Comments on: Lost Tribe, Now Found

By: ArchAsa

ArchAsa — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:45:06 +0000

Great blog you have here, and a very interesting research subject. The way westerners continue to cling to outdated notions of “discovering” peoples whoe are “unknown” is a source of both fascination and irritation to me. It is one of the few instances where the rampant ethnocentrism becomes glaringly obvious, instead of just implied.

I do think media and journalists have a lot of responsibility for this. So much is driven by headline grabbing events nowadays. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, just write it up for all your worth… Blogs by genuine researchers can at least help balance this superficial view of the world a bit. I wrote about this myself shen it happened (archaeologist and anthropologist) and was sure from the start that at the most they were uncontacted by westerners. There can be no doubt that any group of human beings must have contact with other groups. Just because these groups don’t wear baseball caps and drink coca-cola does not mean that they are “lost in time”.

pandering to these base emotions among westerners can only lead to bad results. These people deserve our respect and considerationg regardless of how much or little contact they have with government officials…

By: Försvunnet och återfunnet at Det perfekta tomrummet

Försvunnet och återfunnet at Det perfekta tomrummet — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:47:45 +0000

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By: Michael Robinson

Michael Robinson — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:31:20 +0000

Matt, thanks for the comment. I will check out the Survival article you posted. The Guardian credited at least two sources in their story, SI itself as well as Sydney Possuelo. Are you saying they got these wrong?

Michael

By: Matt Survival

Matt Survival — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:03:54 +0000

This was not outrageous propaganda. There may have been some media misunderstanding, but from the moment the photos emerged, Survival International (the global movement for tribal peoples) and FUNAI (the Brazilian Government’s National Indian Foundation), which supplied the photos, have not said that the tribe was ‘unknown’ or ‘lost’. The tribe was and remains ‘uncontacted’: no outsider has been known to have any peaceful contact with its members.

This is true of about 100 tribes worldwide. Since the photographs were released, Peru has acknowledged the lands of uncontacted tribes on its side of the border, and sent a team to investigate the illegal logging that threatens their survival.

Find out more about the world’s uncontacted tribes at http://www.survival-international.org/uncontactedtribes and read Survival’s article on the supposed hoax at http://www.survival-international.org/news/3400

Matt
Survival International