In the brazilian state of Acre, near the border with Peru, experts found this last month of May evidences of some of the last uncontacted tribes of the Amazon - and wanted to show them to the world. José Carlos Meirelles Junior, a worker of FUNAI, the brazilian government Indian Affairs Department, said that the people who made the flight "wanted to show their houses, that they are there and exist" because Peru's president, Alan Garcia, questioned the existence of uncontacted tribes, as evidence of the destruction of the forest has been pilling up down river in the state of Acre, where barrels of Peruvian petrol have been washed up along with debris from loging operations, and brazilian ranchers want to make sure no Indians survive because of a national law prohibiting cultivation of lands occupied by Indians. Contacts with the outside world are normally fatal for these tribes, as they don't even have body defenses for our flu, or the ranchers force them out of their lands or murder them, or someone just destroys their culture and tries to convert them to the catholic faith or similar, or even teach them "a proper language". Meirelles said that in the first flight they could observe dozens of people dotted around a clearing with two communal huts, but in the afternoon flight many children and women had run to the forest and the members of the tribe who remained had painted their bodies while adopting war positions. The impact of this contact for their daily lives is not imaginable for us. Ironically, this contact seems to have been forced by the urgency to protect them.
Photo distributed by London-based charity Survival International
For the complete gallery of photos by Gleison Miranda/FUNAI and article, please check "Survival - the movement for tribal peoples" website here:
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