menial work in the nearest cities. They still have only minmal access to modern medicine because of their geographic distance and relative poverty. But they do have t-shirts.

I'm not trying to be an apologist for the whole of human society.

I am saying that there are benefits to be gained from connection with the rest of society, benefits that a slight of geography has denied these people. It's incredibly condescending to choose for them, that they ought to be preserved in their present state, without those benefits.

Dana, you're worried that if they are exposed to new ideas, and offered a choice, they might make the wrong choice. You're withholding the option to choose because you have decided that they are better off without the choice.

Oh for god's sake, next thing you know we'll be hearing from those who need to get in there and shove a bible into these people's hands lest they burn in hell forever for not knowing teh LAWD.

I'm amazed at the arrogance of people who believe we have anything to offer them that they need. They've been existing there for hundreds of years...but let's get in there and show 'em how a can opener works. "Hey y'all, I betcha you get a load of this here can opener you'll want to live just like us."

Sad, really, how egocentric we are.

The people who are colored brightly are thought to have donned the pigment after the first fly-over, after which they were ready when the giant bug thing came back.

Logging is a threat, and that should be looked into. It's not the 2 acre lot behind your McMansion, folks, it's the freaking Amazon forest.

It's just like the aliens that keep visiting our planet. I think we're better off without them.

Not at all. I do not believe that they will necessarily be better off having been contacted. Nor do I believe they will necessarily be worse off. I am simply suggesting that it is not a given that entrance into the 'modern world' is an automatically positive step.

In terms of making choices for them. No, I don't believe I know better than them, nor do I believe that they are incapable of making choices. But the choice to reveal the modern world to them is ours and if we exercise it we make a choice on their behalf: we make them aware of our world. If they have not chosen to venture out as explorers and 'discover' this world for themselves, what right have we to take that world to them? What right have we to remove their choice in that regard? Granted they may have made that choice with no knoweldge of what is out here.....what right have we to enforce such knowledge? Once the knowledge is there, it is there.

Well said, DanaC. Your analogy regarding explorers venturing out makes sense. What some others are speaking of is, to me, imposing ourselves on a culture that we have no right to impose upon. We take away their choice; whether or not we believe it is an un-informed choice is completely irrelevant.

Then again, they'd like some can openers.