[Mazhi]

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brazil_spot ... _id=268611

Brazil spots unknown tribe of indigenous people in Amazon jungle

Brazil has located an isolated group of indigenous, uncontacted people in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, the Brazilian National Foundation of Indians (FUNAI) announced today.

FUNAI, a state agency, uses aerial expeditions to avoid impacting uncontacted people and invading their land. The agency's policy is to avoid maintaining any human contact with untouched tribes.

Clearings in the Javari river valley reservation were first identified by satellite; the group's existence was only verified later by air flights over the area. The flights established the existence of three clearings with four straw-roofed buildings, known as malocas, which may shelter over 200 Indians. Also visible were areas where crops such as bananas, maize and perhaps peanuts were apparently being grown.

FUNAI's Javari valley coodinator told the Brazilian news agency Estado that both the croplands and the malocas "are new" and are estimated to have been used "for at most one year".

[T]he Amazon region contains the majority of untouched tribes without any contact with the exterior in the World.

—Fabricio Amorim, FUNAI coordinator

Amorim said, "[T]he Amazon region contains the majority of untouched tribes without any contact with the exterior in the World." And he said the recent findings highlight that the Javari valley holds, "the greatest concentration of isolated groups in Amazonia".

The newly identified group is located close to Brazil's border with Peru in the huge Vale do Javari reservation. Fourteen known uncontacted tribes have been spotted there and up to eight more are suggested by aerial evidence. Altogether, there are about 2,000 individuals in the reservation, according to Amorim.

He said that their culture and their very survival is threatened by illegal removal of the area's natural resources, as well as many other intrusions of civilization, but most of Brazil's indigenous groups have not changed their languages or traditions. FUNAI estimates that the recently discovered tribe is likely to belong to the pano language group.

Brazil's indigenous peoples have tenaciously fought for their legal right to reclaim their traditional lands which were allotted to them in Brazil's 1988 constitution stating that all indigenous ancestral lands were to have their boundaries clearly marked and returned to tribes within five years.

Amazing!

I'd so go to join one of these tribes for like a few weeks to see what they're like, what they think like, how they see the world and what their values exactly are...But I'd have to be careful, they'd first see me as a threat and would probably try to kill me or something.

On second thought, maybe that's not a good idea. Perhaps it is better for them if they have absolutely no contact at all with the "modern" world.

[Social_Critic]

If they haven't been contacted by FUNAI, then there's no way to know if they have been contacted or not. In today's world, those "uncontacted" tribes may have solar powered smart phones, guns, and may even have high speed internet. Last week I was overflying the southern Mexico border on a small private plane, very close to the ground, and I got a text message from a friend in the US. I looked around, and I noticed there was a tiny hamlet on the river I was flying over. Which means the hamlet had a cell phone tower. I tried reception the rest of the flight, and I never stopped getting a signal. I could text message even when flying over a supposedly wild and undeveloped national park. So much for savage jungle.

[Quantum]

I'd so go to join one of these tribes for like a few weeks to see what they're like, what they think like, how they see the world and what their values exactly are...But I'd have to be careful, they'd first see me as a threat and would probably try to kill me or something.

You would probably give them a disease which they have no immunity to and kill them. The tribes will be introduced to 21st century lifestyle soon enough when ranchers give them alcohol, drugs and prostitutes, and then proceed to steal their land.

[Meggido]

In today's world, those "uncontacted" tribes may have solar powered smart phones, guns, and may even have high speed internet. Last week I was overflying the southern Mexico border on a small private plane, very close to the ground, and I got a text message from a friend in the US.

That can't be further from the truth. This uncontacted indian group, and several others in that area, are truly isolated. This area, Javari Valley, is an extremelly remote and large area of the Amazon Rainforest. Access to it is extremelly difficult and would take several days if not more than a month. This is not Mexico, your comparison to Mexico is laughable
They are pretty much the way they were 500 years ago.

BTW, this is no news either. This indian group was contacted in 2007.

[Pants-of-dog]

They can usually tell if the group has had previous contact with civilisation by whether or not they attack right away.

Those groups who have had no experience with civilisation tend to be very accepting. Those who have experience with civilised people tend to attack right away and retreat farther into the jungle.

[Chill]

Shame on the colonizers.

[Smertios]

Shame on the colonizers.

What colonizers, exactly? I mean, Brazil wasn't colonized in the same way of Hispanic America or the US. Indians were not fought and imprisoned in reservations so that a new white population was set up around here. The Portuguese preferred to make contracts with the indigenous peoples. They sold their goods (mainly wood) to the Portuguese colonists. Soon indian chiefs were having their daughters and other women from the tribes marry colonists and establish new populations. Most, if not all Brazilians descend directly from these same indians that decided to marry portuguese colonists in a distant past.

Indian reservations themselves were only established late in the 20th century, in order to maintain the traditions of the few villages that survived the encounter between the Portuguese and native cultures. And through most of the colonial period, the languages spoken by these same "colonizers" you speak of were pretty much indigenous languages.

We all descend from the same people that have had these lands 100, 500, 1000 of years ago. There was no forced colonization, so there is nothing to be ashamed of...

[Meggido]

Brazil wasn't colonized in the same way of Hispanic America or the US. Indians were not fought and imprisoned in reservations so that a new white population was set up around here. The Portuguese preferred to make contracts with the indigenous peoples

What?? This did happen, but it was the exception. At first thousands, if not millions, of indians were slaughtered by the portuguese. It was genocide. In a couple decades the margins of the Amazon River, which was full of thriving and large tribes became completely empty for the forest to take over again.

I suggest you read the books "A Ferro e Fogo" and "Quando o Amazonas corria para o Pacífico". Very good reads about the real history of Brazil.

[Smertios]

It wasn't genocide. There weren't many wars against indian tribes in Brazil, no matter what they teach in schools around here. I mean, yes, there were several unfortunate examples of conflicts, but they were not as many as what happened in the US, for example. Most indians that died during the colonial period died due to illnesses brought by the colonists, but to be honest, that wasn't their fault. As Darcy Ribeiro defended, Brazilians were a New People".The product of the contact between Europeans, Native Americans and Africans. So there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, as the so called "colonists" were actually descendants of the natives themselves...

[Meggido]

Sorry but you are totally wrong. It was a true genocide, a genuine massacre. Heck, it still happens today! What makes you think that the european explorers, with a mentality of the darkest years of the inquisition, had any respect for the "savages"?? D. João VI even declared WAR against the indians in 1808! This is on public record, just search for war against the Botocudos. There is a report of a war commander bringing over 300 pairs of human ears, as proof of the genocide.
http://www.abep.nepo.unicamp.br/encontr ... 8_1953.pdf

And there are many reports of similar things still happening today. After a quick search i found this text, that I quote in free translation:
"Rita (an indian) told me about the massacre suffered by her tribe about 30 years ago. Armed men invaded her tribe at late night. Her aunt was shot while sleeping at the hammock. His dad was decapitaded, just like several children, men and women of her tribe. The village was set on fire. Rita managed to escape, but after a while meandering through the forest she was forced to live with our society. And she had the worst reception possible. She was enslaved by a logging ranch, where she would pay sexual and domestic favors until she was recued by Funai in 1984."
http://www.viceland.com/br/v2n5/htdocs/ ... ns-873.php

The massacres at the very beggining of the "colonization" was even worst.

[Smertios]

The Botocudos were enemies to the indigenous populations that did ally themselves with the Portuguese. I mean, if you look at the number of Indian tribes that existed before the contact and the number of tribes that actually went to war with the Portuguese without foreign influence, you will see that the number was really small.

And I'm not denying that such thing happened. I'm just saying that it wasn't the standard. In the US, almost all tribes were exterminated and closed in reservations. In Brazil, while some wars were fought against some indian tribes (the so called Guerras Justas or "fair wars"), the main cause of extinction of cultures were due to assimilation into an european-centric culture created in the colony. Before the Gold rush in the 18th century, most of the population of São Paulo (which, back then, included the current states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul and Tocantins) was composed of mestizos (known in Brazil as 'mamalucos') and spoke the Tupi language. We were whitened with time, because of the sequential fluxes of immigrants, but the fact remains that the embryo of the Brazilian society was the mating of colonists and indian women. This is what differs Brazil from the US, for example, where the colonists included women and virtually replaced the indigenous population, without mating with them. And this is why there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, like Chill claimed.

But yes, agree with you that it happens nowadays. And now it is a real issue because farmers and miners are actually invading indian lands and killing them. I'm just saying that there was no standardized genocide back in colonial times, unlike what happened in countries like the US and Argentina...

[deSouza]

There are over 100 untouched tribes in the amazon and you are not allowed to establish contact with any of them.

The policy is that the government does not make contact or let anyone make contact until they choose to do so, and attempts to study them from the distance.



They really have no contact with western civilization, you'll hardly find cellphones in the heart of the amazon. The forest would kill it.

[Smertios]

There are over 100 untouched tribes in the amazon and you are not allowed to establish contact with any of them.

The policy is that the government does not make contact or let anyone make contact until they choose to do so, and attempts to study them from the distance.



They really have no contact with western civilization, you'll hardly find cellphones in the heart of the amazon. The forest would kill it.

Actually, most of the Amazon is actually covered by mobile phone companies, so the cellphone would probably work, maybe even if it is deep in forest (unless the trees are actually made of lead or some other heavy metal, that is ).

I just doubt there are cellphones with the indians, because, as far as we can tell, they are pretty savage. Had they been in touch with the civilization, it would make more sense for them to have firearms than cellphones. And all pictures we have show them threatening the phorographers with bows and arrows

[deSouza]

I was being facetious. I meant that the main reason that there wasn't any contact with them is because the forest is too deadly.

Also, there is a massive hole in the amazon in the sivam (our radar system), i wouldn't be surprised if a good deal of the forest didn't have cellphone signal.