The Brazilian government has agreed to publish photos of Amazonian Indians aiming their bows at the plane, so that the world can better understand the threats to the few tribes still living almost completely isolated in the Amazon jungle – podano w Rio de Janeiro. As the British weekly writes “The Independent”, Photographs taken from an airplane flying low can play a key role in ensuring the survival of such tribes. Anthropologists have known about their existence for a long time, but only published photos draw attention to the situation of the Indians in the dense Amazon jungle near the border with Peru. – We published photos, Because – if it continues like this, as is happening now – these people will disappear – said Jose Carlos Meirelles, coordinating on behalf of the government the protection of the four tribes, which so far had no contact with modern civilization. The photos taken at the turn of April and May show a dozen or so Indians gathered in a small square in the village, mostly naked and painted red. They shake the bows and point them at the plane. You can also see a few thatched-roofed huts. Little is known about this tribe; it is believed, that it is related to the Tano and Aruk tribes. According to the Brazilian Indian Foundation, such jungle villages, whose inhabitants had no contact with civilization, may be 68; only officially confirmed 24. But, as anthropologists say, almost all of these jungle Indian groups know of Western civilization; sporadically they had contact with rubber pickers and lumberjacks, but they always returned to their settlements and huts, because they were usually attacked by jungle cutters. As Meirelles said, who took part in flights over an Indian village, the advent of the plane resulted in, that when the next day they flew over the village, most of the women and children have already left her, hiding in the jungle, and the remaining men painted their bodies, prepared their weapons and clearly entered the warpath.
According to experts, such behavior of the Indians proves it, that they realize, that contact with the outside world is in grave danger. Along the Peruvian border, similar tribes have been driven out of their homes by aggressive mining and oil companies' interests and illegal logging. Peruvian President Alan Garcia has openly questioned the existence of tribes that are out of touch with civilization. Meanwhile, evidence of this was mounting in the Brazilian state of Acre, what is happening in the border region – the river was throwing onto the shore packages of Peruvian gasoline and remnants of logging carried out above. “To, what is happening in this area (Peru), it is a huge crime against the natural world, tribes living there, fauna and is a further testimony to total irrationality, with which we civilized treat this world” – he quotes the words of Meirelles “The Independent”. The four tribes monitored by Meirelles are probably around 500 people, moving through the area 630 thousand. hectares. According to him, the active policy of leaving these Indians in isolation led by the Brazilian authorities made it possible, that in the last 20 over the years, the number of thatched huts has doubled.
Tribe, for whom the jungle is the whole world
