Isn't it pretty self centered to live the good life in 2008...then decide to keep some people primitive ...like pets in a cage or a museum exhibit?

"then decide to keep some people primitive"

Um, shouldn't they be able to decide for themselves? You're probably one of those mental giants that look at a vast expanse of natural beauty and call it a "wasteland"....and wonder how many parking lots you can fit on it.

FTA......"uncontacted "

"Um, shouldn't they be able to decide for themselves?"



Snark...maybe you should use that giant intellect of yours....before casting aspersions on others.

Keeping these people primitive dooms them to die from simple diseases and leaves them to the elements . The deciders can take their families to a doctor and home to a safe shelter.

Survival's Fiona Watson, who recently returned from the region, said that Indians fleeing over the border into Brazil could be driven into conflict with uncontacted tribes already living there. "It is clear from this photograph that they want to be left alone," she said.

* * * *

Really?

I guess you can tell a lot from a photograph. It looked to me like they were posing for the camera.

Keeping these people primitive dooms them to die from simple diseases and leaves them to the elements .

Looks like they are doing pretty good without us...

Do they have full knowledge of the things they are turning down by choosing to stay in their long houses in the bush - democracy, frozen yogurt and tetracycline? Probably not, but they are also probably not as isolated as Fox News would like us to think. I doubt somehow that they have never before met someone who is from the "outside". They know who their neighbors are and they live within a context partly of their own choosing. Chances are they wouldn't wish to abandon where they live and how they live, the rights to resources, religion and practices that they have enjoyed up to now. Change that is too rapid or out of control is pretty dodgey stuff no matter how well meaning.

And by the way there's nothing primative about the world those folks live in. Their understanding of it is likely to be sophisticated in the things that matter to them. A lot of really useful drugs have come out of traditional knowledge of forest people.

I wouldn't be too quick to parachute in machetes, missionaries and McDonalds.

call me crazy, but I love seeing boobies in National Geographic...

Kerrin me ole pal you and I are going to have to disagree on this one. Read this snippet:

"Encounters with the outside world are typically fatal for these tribes, who have no defences against the common cold and other commonplace diseases. "The groups are often fragments of much larger tribes that were overrun in the past and have died from disease or at the barrel of a gun," said Miss Watson.

The experience of the Akunsu tribe in neighbouring Rondonia, contacted a little over a decade ago, is not unusual. Today, only six members of the tribe survive. All relatives, they cannot marry and the group is expected to die out within a generation.

One of the survivors said they were overrun by loggers who sent gunmen into their areas to drive them out. Under Brazilian law, land occupied by Indians cannot be cultivated so ranchers make sure that no Indians survive. "

They are no doubt healthy, in their own way, and introduction to outside influences could absolutely devastate them. My take on it? Leave them the f**k alone. Don't we as a civilized society refuse to build a nuclear reactor on a site where a certain type of endangered newt lives? Then why the hell would you not protect and preserve a place where a unique and endangered tribe of humans live? You guys all know I am a tree hugger, so explain where this weird "we have to give them all nikes, levis and suvs" rationale
comes from. I am intrigued.

having actually spent a lot of time in Earth's hellholes, I can say that -- given the choice -- most people choose to live with antibiotics, TV and indoor plumbing.

Talk about "culture shock" should this tribe ever be forced out of their home
territory and have to deal in today's world.

Very interesting article.

"having actually spent a lot of time in Earth's hellholes"

I'm guessing these "uncontacted" persons don't consider their territories "hellholes". yet, anyway

Send in the Jesuit missionary's and convert them and put them in t-shirts and jeans and teach them to plow the land and make good, productive, civilized floks out of them.

"having actually spent a lot of time in Earth's hellholes"


Were they hellholes before you got there, Verm? I'm guessing "no".

I'm sure someone is airlifting bibles to them as we read this.

CONVERT!!!

You can Run but you can't Hide!

This wasn't an undiscovered tribe it was actually just "disguised" Secret Service Agents scouting likely places in the deep jungle as hideouts for Bush,Cheney and pals!

.......Hillary says she has their endorsement and wants their votes counted.......

Hey, we gotta wipe these guys out. They could get into their canoes and be on our shores soon.

Now we know they are there. What next? A Wal-Mart and a Starbucks in the neighborhood?