Isolated tribe air-spotted in Brazil

[Voley]

There's a little island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands that has The Sentinalese: a tribe who don't contact the outside world. Some effort was made to make contact a few years back - they left a few things they thought they might find useful on the beach for them. They got a hail of arrows in response.

There's an interesting story doing the rounds that they all managed to survive the Boxing Day Tsunami from an understanding of how the birds and animals were acting before the waves hit. Cool story, although if no-one's ever contacted them, I'm not entirely sure how anyone knows this.

Anyhow, leave 'em alone, I say.

If I lived in an unspoilt place like this I wouldn't want the outside world poking it's nose in.

 

[rutabowa]

COOL is all i can say to this story (well not cool for them obviously, they're probably fucked now)

 

[pinkmonkey]

Why...? You want a life where you have to spend your time fending off disease, hunger, and one stroke of bad luck can kill you. Strange choice...

I bet they don't worry about paying the bills, or suffer from depression, or get eating disdorders, worry about wrinkles or how they look to others, cry because they feel fat, or feel inadequate because they haven't got as big a flat screen telly as their neighbours.

 

[Kanda]

God! I thought that was a pic of me and Jefe fishing last weekend for a sec!!

 

[bluestreak]

Another vote for leave 'em be until such a time we can be sure contacting them won't destroy them.

 

[London_Calling]

Really done them a lot of favours by releasing the info and images - expect the helicopter tourist flights by next month.

 

[purves grundy]

There's a little island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands that has The Sentinalese: a tribe who don't contact the outside world. Some effort was made to make contact a few years back - they left a few things they thought they might find useful on the beach for them. They got a hail of arrows in response.

They're a pertinent example:

The British brought ‘progress’ to the Great Andamanese by putting them in a ‘home’ to give them a better way of life. Of 150 babies born, all died before their third birthday. Overall, 99% of the tribe died, leaving just 53 people today. They survive on handouts, many have tuberculosis, and most men are alcoholics.

Their neighbours on the Andaman Islands, the Jarawa, have been on their land for around 60,000 years – five times longer than the ancestors of the British have been in Britain. The Jarawa have remained isolated and self-sufficient, and are still very healthy.

Their survival is now threatened by a road which cuts through their land, bringing poachers and new diseases such as measles. The Indian supreme court has ordered the road to be closed, but the local administration has refused to comply, and it remains open.

 

[rutabowa]

i bet those guys down there could really handle a few bottles of whisky to while away the evenings, we should parachute down some cases.

 

[Yetman]

One day the whole world will be westernised, because people, inherently, become material when exposed to materialism - it happens with many of the tribes that have had western contact, they see westerners in their clean clothes and their luxuries which make life easier and they want a piece of it. Granted many do want to retain their culture and heritage, but a few tribespeople against the oil and palm companies who force them out of their homes is a war that is lost before it has even started.

We should leave them alone. Well alone. If they wanted to venture out they would have by now so if we give a shit about retaining anything of the worlds ancient cultures we should leave them be. Simply knowing they are there should be enough to satisfy our curiosity.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

They seem to have done OK for the last few thousand years without any help from the outside, I think they'd probably prefer just to be left alone rather than risk almost certain annihilation for the sake of some modern medicine and getting their huts Wi-Fi enabled.

is that morally acceptable though to in essence deprive other human beings of the potential to far exceed their current limitations.

 

[Strumpet]

Wow

 

[jæd]

But you're not them are you? You think you are empathising with them but it seems your experience of life is so different from theirs that you can't imagine that they might be happy with their lives. Happier than you, possibly. Or let's say 'content', since happiness is a bit of a funny concept.

If I saw an alien spaceship hovering over London I'd be interested in seeing what it is, and what I could learn from it. Yep, I'm quite content with me lot, but given the chance of being able to understand the universe a bit better, etc, I'd jump at the chance.

I'd also be really pissed off if some aliens on a trans-galactic bulletin board were deciding my fate for me...

"We should leave them humans alone. Well alone. If they wanted to venture out they would have by now so if we give a shit about retaining anything of the galaxies ancient cultures we should leave them be. Simply knowing they are there should be enough to satisfy our curiosity."

I bet they don't worry about paying the bills, or suffer from depression, or get eating disdorders, worry about wrinkles or how they look to others, cry because they feel fat, or feel inadequate because they haven't got as big a flat screen telly as their neighbours.

Any one of those things seems better than having the chance of die-ing from relatively minor problems...

 

[rutabowa]

is that morally acceptable though to in essence deprive other human beings of the potential to far exceed their current limitations.

and deprive them of whisky.

 

[bluestreak]

On the other hand, it occurs to me that their lives would be a lot easier with Nike jungle crawler trainers, and BAE could definitely design them something more efficient than bows and arrows. It would be cruel not to send in some salespeople.

 

[London_Calling]

That's so fucking crass. The real dilemma is between leaving them alone and antibiotics and pain killers and simple operations.

 

[purves grundy]

is that morally acceptable though to in essence deprive other human beings of the potential to far exceed their current limitations.

I don't understand how we can talk about their way of life as one of limitations. Life for tribal peoples might be different, but it is perfectly adapted to their wants and needs, and it's only 'limited' if we believe that cultures exist in some sort of evolutionary hierarchy, with our current lifestyle at the top.

 

[STFC]

Wow

My thought exactly. The fact that people are still living essentially pre-historic lives, is just mindblowing. Just looking around and realising that everything that surrounds us is alien to them, it's mad.

As to whether 'we' should make contact, it's a difficult one. Out of natural curiosity I'd love to find out how they live, but by doing so would in all probability sign their death warrant. Maybe we should send Ray Mears, he'd be a good ambassador!

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

I don't understand how we can talk about their way of life as one of limitations. Life for tribal peoples might be different, but it is perfectly adapted to their wants and needs, and it's only 'limited' if we believe that cultures exist in some sort of evolutionary hierarchy, with our current lifestyle at the top.

how woudl you feel if your mother or fatehr tribal elder godhead or whatever could have been saved but was left to die because the skypeople did nothing and the tribe had in some way offended their gods demanding a sacrifice or whatever...

basically is theri culture important enough to risk their lives for or isn't it...

 

[STFC]

Well maybe they don't view death in the same way as us. In fact they probably don't. I expect they are more in tune with nature and its cycles than we 'civilised' people are, so why should we impose our ways on them?

 

[KeyboardJockey]

So lets look again at the evidence provided shall we. We have an isolated possibly inbred group of strangely attired primitives who don't care much for outsiders and threaten them with weapons.

Sounds more like Grays or Tilbury than the Amazon.

 

[rutabowa]

are there any stories with positive outcomes about isolated peoples being discovered by the "global world"? Or do they always just get their lives destroyed?

 

[EddyBlack]

how woudl you feel if your mother or fatehr tribal elder godhead or whatever could have been saved but was left to die because the skypeople did nothing and the tribe had in some way offended their gods demanding a sacrifice or whatever...

basically is theri culture important enough to risk their lives for or isn't it...

As has been said, they have no immunity to many of our diseases, so many would die in greater numbers. They know how to survive in this environment, they know which plants are medicinal and have survived for thousands of years. On balance it is clearly better for their health to stay away from us.

 

[internetstalker]

They don't look to happy to have been discovered by a plane, but one of South America's few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been snapped on the border between Brazil and Peru.

Check out the bright red-painted dudes brandishing bows and arrows. The plane must have put the shits right up them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7426794.stm

amazing!

 

[rutabowa]

As has been said, they have no immunity to many of our diseases, so many would die in greater numbers. They know how to survive in this environment, they know which plants are medicinal and have survived for thousands of years. On balance it is clearly better for their health to stay away from us.

i don't see how it can happen though, even if 99% of the world agrees its a bad idea to contacty them it only takes a few "well meaning" people to go out there and "help" and that's it.

 

[zenie]

What language do they speak anyway? How do you comunicate with an indigenous tribe,. they're hardly likely to speak Brazilian/Spanish/Portugese are they?

 

[weltweit]

I know what the two with bows are thinking ..

Slay the enormous eagle, win fame and meat for weeks !!

 

[Belushi]

What language do they speak anyway? How do you comunicate with an indigenous tribe,. they're hardly likely to speak Brazilian/Spanish/Portugese are they?

They're language is probably related to the languages of other indigenous tribes who have been contact so you'd try and take an interpreter from one of those tribes. Thats what I'd do anyway!

 

[rutabowa]

What language do they speak anyway? How do you comunicate with an indigenous tribe,. they're hardly likely to speak Brazilian/Spanish/Portugese are they?

well it wouldn't be the first time in the history of the world that people who don't speak the same language have met up!

 

[London_Calling]

I never understand why these tribes aren't dangerously inbred. Repeated one-two generation gaps can't suffice, surely?

 

[weltweit]

Leave them alone, thats my line, if they wanted the superiority of our culture, to live in a council flat on the job seekers allowance, they could have contacted us themselves!!