Previously uncontacted tribe photographed

[cubsfan6506]

The Incas lived in the Andes.

 

[woody60707]

Whereas the people in Montana used to be part of society and now forcing alienation of themselves, the people in Brazil are isolated from the beginning and have never had ANY contact with the outside world at all. Maybe a few conquistadors, maybe a stereotypical English explorer with those helmets and a honking elephant gun. But cults tear away members of societies and enforce a wall of silence.

Is that same wall of silence not being forced on them as well.

 

[raketooy]

Wow, this is interesting stuff. Their lifestyle is so different, and it is hard to imagine what these people think when they see this chopper or plane making a near flyover.

Let's play some thought games. If it was discovered that they sacrifice all, say, second children of the families, would it be right from us to intervene and stop it?

 

[Leonel]

Is that same wall of silence not being forced on them as well.

Cults enforce it themselves. Although these villages may have a specific rule about not venturing far from the village or they won't be allowed back. I don't know.

 

[cubsfan6506]

Wow, this is interesting stuff. Their lifestyle is so different, and it is hard to imagine what these people think when they see this chopper or plane making a near flyover.

Let's play some thought games. If it was discovered that they sacrifice all, say, second children of the families, would it be right from us to intervene and stop it?

I'll cast a vote for yes.

 

[DNK]

Well I'll say it.

Whats the difference between this tribe and a cult? both don't want contact with the out side world, both make superstition/religion/brainwashing (what ever you want to call it) so the younger generation wont go out, and stay in the tribe/cult?

Why is everyone here is all for these people living and bring there children up in the same fashion. But when people in Montana want to do the same thing, and not take there kids to school and bring them up in the same fashion, well thats evil???

Is the only justification that they been doing it longer?

It really depends on the nature of the "cult". If they're just out there, doing their thing, and not really "abusing" anyone, I'm all for the state leaving them be.

I'm generally very apprehensive over cult busting in the US. If there isn't widespread and heavy victimization going on, I really don't support the practice.

People should have a right to be left alone and live as they see fit, and to raise their children as they see fit. Western society isn't the end all be all to perspective and ways of living. Forced integration is an extremely disturbing concept. There need to be limits on what one can do, yes, but the point where the state intervenes needs to be very clearly laid out, and, imo, only in extreme cases of abuse and neglect where it is apparent that there is no sound logical reason that could justify that abuse and neglect.

Not to mention that Brazil does not have the systems in place to deal with properly integrating these people back into society, hell they don't even have the systems in place to properly integrate their own citizens into society - poverty and crime remain issues there, if I'm not mistaken. There's no reason to believe that they would be better off as Brazilian citizens.

 

[LucyDuke]

Wow, this is interesting stuff. Their lifestyle is so different, and it is hard to imagine what these people think when they see this chopper or plane making a near flyover.

Let's play some thought games. If it was discovered that they sacrifice all, say, second children of the families, would it be right from us to intervene and stop it?

Well, like I just explained to someone else, if we've figured that out, we've probably contaminated them enough already anyway that it wouldn't matter anymore.

 

[scherbchen]

The problem with that line of thinking is that we only have so much of nature. Logging and the decreacing of forrest habitat has forced a serious risk to the extintion of other species. To do what you are suggestion would wipe out many species important to the ecosystem, and once they're gone; they're gone. You can't get them back... EVER. So it's best to not encroach and interupt that ecosystem. Forests are the life blood of it. Without it, they can't survive.

Imagine something like a Jaguar only being a myth like the Dinosaurs...

Oh, I wasn't proposing making room for humans anywhere on this planet where it is possible. You'd also have to feed them (how many pounds of grain go into a pound of meat? 5-8? have fun eating all that tofu).

I merely find it astounding that, as the article shows, there are so many things we do not know about this rock right here we have. I am all for colonizing space, if I weren't a little geek inside of me would probably die. But going the space route, or rather, haven gone that way some odd decades ago, gives us no excuse to know so little about our planet.

And you are completely right. What we wipe out we will never get back. But there are things being wiped out on a daily/weekly basis we have never even seen. The universe will not see its like again.

So let's explore this planet, ideally without doing a flyby by an indigenous camp like Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Let's do both...

 

[woody60707]

It really depends on the nature of the "cult". If they're just out there, doing their thing, and not really "abusing" anyone, I'm all for the state leaving them be.

I'm generally very apprehensive over cult busting in the US. If there isn't widespread and heavy victimization going on, I really don't support the practice.

People should have a right to be left alone and live as they see fit, and to raise their children as they see fit. Western society isn't the end all be all to perspective and ways of living. Forced integration is an extremely disturbing concept. There need to be limits on what one can do, yes, but the point where the state intervenes needs to be very clearly laid out, and, imo, only in extreme cases of abuse and neglect where it is apparent that there is no sound logical reason that could justify that abuse and neglect.

Not to mention that Brazil does not have the systems in place to deal with properly integrating these people back into society, hell they don't even have the systems in place to properly integrate their own citizens into society - poverty and crime remain issues there, if I'm not mistaken. There's no reason to believe that they would be better off as Brazilian citizens.

I agree with you. But I just don't like the thought of children growing up and spending there whole lives in ignorance because the "outside" people thought it would be better for them if no contact was made. Shouldn't they at least be given the choice?

 

[luiz]

The overwhelming majority of once isolated tribes choose to become a part of mainstream Brazil. Funai (the government's indian agency) tries desperately to keep the indians in their traditional lifestyle, as if it has any value in itself.

Right now there is a huge indian problem in Brazil. Nearly all indians have adopted a modern lifestyle, and yet they still have all sorts of priviledges under the law. I've been to many indian reservations and they all have sattelite dishes and go to evangelical churches. They are granted huge reservations for free (they are 0.2% of the population but own over 13% of the land), several kinds of government assistance, and are not accountable to Justice. Just last week an indian woman stabbed an engineer who was taking part in a debate and she cannot be persecuted. In Roraima, a northern state, the criminal federal government is creating a gigantic indian reservation, against the wishes of over 80% of the population of said state. This will make the area occupied by indian reserves in Roraima almost 60% of that state's area. Thousands of families are beign expelled from lands that they have occupied for two centuries to make way for a handful of indians that plan to exploit the region's vast diamond reserves.

The only solution is the abolition of all indian reservations, save the handful of the actually non-incorporated indians like the ones in the OP. All racist legal benefits must also be abolished, and Funai should stop trying to keep people in the stone age against their wishes.

 

[DNK]

I agree with you. But I just don't like the thought of children growing up and spending there whole lives in ignorance because the "outside" people thought it would be better for them if no contact was made. Shouldn't they at least be given the choice?

Well, they can always leave. There are laws that keep you from being detained against your will, and I have no problem with those being enforced.

Will these kids know of all the advances of modernity? Not necessarily, but so long as nothing's stopping them from exploring the world around them, well, nothing's stopping them from exploring. At any given moment they make a decision to break out of their defined boundaries or live within them and enjoy whatever comforts that life gives them. It may simply be subconscious, but it is there. They will have some exposure, so they should be aware something different surrounds them.

Of course, with children there are thorny issues of custody and responsibility, and less clearly defined rights. I think we can all agree, in the case of minors, that they could grow up in equally bad, if not worse, hands while being fully integrated into the mainstream, living in the middle of a major city or its suburbs.



luiz, that's interesting. I was unaware of those issues. Suppose I should let the experts speak on Brazilian integration

 

[Ansar]

And I think we just found a new ethnicity, red people. Let the red people stereotype begin!

Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'redneck'

 

[scy12]

Actually we kind of knew that the are many Amazon yet to be contacted tribes even before that.

 

[emzie]

The overwhelming majority of once isolated tribes choose to become a part of mainstream Brazil. Funai (the government's indian agency) tries desperately to keep the indians in their traditional lifestyle, as if it has any value in itself.

Right now there is a huge indian problem in Brazil. Nearly all indians have adopted a modern lifestyle, and yet they still have all sorts of priviledges under the law. I've been to many indian reservations and they all have sattelite dishes and go to evangelical churches. They are granted huge reservations for free (they are 0.2% of the population but own over 13% of the land), several kinds of government assistance, and are not accountable to Justice. Just last week an indian woman stabbed an engineer who was taking part in a debate and she cannot be persecuted. In Roraima, a northern state, the criminal federal government is creating a gigantic indian reservation, against the wishes of over 80% of the population of said state. This will make the area occupied by indian reserves in Roraima almost 60% of that state's area. Thousands of families are beign expelled from lands that they have occupied for two centuries to make way for a handful of indians that plan to exploit the region's vast diamond reserves.

The only solution is the abolition of all indian reservations, save the handful of the actually non-incorporated indians like the ones in the OP. All racist legal benefits must also be abolished, and Funai should stop trying to keep people in the stone age against their wishes.

Just curious, but what's the average income of a native Brazilian compared to the average income of the country?

 

[luiz]

Just curious, but what's the average income of a native Brazilian compared to the average income of the country?

Don't know (racial income statitics are not as common in Brazil as in the US, and the few available are debatable). But I do know that there are gigantic differences in income among indian groups.

Some time ago, several children in an indian tribe in Goiás starved to death because their parents did not bother to work and the government assistance showed up late (I started a thread about it). Those guys are obviously very poor. I've been to a Guarani tribe in Paraná, some 3 years ago, and the indians there are essentially beggars, totally dependant on government aid and private donations (literally dozens of skinny kids surrounded my car and kept asking for money, a very sad scene). But in the North, where some tribes profit immensily from diamond and wood traficking, you have entire communities of millionaire indians who own imported cars and even private jets. One private jet owner a few years ago raped several kids and Justice let him walk because of his race, even though his indian status did not prevent him from traveling to Europe and the US several times.

It's a complex issue, but the only certainty is that the current policy failed in all fronts.

 

[emzie]

Wait, why would one's status as an indian give immunity from prosecution or hinder one from traveling to the US / Europe?

That seems really weird....

 

[Holycannoli]

Interesting. I wish American news was as good as BBC .

Odd that you say that because I saw it on American news this morning before I went to work.

It's an amazing and fascinating story. It actually seems all fake. You just don't expect this. An uncontacted tribe? Looking up at the plane in fear, drawing their bows to shoot at it? It seems fake. That's how amazing and fascinating this story is.

Let's see how long it takes to screw this tribe all up now that we're both aware of each other.

EDIT: There's other pictures more close-up where the men look like they're about to shoot arrows at the plane. And with them wearing red pigment and one of them in black ash, it looks staged. I'm not saying it is, it just looks like it.

Doesn't it all just not seem real?

 

[CaptainF]

I can hear the Evangelicals salivating.

 

[luiz]

Wait, why would one's status as an indian give immunity from prosecution or hinder one from traveling to the US / Europe?

That seems really weird....

In Brazil having indian status means you can't be persecuted like an ordinary citizen. Supposedely because you don't understand the complexities of the modern world and "white man's law". But I find that a man who owns a private airplane and has travelled quite a bit around the world can easily grasp "white man's law".

 

[luiz]

Odd that you say that because I saw it on American news this morning before I went to work.

It's an amazing and fascinating story. It actually seems all fake. You just don't expect this. An uncontacted tribe? Looking up at the plane in fear, drawing their bows to shoot at it? It seems fake. That's how amazing and fascinating this story is.

Let's see how long it takes to screw this tribe all up now that we're both aware of each other.

EDIT: There's other pictures more close-up where the men look like they're about to shoot arrows at the plane. And with them wearing red pigment and one of them in black ash, it looks staged. I'm not saying it is, it just looks like it.

Doesn't it all just not seem real?

If you go to the Amazon you'll see that the idea of unknown tribes is not that shocking. It's just too big and too difficult to travel through.