‘Lost’? Uncontacted tribe knew exactly where they were
by Jonathan
The British newspaper The Observer claimed this weekend that it’s now ‘emerged’ that the uncontacted tribe whose photos went around the world were neither ‘lost’, nor ‘undiscovered’ nor ‘unknown’.
This is a classic example of journalists getting the wrong end of the stick. The only people who ever claimed that the Indians photographed were ‘lost’ or ‘undiscovered’ were…. the press, despite the fact that Survival has been campaigning for the protection of the many isolated Indian tribes on the Peru-Brazil border for more than twenty years.
Indeed, you might have thought that the fact that the Indians are living in a government reserve set aside for isolated Indian groups would tend to indicate that they weren’t exactly ‘unknown’.
Expert José Carlos dos Reis
Meirelles explains the situation.
For the avoidance of doubt, let’s just make it clear – yes, the tribe is uncontacted, that is to say, has no peaceful contact with outsiders. But no, they’re not ‘lost’ – they know where they are, and anthropologists, Survival, other NGOs and the Brazilian government have known that there are many isolated Indian tribes living in that region for decades.
What is undoubtedly true is that many people, not least the President of Peru, had publicly questioned whether there were any uncontacted Indians there at all, which is why the fact that Peru’s government has now been pushed into sending a team to investigate is such welcome news.
I guess we should be used by now to the fact that quite a few journalists are incapable of writing on this subject without resorting to stereotypes about ‘lost’ tribes, but one might have hoped that The Observer would know better.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Not once did I see on your website any refute or explanation that this tribe was known when this story was first published. You had ample opportunity. Shame shame.
June 24th, 2008 at 7:22 am
[…] set aside for isolated Indian groups would tend to indicate that they weren’t exactly ‘unknown’. Blog - Survival International Lo lamento por la gente que queria robarles sus secretos, alguien ya se les adelanto… por 20 […]
June 24th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Donna:
Nearly 1,000 articles on the story were published online - not even counting all of the newspaper and TV coverage. It’s not easy for a small charity to read, let alone respond to, even a proportion of these.
Survival stands by all of its press releases and publications about the uncontacted tribe images, and I’d urge you to post a link to any material on the Survival site which you feel is incorrect.
June 24th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
After reading the press reports I was a little upset about the “hoax.” Then I looked at the blog on this site and understood the difference between unknown and uncontacted. Then I looked back at the original articles on this site to see if they were misleading. Sure enough, they aren’t. The difference is really just semantics, but to those “in the know” it is a meaningful difference.
I would argue that the initial press coverage did not create the “lost” perception, but rather it was the image assumed by the general public as they read about the tribe. I think now, however, the chorus of “hoax” is going to be very loud and nasty.
June 24th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I think this is all very fascinating and I’m impressed by your work. Just until recently, I never knew such an organization existed. It’s truly amazing to see that video and photos of that tribe. Remarkable. Thanks.
June 24th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Firstly, to my shame, I had no idea there was such a thing as an uncontacted tribe! When one fine morning I saw photos of tribes in Amazon spashed across the newspapers, I found it fascinating! And I think we all owe it to ourselves to do everything we can to protect and nurture this diversity. What your organization is doing is truly admirable and inspirational.
My deepest thanks to you.
Kaushik Satish
Bangalore, India.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:40 am
There is no way that somebody in your organization wasn’t aware that most people would assume that uncontacted meant previously unknown.
No article on your site stated that this was a known tribe.
And the way the photos were released also says a lot, especially your photographer overflying the tribe for days to upset them to the point of putting on war paint. That in itself is reprehensible, frightening the wits out of those people for your own publicity.
Thank God I had to wait for my economic stimulus rebate before sending you any money.
June 25th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Jenn:
To first correct a misconception: Survival doesn’t do overflights of uncontacted tribes’ reserves, and doesn’t initiate contact. The photos were not taken by us. They were taken during a monitoring flight organised and conducted by the Brazilian government.
‘Uncontacted’ and ‘unknown’ mean very different things. Our Uncontacted Tribes campaign explains the situation facing many of the world’s uncontacted tribes - whose case of course wouldn’t be in the film if they were ‘unknown’. And even the most isolated, uncontacted peoples in the world know precisely where they are themselves (and, for that matter, where to find the ‘outside world’ should they wish to make contact). Most uncontacted tribes have some relationships with neighbouring tribes as well.
I think our original article publishing the pictures does a good job of explaining the background. One thing to remember is that no organisation controls the media: once the story is syndicated then it spreads and your ability to correct misunderstandings is limited. Survival staff gave as many media interviews as possible while the story broke, but the sheer scale of the interest meant that not every media outlet could get quotes from us or check their facts directly with us or with the Brazilian government. Of course, not all tried.
I also don’t think we should forget the impact that the photos have had. Literally thousands of Survival supporters have written to the Peruvian government asking them to protect the lands of uncontacted tribes on the Peruvian side of the border. Indeed, Peru’s government has already begun to investigate the situation. Survival won’t stop working on this campaign until the lands of uncontacted tribes are protected. Not until then will they have the opportunity to decide for themselves if and when to make contact with outsiders. Without this protection, they won’t survive.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Toby,
I have also written (twice) to the Observer complaining about Mr. Beaumont’s grossly misleading article — which has directly led to all this misguided talk about a “hoax” and quesioning of motives that has, unfortunately, take on a life of its own — but the article remains featured on the Observer’s web page. One has to wonder what Beaumont is playing at. His premise is fiction. It should be retracted and Mr. Beaumont reprimanded for the damage he has done to the general public’s understanding of this story and support for the cause of indigenous peoples. I have also posted comments on a number of weblogs and boards (including Yahoo! Buzz, which also played a big role in spreading it) that have picked up on the “hoax” myth, trying to correct the misperception.
For anyone who has any doubts that Meirelles and Survival International were completely up front and honest from the very start, I urge you to look up the May 30 story that ran in The Guardian (The Observer’s weekday sister paper; heck, there’s even a link to the earlier article in Beaumont’s story, but it doesn’t seem he bothered to look at it), which gets the story exactly right and in context the first time. Other sources like the BBC, Yahoo! News, and CNN pretty much got it right the first time. But as more news outlets and webloggers picked up on the story, it sometimes got embellished with words like “lost” tribe and new “discovery”, when the people involved never gave that impression in the least.
I sympathize and admire you for remaining so calm and patient in the face of all this unwarranted nonsense. Good luck on your important work.
JB
June 25th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Thanks Jim. We’ve heard that The Observer plans to run a correction in this Sunday’s edition. The press release we issued yesterday explaining why the pictures aren’t a hoax seems to have had a fair bit of coverage, and many bloggers are correcting their earlier posts referencing Beaumont’s article.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Brazilian indigenous populations wouldn’t stage these poses unless prompted by shameful spinners as yourselves and other self-proclaimed “defenders of the Amazon forest”. Leave our Amazonian co-nationals alone. Leave our domestic policies to us.
Shame on you and on the international press that doesn’t bother to verify the accuracy of obviously staged pictures.
Carlos
Manaus, Brazil
June 25th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
You say that your articles were not misleading and the tribe was already known, by you or the brazilian government.
On the original article you stated:
“This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence.”
How could you or anyone else have any doubts, if their existence was previoulsy known?
Their existence is known since 1910. This information would attract far less attention to this organization, so you omitted it.
This hoax adds up to another hoax from you about the “hired guns” that allegedly invaded an aboriginal village, when in fact it’s the other way around: the aboriginals where invading a RICE farm instigated by your organization. A farm located in an area that has no historical of aboriginal presence (those farms exist since the end of 18th century).
Hopefully you’ll learn that sometime bad publicity isn’t better than any publicity, specially when people discover your lies.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:19 am
We know this tribe since 1910! Yes, this is a hoax. Shame on you.
Rodnei
Sacramento, Brazil
June 26th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Rodnei: Jose Carlos Mereilles of FUNAI has quite clearly summed up the situation in an interview with Al Jazeera. He is quoted as saying that there have been “tales and stories” about the existence of the tribe since 1910. I’d also point out that neither FUNAI nor Survival have ever claimed that this tribe was ‘unknown’ or ‘undiscovered’. (I think our post, above, and our latest press release make that quite clear.)
June 26th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Carlos: the veracity of the pictures has been confirmed by the Brazilian government itself.
June 26th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I understand that you called it uncontacted throughout the article, which is correct. However, this quote from Survival
‘These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist.’
is very clear about the purpose of the pictures: to prove the existence of a tribe, which leads one to believe that these were unknown tribes. Otherwise why should you need to prove the existence of something that is known to exist?
June 26th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Daniel:
The rice farmers invaded in the early 1990s. In 1993, based on years of surveys and studies, FUNAI sent its proposal for the demarcation of Raposa-Serra do Sol to the MInister of Justice. This was published in the Diário Oficial da União (a federal government publication where laws, bills etc are announced) on 21 May 1993. So the full extent and borders of Raposa-Serra do Sol were in the public domain. Paulo César Quartiero (the farmer allegedly behind the 5 May attack) occupied his farm in 2000, knowing it was indigenous land.
President Lula ratified the territory on 15 April 2005. All rice farmers and cattle ranchers were ordered to leave and were offered compensation. Most left except the six farmers, including Quartiero, who are still illegally on Indian land.
At the end of March 2008 the Minister of Justice ordered the federal police to remove the farmers in an operation called ‘Operação Upatakon III’. In response, the farmers injured an Indian leader by throwing a homemade bomb into his home, and threatened others with death. They also burned three bridges leading to the territory, and blocked roads with tractors. The police operation was suspended and the state government went to the Supreme Court with its petition to overturn the demarcation and ratification. Then on 5 May the gunmen believed to be working for Quartiero attacked the Makuxi (as you can see in the video clip) of Barro community.
The next day, the Minister of Justice flew to the area, met with the Indians and ordered the arrest of Quartiero, his son and those hitmen who had not fled. They were arrested on 4 charges including attempted homicide and stockpiling weapons (police found a huge arms cache on Quartiero’s farm including equipment to make home made bombs), detained in prison in Brasilia for several days and then released. The police have launched an investigation in to the 5 May shootings.
June 26th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Mauricio: Although Survival and FUNAI have long known that there have been uncontacted tribes living in that area (it is, after all, in a reserve set up to protect uncontacted Indians), others including the Peruvian government have denied the existence of uncontacted peoples in the region in recent months. One official from Perupetro, Peru’s state oil exploration agency, even compared the existence of uncontacted tribes just across the border in Peru to the search for the ‘Loch Ness Monster’.
It’s now time for everyone to recognise that not only do uncontacted tribes exist, but that they are amongst the most vulnerable of the world’s peoples. Without their lands being protected and with it their right to choose if and when to make contact with outsiders, they simply won’t survive.
It is believed that the people in the photos are under pressure from other uncontacted tribes fleeing from illegal logging in Peru. The Peruvian government must fulfil its obligations under international law and prevent logging and oil exploration on uncontacted tribes’ lands.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:50 am
I think that most of the controversy derives from using the term “uncontacted”.
Most, if not all “uncontacted” societies have decided to suspend sustained contacts with others as a result of thraumatic contacts in the past. In this sense, none of them are “uncontacted”.
In Peru, it is widely accepted that most of this “decissions” were taken as a result of epidemics and exploitation occurred during the XIXt century rubber boom.
In this sense, the widely accepted term is “isolated peoples” or “indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation”. This last one emphasises indigenous “agency” against “uncontactedness”, a state that carries the implicit meaning of “not-being-discovered-yet”.
Defined as voluntarily isolated, avoiding contact is an expression of “self-determination” with important political implications.
Although popularly used, the term “uncontacted” has been discarded years ago by most bodies and organisations working in the field for the reasons exposed above. The current controversy advises to follow the example.
June 27th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I think we should really focus on the need to support these people from being exploited and eradicated. I guess that was the point of the photos, because as has been expressed above, there are certain sectors of society who, for their own interests, would rather the world believe that uncontacted tribes do not exist in order for them to continue with their profit-making schemes at the expense of the tribes’ existence.
Whether this is a “hoax” or not, is unimportant really. The aim of the photos, as I understood, is to raise awareness about tribes that live independently of outside influence and the need to protect them and their livelihood. I believe the media pushed this issue to the sideline and focussed on sensationalism. I mean, I was over-excited too :), but in the end it is still an equally relevant and honourable cause, to safeguard the lives of people around the world, whether they are “contacted”, “uncontacted” or “undiscovered”.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Hi Lucy,
I totally agree with you. I cannot believe people are arguing and making such accusations as if Survival was trying to take advantadge of this campaign! The pictures are proof of this tribal’s existence - probably a simple verbal statement was not enough for the Peruvian government to believe in their existence, but now they cannot deny this reality anymore. On which basis the other fellow stated that the pictures were staged? I truly cannot imagine FUNAI forging indigenous’ peoples existence and exposing their name nationally and internationally for that reason. What would they gain with that?
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
[…] correct” to speak of “uncontacted” tribes, it is clear that SIthe idea to be that some mythical lost tribes had been found, and that the definition of “uncontacted […]