Get Lost!
“Uncontacted tribe” sounds mysterious and exotic until you read down a little and discover they already got the message about civilization and stamped it “return to sender.” Zoom in for the “Beware of poison darts” sign and “If this village’s rockin’, don’t come knockin’” bumper sticker. Here’s National Geographic, for all your red- and black-painted, uncontacted savage news:
May 30, 2008—In a palm-hut encampment, members of an “uncontacted” Amazon tribe fire arrows at an airplane above the rain forest borderlands of Peru and Brazil earlier this month. The black and red dyes covering their bodies are made from crushed seeds and are believed to signal aggression, native-rights experts say.
Released yesterday, the photo—one of several—was taken by officials from Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (FUNAI).
Peruvian officials and energy interests have publicly expressed doubt that uncontacted tribes exist in the Amazon. (See “Oil Exploration in Amazon Threatens ‘Unseen’ Tribes” [March 21, 2008].)
But the new photos are more proof that uncontacted, seminomadic tribes do exist in the increasingly threatened Amazon rain forest, according to Survival International, an international indigenous-rights group that works closely with FUNAI.
“We are very confident the photos are genuine,” said Miriam Ross, a spokesperson for Survival International, which estimates that half of the hundred or so uncontacted tribes in the world live in the rain forests of Brazil and Peru.
Some experts say few, if any, tribes have had no outside contact. It’s more likely is that previous generations had negative encounters, prompting social taboos that continue to drive clans deeper into isolation.
Due to their vulnerable immune systems, these groups are highly susceptible to diseases borne by outsiders such as missionaries, loggers, or oil workers.
The new photos come just months after a similar one (see photo) captured apparently uncontacted natives collecting turtle eggs by a riverbank in the Peruvian Amazon, where energy development and illegal logging are on the rise.
Mike at Monkey Tennis Centre has fun with PhotoShop:
But I think these people look more like Hillary voters: Backwoods bow-and-arrow-toting, outsider-disliking, religion-clingers.
Anyway, the photos were released as a big warning about logging and mining activities. I don’t know how big a carbon footprint these guys have, but the message here is pretty clear. If you want to save the planet and you aren’t living in a grass hut in Amazonia shooting arrows at passing airplanes, then you’re a chickengreenie.
Topics: Noble savages, elsewhere, western civilization
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:59 am Comments (1) on Saturday, May 31, 2008
One Response to “Get Lost!”
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May 31st, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Ah the Noble Savage, making social progressives wet since Rousseau.