Last of the Mohicans...er... Amazonians

With the news earlier this week that the latest mission to the planet Mars, it seemed that perhaps we were nearing the limit of what new things we could discover on our own planet. I'm sure there are lots of people out there who will be scoffing at that statement considering how uninformed and ridiculous it is when you think about the fact that we have yet to discover all of the secrets at the depths of our oceans or in the vast icy landscapes of the poles or even the mysteries of the Amazon. So it was with some relief and fascination that I saw the news article posted this morning regarding a heretofore uncontacted tribe that was discovered during a flyover of the Amazon on the border of Brazil and Peru.

The group Survival International had been doing some aerial reconnaisance of the region when they happened upon a village that was deep in the depths of the Amazon which had not yet been properly explored so they were surprised to find a tribe living in the area and judging by their reaction in the the picture above, it's easy to see why the group assumed that the tribe has yet to encounter people beyond their own. Now we could be very jaded and wonder how it is that in this day and age there can still be tribes of humans that don't know what an airplane is or that there is a world beyond their borders but the simple truth is that this tribe isn't much different from ourselves if we stop to think about it. Now granted, most of us don't start taking pot shots at aircraft with wooden bow and arrows when we see something that isn't potential dinner flying overhead but how many of us really ever venture beyond the areas that we know so well?

I have encountered people who have never even left the state they were born in. Heck, I have encountered people before who had never even left their hometown for their whole lives. I haven't lived that long in the scheme of things but I have travelled around enough to have a greater appreciation of how vast the world truly is. Sure we can cross the globe in a matter of hours via an airplane, but what about if you're still doing things the old fashioned way and going by foot? In this modern age its easy to forget about how far distances truly are. We think of distance in terms of time now rather than actual mileage. I work 20 miles from my home; that distance would have been ridiculous to consider a mere 50 years before as a commuting distance but today it's normal. I have an average commute for this region and still, I don't see much outside of what is along my daily drive. Were I limited in my thinking, I would think that the rest of the world is covered in highways and office buildings with dwellings and shopping malls stuffed in between.

That isnt' the case but we only know what we can see or what we can experience. Fortunately in the Amazon, there are still enough unknown areas that this tribe of people, who haven't been named yet as far as I know, have been able to live in relative peace for their entire existance. Now many are hoping that sometime soon, contact can be established with these people to learn about their culture and their society but I hope that they can remain anonymous and be left alone for a lot longer. Forever if possible. Why? Well because while our insatiable curiousity is a good thing, it also contributed to the demise of so many other cultures and societies in the past. Diseases were not uncommon but some of the diseases of Europe were virtually unknown over here until explorers brought the germs with them. Many died due to exposure and not having the anti-bodies to fight the disease. Sure we learned about a new group of people but we killed many of them in the process too.

We all have images of what life must be like for these people. Some will think of a society that is reflective of what early life on these continents must have been like. Perhaps others will think of the Central and South American tribes that have virtually disappeared like the Toltecs or the Mayans. Perhaps they are a splinter group of one of these older cultures and perhaps in meeting with them face to face as opposed to face to airplane will help us understand the relation between the two but it is still for our selfish purposes and not theirs. If they had wanted to explore the world beyond ours then they would have done so. Unfortunately they haven't and so isn't it only fair to leave them alone? The destruction of the rainforests in the regions has already managed to wipeout a variety of flora and fauna and all types of animal, wouldn't it be wise to stop before we start wiping out humans again too?