Proving that there are still places in the world where pre-modern culture humankind exists – 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 in a May, 2008 photo distributed by Survival International. The organization calculates that there may be as many as 100 such tribes still in existence but are in serious danger of contamination and assimilation into 21st Century culture and mores due to logging and deforestation of the Amazon rain forests.
In the above picture the tribe members definitely don’t see the strange craft hovering over them as a visitation from the gods, but view it as a threat to their survival.
MrWall says
anyone remember the Tasaday tribe found in the philippines? it makes a person skeptical about these findings.
Michael Hurley says
I hope they leave these people alone. They look like they eat missionaries.
Piers Kelly says
I hope they eat missionaries.
By the way, there’s more to Tasaday than meets the eye. Read Robin Hemley’s Invented Eden and Lawrence Reid’s article on the Tasaday Tapes. There’s a case to be made that the hoax allegations were the real hoax. But if believing the hoax narrative means leaving isolated groups alone, then I encourage everyone to believe it.
Chris in Seattle says
Why leave them alone? Do you really believe in the myth of the “noble savage”? Just because they live in a “romanticised” illusion that being primitive and untouched by modern culture is somehow a better choice?
Look at it this way, how would you like it if we found out an advanced alien race knew of us and held the answers to all our problems, and could greatly benifit us but they held this misguided concept of the “noble savage” and applied it to us? Would you appreciate thier thought of keeping us untainted and where we are or would you be pissed that they stood by, watched from a distance, and did nothing to help?
I for one want the “Noble Advanced Civilization”!
Chunky says
Someone should FEDEX them a case of scotch, that’ll bring em kicking and staggering into advanced civilisation 🙂
jonathan says
hey they could become tv celebrities overnight !!!!
Chris in Seattle says
While it might be interesting to sneak a few hidden camera’s in there for a secret reality show, the fact we most likely don’t know their language, the show would soon feel like that long wookie segment in the Star Wars Holiday Special were only Wookie was spoken… not fun in my opinion!
suurreaal says
Please tell me, don’t they look like umpa lumpas from Willy Wonka. I think we finally found the umpa lumpa homeland
Fogell says
thats so sick
jordan says
seriously that is. suurreaal grow up. try to think about what they are going to have to go through. if we just leave them alone, they are going to be confused and always wonder what the hell that huge flying birdlike machine is and if we try to communicate with them, it is like an unbelievable magical world that will be so hard for them to understand, it might possibly be too much for them to handle. i hope they will figure out a smart way to go about this.
Chris not in Seattle says
Who are we to determine what is best for these individuals. How do we know that they have problems? Even if they do, how do we know that we could solve them? I think its a shame that we have become so narcisistic. In a world where millions of people are dying of AIDS, or ununneccessary wars while others just watch, why would they want to be a part of that? They have survived for centuries without our “help” so lets leave them alone!
Sam says
UPDATE:
Anthropologists aware of this and several other tribes like it in the region say that they know of these people and the tribe has opted to stay as far away from modern man as they can — by choice. They know of modern society decided they want nothing to do with it and are currently fighting logging companies trying to encroach on their ancestral lands.
I say, honor their wish to remain separate from the rest of the world if that is their wish. Look what modern society has done to other such tribes in the past…totally assimilated them until they lost all their cultural heritage, or worse — died off due to disease and pestilence they were not equipped to ward off.
kullai says
leave them alone!!!!
Sharon says
I think the airplanes should drop some food to them so the tribesmen would know they are friendly. The food should be organic, of course.
katie says
i think eneryoneshould leave them alone and stop making a fuss,it’s a free world and they our welcome. plus do you seee them making a big fuss about us and you don’t see them putting pitcers of us up everywhere
Dia says
We imperfect humans do not know the answer as to if we should leave them alone or bring them into our “now”.
As to an advanced civilization doing the same for us, taking us into a longer life, healthier,HAPPIER EXISTENCE.
Amen to that. BUT ONLY IF HAPPY and PEACEFUL are part of the package.
Because we can cure some diseases and make men more sexually active does not mean a lot.
AND LOOK! THEY’VE NEVER USED ANY DISINFECTANTS!AMAZING!
HOW DID THEY EVER DO IT? AND WHAT? NO ONE OVERWEIGHT?
Yeah, I say WE LEAVE THEM TO THEIR LESS COMPLICATED IRRESPONSIBLE INSURABLE CULTURE WE ARE SO LUCKY TO LIVE IN.
furry_apeman says
The following is a very unrealistic statement because of the negative elements of modern civilisartion such as pride and greed:
South africa was a good start .. now if as if by come strange miracle, the europeans gave leadership of north america back to the native Indians and apologised, and leadership of Australasia back to the native inhabitants… and apologised, and Palestine back to the native Palestinians and apologised…
and certain governments of the world (e.g. south american administrations)respect the tribes of the land and their home terratories… and i think you can think of lots more examples …
if this impossible feat can be accomplished, then tribes people will have a hell of alot less to fear from the rest of the world.
But none of that is ever gonna happen, ever.
jim b says
Why shouldn’t we contact them? Well, for one thing, they obviously don’t want contact, as they keep retreating back into an ever-shrinking Amazon to avoid contact. What happens to tribes that DO make contact? Ask the surviving members of the Nahua or Murunahua tribes in Peru. Development encroaching on their habitat led to outsiders’ first contact with the Nahua in the 1980s, and the Murunahua in 1996. In both cases, after contact OVER HALF the population DIED from simple colds and other diseases to which they have no resistance. This is why Brazilian officials took the photographs, and why Survival International helped publicize them: to prove they are there and to help make sure their habitat is protected from illegal logging and legalized development. As recently as last December, Peru’s president and officials of Peru’s largest oil company publicly questione the existence of “uncontacted” peoples — even comparing them to the Loch Ness Monster — in order to justify expanded oil and gas exploration in the Amazon. JB
mattew says
i study tribes and i believe that “they should be left alone”, if they don’t want us here and it was shown show we should just leave them alone and let do what they want to do and i believe that in the end they will become apart of our population
Andy in Rouyn,Qc says
Maybe they can teach us about happiness and respect.. Maybe they possess the TRUTH! Or fatal disease for all of us. Let it be…
Kristine says
“live and let live” Instead of worrying about what answers they bring or illness, LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!! They have survived for hundreds of years without modern civilization.
We would be better off especially as America to quit sticking our noses where they don’t belong in the rest of the world. Get over your arrogance concentrate efforts on this country where there is more than enough to discover and ruin here. Leave the beautiful and natural state of others who still possess what is pure and right to themselves.Thank you. From someone who left America to live on a beautiful island that America almost completely sabotaged.
albert says
I am native american myself, has anyone thought that they probably want to be left alone. and yes I believe that they see the helicopter as treath to their very existence.
Nathan says
i cant help but wonder what those people would think of the bible and why some book is so important to us outsiders. i am rather jealous of their simple way of life. i wish i could be a caveman. i say let them be.
Tena Turman says
I dont understand why some people feel that there is a need to study and research these tribes and their cultural environment as if they are some kind of unknown species from out of space. Those people have lived in peace and harmony throughout the centries among one another without invading our modernized world and thus they should be left alone. As i am watching a show at this very moment about very secluded or rarely seen tribes, i find myself wishing i was there and living the carefree life without the stresses of modern-day living. May those people be blessed and be allowed to live their lives without the influence of us so-called “civilized” people……