Friday, May 30, 2008

People who have never seen other people?

Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil.
(BBC World Service)

The Brazilian government flew over distant parts of the rainforest to photograph "uncontacted" tribes living out there, in order to make the case for preservation against loggers and miners, etc.

I can imagine them saying, "What the heck is THAT??"

They call these tribes "uncontacted." I'm not sure if this means they have never seen a person from beyond the rainforest, or if there has never been sustained contact with the outside world? But it's interesting, the article says: "More than half the world's 100 uncontacted tribes live in Brazil or Peru, Survival International says." There are 100 tribes in the world who live outside of contact with "civilized" people.

The people in the photographs in Brazil look like they come from a movie about ancient tribal people. The person painted black looks kind of spooky to me... shiver! They think this person might be a woman -- perhaps a kind of priestess/healer/witch? But they are just human, living their life, protecting their families. What did they have for lunch? And I wonder what the children look like, since they were ostensibly hiding in the lodges.

Trying to drive away the airplane with bows and arrows. (And witchcraft?)


This next shot shows how beautiful the neighborhood is:

I wonder what their lives are like. I wonder what if they'd seen an airplane before. I wonder what they believe. And I wonder if now they're paranoid about what that flying thing was, who those foreign people were, and if they're coming back... and to do what?

More details, if you're interested.

2 comments:

  1. oh this brings up sooooo much emotion for me! what it does to one who majored in anthropology--TEN YEARS AGO!

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  2. I wish you would say more, LM... I was remembering my college anthropology class when I saw this, too.

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