August 01, 2014

Amazonian indigenous people make first contact with the outside world, seeking help

located:	Brazil, Peru
editor:	Vanessa Ellingham

An isolated indigenous people from Peru has made first contact with the outside world, crossing the border into Brazil's rainforest to seek protection against logging and drug trafficking.

At the end of June Brazil's indigenous authority FUNAI filmed interactions between these previously uncontacted people and members of another indigenous group, the Ashaninka.

FUNAI released has just released the video showing the second day of contact between the unnamed group and the Ashaninka people who are known in Brazil.

In the video an Ashaninka is seen giving bananas to two of the people armed with bows and arrows on the banks of the Envira river near the Peruvian border.

An Ashaninka member who spoke with the people said that they had come looking for weapons and allies to better arm themselves against the loggers and drug traffickers they had encountered which threaten their lifestyle.

They also said that many members of their group had died from diseases like flu and diphtheria. As they have had no prior external contact, these people have no natural resistance to help them fight common bugs, so they are relying on their traditional medicines to cure powerful illnesses they have no experience with.

According to FUNAI, a government medical team was sent to treat seven members of the group who had contracted influenza, after they returned to Brazil three weeks after their first visit asking for more help.

The contact is worrying as it means that the group senses they are in enough danger to break their own means of living and reach out to other groups for help.

In the past whole groups of previously uncontacted peoples have been wiped out my influenza epidemics.

FUNAI estimates that there are 77 uncontacted peoples in Brazil, the world's highest number of groups.