Many tribal people who are today ‘uncontacted’ are in fact the survivors (or survivors’ descendants) of past atrocities. These acts – massacres, disease epidemics, terrifying violence – are seared into their collective memory, and contact with the outside world is now to be avoided at all costs.
Many of the isolated Indians of western Amazonia, for example, are the descendants of the few survivors of the rubber boom which swept through the region at the end of the 19th Century, wiping out 90% of the Indian population in a horrific wave of enslavement and appalling brutality.
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| The Cinta Larga have been victims of horrific violence. |
Others are survivors of more recent killings. The Amazonian people known as the ‘Cinta Larga’ [‘wide belts’] suffered many vicious and gruesome attacks at the hands of Brazilian rubber tappers between the 1920s and the 1960s. One famous incident, the 1963 ‘massacre of the 11th parallel’, took place in the headwaters of the Aripuanã river where the firm of Arruda, Junqueira & Co was collecting rubber.
The head of the company, Antonio Mascarenhas Junqueira, planned the massacre, deeming the Cinta Larga Indians to be in the way of his commercial activities. ‘These Indians are parasites, they are shameful. It’s time to finish them off, it’s time to eliminate these pests. Let’s liquidate these vagabonds.’
He hired a small plane, from which sticks of dynamite were hurled into a Cinta Larga village below. Later, some of the killers returned on foot to finish off the survivors – finding a woman breastfeeding her child, they shot the baby’s head off, and then hung her upside down and sliced her in half. The judge at the trial of one of the accused said, ‘We have never listened to a case where there was so much violence, so much ignominy, egoism and savagery and so little appreciation of human life.’
In 1975 one of the perpetrators, José Duarte de Prado, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, but was pardoned later that year. He declared during the trial, ‘It’s good to kill Indians – they are lazy and treacherous.’
The massacre of the Cinta Larga Indians
‘Don't be afraid of us, we are good people’
The Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands
Visiting the Andaman Islanders
On the run – Ayoreo in Paraguay
A unique 'first contact' with the Korubo of Brazil
‘Indians are worse than animals. They’re not even good to eat.’
Why are uncontacted tribes under siege?
Some people think uncontacted tribes are stone age relics doomed to disappear sooner or later. But history proves this is not true - as long as they are secure in their own lands. If their lands are protected, they face a happier, healthier and more prosperous future than most of the people around them.
Uncontacted tribal people cannot speak directly to those in power - they need your help to do so. Please stand up for their right to freedom.
The isolated Indians of south-east Peru are being invaded by loggers and oil crews. Please tell the authorities there to respect the Indians' rights to their own land.
The Supreme Court ordered that the illegal road bulldozed through the Jarawa's reserve should be closed, but the government keeps it open. Please tell them to obey their own courts, and close the road.
The isolated Ayoreo-Totobiegosode Indians are constantly on the run, as bulldozers chase them from one corner of their forest to another. Please tell the government to abide by its own laws, and title the Indians' land to them so they can live in peace.
