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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 24, 2011 0:27:05 GMT
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 24, 2011 5:10:01 GMT
That is amazing, I do hope that they are left in peace. I can't see it happening tho...if industry doesn't drive them out it's highly probable that some self-publicist journalist or scientist will see the opportunity for a documentary..
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Post by bjd on Jun 24, 2011 9:20:39 GMT
Or some bible-thumping missionaries.
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Post by hwinpp on Jun 24, 2011 9:35:16 GMT
Or some bible-thumping missionaries. The worst kind... A tribe was also found in Papua New Guinea this week, can't find the link. There some of the untouched tribes actually made contact in the 30s and 40s and then chose to break off the contact again.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 24, 2011 16:53:49 GMT
I looked for the link, too, HW, but could only find reports of a tribe there from @a year ago. But I did find this: The Most Isolated Man on the PlanetHe's an Indian, and Brazilian officials have concluded that he's the last survivor of an uncontacted tribe. They first became aware of his existence nearly 15 years ago and for a decade launched numerous expeditions to track him, to ensure his safety, and to try to establish peaceful contact with him. In 2007, with ranching and logging closing in quickly on all sides, government officials declared a 31-square-mile area around him off-limits to trespassing and development. ... A few Brazilians first heard of the lone Indian in 1996, when loggers in the western state of Rondônia began spreading a rumor: A wild man was in the forest, and he seemed to be alone. Government field agents specializing in isolated tribes soon found one of his huts—a tiny shelter of palm thatch, with a mysterious hole dug in the center of the floor. As they continued to search for whoever had built that hut, they discovered that the man was on the run, moving from shelter to shelter, abandoning each hut as soon as loggers—or the agents—got close. No other tribes in the region were known to live like he did, digging holes inside of huts—more than five feet deep, rectangular, serving no apparent purpose. He didn't seem to be a stray castaway from a documented tribe. ... Peaceful contact proved elusive, but those encounters helped the agents stitch together a profile of a man with a calamitous past. In one jungle clearing they found the bulldozed ruins of several huts, each featuring the exact same kind of hole—14 in all—that the lone Indian customarily dug inside his dwellings. They concluded that it had been the site of his village, and that it had been destroyed by land-hungry settlers in early 1996. The article is from Slate. Click the title to read the whole fascinating thing.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2011 17:13:32 GMT
Frankly, I have severe doubts about the wisdom of leaving "lost tribes" or whatever completely alone. The planet is not a zoo with a remote corner to park savages and prevent them from progressing. I am not sure if anybody anywhere in the world would be pleased with being told "you are the least advanced and most backward group we have ever seen and we want you to stay that way."
Even if they like being left alone, I don't think they would refuse a decent supply of plastic bowls and buckets, some decent knives and maybe a few agricultural tools. Nobody would be forcing them to use them, after all. And if they found that such items made their life easier, I would be pleased.
Our own cultures consider health care and education to be among the basic rights as well. Do we want them to be sickly and covered with parasites just so that they remain pure? If we see children looking at the moon and stars in wonderment, should we hide information about what they are?
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 24, 2011 18:30:24 GMT
It is a difficult one, one argument for leaving them alone is that they will have no immunity to our common illnesses. You have a point I spose Kerouac....and it is easy to have a romanticised view of these people who are not 'tainted' by outsiders.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 3, 2011 23:12:44 GMT
From the articles I've read, it seems that the decision to leave the isolated tribes of Brazil alone is part of a whole program of trying to stop the alarming depredations of the forests and jungles in that country.
If the wholesale destruction of forest and human habitations, as covered in the Slate article, were to cease, it's possible that these hidden tribes would voluntarily become less elusive, since they'd have less to fear.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 12, 2017 3:00:45 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2017 14:13:50 GMT
I read about this recent horrific event in The Washington Post. (I somehow, no surprise, had not seen the original OP).
I just sickens me. Words fail.
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