According to Survival International “uncontacted tribes” are tribal peoples who have no peaceful contact with anyone in the mainstream or dominant society. These could be entire peoples or smaller groups of already contacted tribes.
The Brazilian government has opened an investigation into the killings alleged to have occurred last month in the Javari Valley. The valley is located in the still-wild Amazonas state of western Brazil. It is known to locals as the Uncontacted Frontier.
Authorities only found out about the incident when the gold miners visited a bar near the Colombian border last month and were boasting about the killings.
According to Sotto-Maior, the illegal miners felt that they had to kill, or they would have been killed.
FUNAI confirmed that women and children are believed to be among the dead. Survival International reported that two miners have since been arrested.
The incident adds to the concerns surrounding escalating tensions between “uncontacted” Amazonian tribes and the chaos of the modern world.
There are an estimated 1 million Amazonian Indians still living a traditional lifestyle, according to Survival International. These people represent around 400 culturally distinct, linguistically and territorially independent tribes.
Some tribes maintain contact with the outside world. But there are a number of “uncontacted tribes,” that have never encountered modern peoples—more than 500 years after the first European colonists set foot in Amazonia.
But at times, the government agency acted in violation of the welfare of the Indians. For example, to facilitate the construction of the trans-Amazonian highway, FUNAI officials attempted to relocate many tribes, resulting in a staggering number of indigenous deaths caused by first contact—mainly from disease but also from outbreaks of violence when the tribes mobilized to protect their land.
Explorer Sydney Possuele who was sent to relocate “uncontacted tribes,” witnessed firsthand the suffering their contact caused indigenous peoples. Possuele’s experience propelled him to spearhead policy change away from integration toward preservation of the indigenous way of life and the Indian’s right to remain in isolation.
Due to Possuele’s efforts, the practice of wilderness scouts leaving the so-called wild Indians with gifts to initiate contact was abolished when Brazil adopted a “no contact” policy in the 1980s in order to protect the rights of such tribes to remain in seclusion if so desired.
But this strategy is now being reconsidered following more frequent interactions between even the rarely seen uncontacted tribes and the outside world as the frontier of contact pushes further into these last remnants of the Amazonian wilderness.
The state prosecutor for the Javari Valley case, Pablo Luz de Beltrand, told The New York Times that this is the second such incident he is investigating this year. The first incident occurred in February.
“It was the first time that we'd had this kind of case in this region,” Beltrand said. “It’s not something that was happening before. These tribes are uncontacted—even FUNAI has only sporadic information about them.”
According to Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, “The slashing of FUNAI’s funds has left dozens of ”uncontacted tribes“ defenseless against thousands of invaders—[illegal] gold miners, ranchers and loggers—who are desperate to steal and ransack their lands.”
He continued, “If these stories are confirmed, President Temer and his government bear a heavy responsibility for this genocidal attack.” Sadly if confirmed true, the incident would have wiped out one-fifth of the tribal population—a major blow to the already endangered people.
In other cases, tribes desire the goods that they have come to know through village raids or other human encounters. For example, the Mashco-Piro tribe in the border regions of the Peruvian Amazon is causing authorities particular concern. Their tribespeople started making consistent appearances about five years ago along the upper Madre de Dios River, reported National Geographic. Although they also tended to vanish suddenly, their increasing interaction, usually raids on surrounding villages, is causing mounting tensions in the region.
According to Luís Felipe Torres, adviser to the Peruvian Ministry of Culture’s Directorate of Indigenous People Living in Isolation and Initial Contact, the tribe is exposing itself to grave danger from the devastation contagious disease can bring upon an indigenous population without access to medical care.
“I believe we’re going to see a succession of first contacts in the coming ten years,” José Carlos Meirelles, a veteran tribe protector, told National Geographic.