Isolation

[commonpeople1]

More photos here

One of South America's few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru.

From the BBC.

Comments

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I hope the government manages to keep people from approaching them and passing on diseases. Would be cool though to learn what kind of language, culture, etc. they have. Have they seen planes before? Do they worship them as chariots of the Gods?

[tga.livejournal.com]

I don't think you are worshipping something when you are point bows and arrows at them.

Yeah, it would be a shame if noone could actually approach them and find out about them. They look quite unique and would probably give a very good insight on history cause they probably been following the same traditions for hundreds of years!

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Maybe this plane was different - an evil God - because it was photographing them? ;-)

[desayuno-ingles.livejournal.com]

No! I think they need to be left alone! I mean, once contact is made, the culture changes drastically and usually for the worse.

[tga.livejournal.com]

Well, I am not talking about teaching them our culture but learning about theirs.

[desayuno-ingles.livejournal.com]

But the thing is that once these villages are touched, their culture changes and often b/c they are so poor, they become dependent on the outsiders for things they shouldn't be. All I want is for habitat to be maintained, which is why it's good we know about them, but they need to be left alone to live the way they always have.

[tga.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree with leaving them to their own devices and letting them live the way they are used to but surely getting someone to go down and learn about them I think would be useful to us in the western society.

[desayuno-ingles.livejournal.com]

Why do they have to be useful to us in Western society?

[tga.livejournal.com]

I think seeing how they live could be insightful. They have probably been living the same way for 100's years. It would also be interesting to see how they survive out where they live as well. It's good to be educated about different cultures and we could, as a society learn something from them.

Why wouldn't it be useful?

[desayuno-ingles.livejournal.com]

I just think that thinking of them in terms of how they could be useful to us is patronizing. *shrug*

[tga.livejournal.com]

Ok.

[kixie.livejournal.com]

Well, if people approach them and pass on diseases we always have the lovely benefit of antibiotics to help treat them, and thankfully smallpox isn't an issue anymore.

GOD, imagine if they were one giant cargo cult, worshipping the big things flying through the air?

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

But even with the benefit of our lovely medicines, it's still a gamble - you don't know if it will be a cold, a virus, etc, that will strike and decimate the village. Do you approach them with a box full of medicine? With a helicopter ready to fly them away (and shatter their reality?)

Better keep them as they are, away from us (though it's a shame - I'm really curious to learn about their culture!)

[kixie.livejournal.com]

Is it really best that they're kept away, though? This idea that everything we do is somehow evil and everythign native cultures do is somehow good and pure is very strange - surely the chance to evolve a bit more is a good thing, culture-wise? We find it all very 'quaint' and whatnot when we see pictures, but for them surely it's better to have things like better medicines, cleaner water, sturdier houses that won't blow over in storms and stuff like that? I'm not saying what they have is somehow deficient or terrible, but just that it's a bit mixed and not as black and white as people tend to portray.

Also, I wonder if they've been *that* removed from other life in general that something lke a cold could kill them. I'm sure they've had them; it'd be REALLY weird if they didn't.

As for their reality being shattered - well, I'm guessing the first helicopter didn't help much.

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

they probably ahven't been exposed to most viruses as they've mutated and been passed on over time via human contact, who's to say that the common cold didn't start as a single virus picked up by a human 1000's of years ago through a weird mutation and it's spread since then.

The other interesting point would be what would happen if they have immunity to some weird ebola type airborn plague type virus, maybe it's us that need to be kept away :)

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

This idea that everything we do is somehow evil and everythign native cultures do is somehow good and pure is very strange

Hey, I never said that! ;-)

I think that we already know plenty about how a culture can affect another one - either for the best or for the worst. Since this is such a small tribe, why should it be our right to infringe on their reality and impose our customs? Let them live as they have always done! If they were in any hurry to join us, they would have travelled across the forest to find cities. I like the idea of us living in an interconnected planet, but still being able to maintain indigenous villages like this one autonomous and disconnected from us.

As an alternative, there should be a very small group made up of anthropologists, etc, who can reach them, communicate, learn what they need (and what they don't need) and then bugger off.

[kixie.livejournal.com]

No, you never said it, but the idea is implied in a lot of the comments I've been reading in various places and it's just an odd one.

Totally agree wtih your anthropologists thing. Best way - they've done that with several cultures already, iirc, and they live their lives and go on, but iknow that there's a world outside that's different to theirs.

I like the idea of an interconnected planet but maintaining indigenous cultures/areas as well, I think that's great, but surely it should be up to to people if they want to modernise or not and be aware of the choice they have - they might be native but it doesn't mean they're simple minded or stupid.
But yeah, anthropologists go, learn the language and communicate and just figure out what's the what and then go. It's not like going there immediately means that they'll have ADSL and a McDonald's in a fortnight.

Also, I'd LOEV to know what they made of the helicopter ;)

[zahgurim.livejournal.com]

Thank you for mentioning the anthropologists. Learning about marginal cultures without imposing their own is what anthropologists do. It's like, the entire purpose of sociocultural anthropology.

In fact, it works the other way, anthropologists integrate into the native culture as much as is possible for an outsider.

That said, it would be very difficult to integrate with a culture that is so obviously isolated.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Also, from other news stories I've read, it seems that they were in search of this tribe exactly because they had moved previously - possibly from bad encounters with illegal loggers. The damage is done, but perhaps something can be salvaged by now treating them with respect and approaching them as cautiosly (and as limited) as possible.

[desayuno-ingles.livejournal.com]

The influenza, which is untreatable by antibiotics, wiped out millions of people in 1917-1919ish. So we cannot fix all things we bring in. Apparently there is also a huge increase in alcoholism among the Yanomami just based on increased contact with other Yanomami tribes, which have changed their production and use of alcoholic beverages.