Times Outside History 7: The Last Free People on the Planet

Image Source: BBC.

Apparently freedom is now synonymous with living outside of time.  Remember the rainforest tribe on the Brazil-Peru border, who have their own advocacy group that periodically flies over and photographs them?  The group has released the first film footage of the group, with the help of the BBC (see the video here; reported February 3):

An isolated tribe living in the Amazon rainforest on the Brazil-Peru border has been filmed for the first time. Jose Carlos Meirelles, of Funai, said his government agency needs proof of the existence of "uncontacted" Indian communities in Brazil due to the threat posed by illegal logging and mining. They are known as "uncontacted" because they have only limited dealings with the outside world. The BBC was allowed to film from 1km away using a stabilised zoom lens

Meirelles calls these people "the last free people on the planet."

Image Source: BBC.

An earlier report from late January published more pictures and reasserted the tribe's status of being 'uncontacted' despite the fact that airplanes keep flying over their jungle village and they are weilding machetes:

These pictures were taken by Brazil's Indian Affairs Department, which monitors the indigenous groups using aircraft. The remote tribe has also been filmed by the BBC for its Human Planet series. Members of the tribe are seen covered in red paint (known as urucum), which is made from seeds from the annatto shrub. Indigenous people use it to colour hammocks and baskets, as well as their skin. The group is also seen using steel machetes - which must ultimately have been obtained from outside the forest. Fiona Watson, field and research director for Survival International, said the people are likely to have acquired these through trading links with other forest tribes. "These networks have been in existence for centuries and I don't think they will have had any contact with non-tribal people, because if they had, the chances of being killed or contracting a disease to which they have no immunity are very high," said Ms Watson.

Video Source: Youtube.

For my earlier posts on the rainforest tribes and the imminent collision between their prehistoric reality with our posthistoric reality, go here and here.