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 Members of an unknown Amazon basin tribe and their dwellings are seen
during a flight over the Brazilian state of Acre along the border with
Peru. Photograph: Reuters
Deep
in the Amazon jungle, one of the Brazil's last uncontacted indigenous
tribes has been photographed from the air, to prove its existence.
The pictures show tribesmen, painted red from head to toe, preparing to
defend themselves with longbows against the aircraft carrying out the
photography.
The images, taken by the Brazil's department for Indian affairs
(Funai), reveal a number of thatched roof huts in a small clearing in
the forest, in the western Amazon, close to Envira, which is not far
from the border with Peru.
Funai warned that logging in the region threatened the existence of the few remaining uncontacted indigenous communities.
"We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to
show they exist," said Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles, an expert on
uncontacted tribes at Funai. "This is very important because there are
some who doubt their existence."
Meirelles said the tribe lived in six small communities, each with
about six communal houses, in an area known as the Terra Indigena Kampa
e Isolados do Envira.
He added that other uncontacted groups on the Peruvian side of the
border, who have also been photographed by experts, were being pushed
from their homes by illegal logging.
"What is happening in this region [of Peru] is a monumental crime
against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna, and is further
testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the civilised
ones, treat the world," Meirelles said.
Loggers, often prepared to kill as they move into new areas, have
forced uncontacted tribes from Peru into Brazil. The area is regularly
full of smoke from the burning of recently-logged areas.
The Brazilian government has a policy of not contacting the few tribes
which are untouched by the outside world and whose way of life has
apparently changed little in thousands of years. It is not known to
which tribe they belonged, Funai said.
It is understood that when the plane first overflew the village, the
people scattered into the forest. When it returned a few hours later
they had painted themselves red and fired arrows into the sky.
"They
must have suffered some sort of trauma in the past and must know that
contact is not a good thing," Fiona Watson, of Survival International,
said.
Her organisation estimates that there are around 100
similar groups around the world in places like Brazil, the Andaman
Islands and New Guinea.
"All of them face a common threat.
Their lands are increasingly being encroached upon by loggers, oil
companies and so on. They are under threat of violence. We know of past
cases where 50% of the community has been lost within 12 months of
initial contact [with the outside world]," she told the BBC's Today
programme.
She welcomed the Brazilian policy of not contacting
groups and attempting to demarcate lands to prevent unrestrained
land-grabbing.
Guardian
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