Indigenous Organizations Reject Calls to Forcibly Contact Uncontacted Tribes
Indigenous organizations across South America have condemned as “dangerous and illegal” calls by U.S. anthropologists Kim Hill and Robert S. Walker to forcibly contact highly vulnerable uncontacted tribes.
In an open letter, Indian organizations from Brazil, Peru and Paraguay dispute the anthropologists’ claim, made in a Science editorial, that uncontacted tribes are “unviable”, and warn that “this dangerous myth plays into the hands of those who wish to invade and exploit tribal peoples’ ancestral homelands.”
Instead, the Indian organizations stress that the real threats to uncontacted tribes’ futures are genocidal violence, the invasion of their lands and theft of natural resources, and prevailing racist attitudes.
Among the signatories is the Aché organization FENAP in Paraguay. In the editorial, Kim Hill and Robert Walker refer to a “success story” of contact with several dozen Northern Aché, but don’t mention the fact that 38% of the total population had already died as a result of first contact. The Aché are now suing Paraguay over this historic genocide.
With the letter, the indigenous organizations join Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, in its rejection of Hill and Walker’s proposal – as well as numerous other Amazon Indians who have spoken out against forced contact.
In July 2015, Amazon Indian organizations AIDESEP and FENAMAD released a statementsaying, “We reject any call or act that seeks to impose a way of life that is rejected by our brothers in isolation and initial contact.”
Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami shaman and President of the Hutukara Yanomami Association, said, “The place where the uncontacted Indians live, fish, hunt and plant must be protected. The whole world must know that they are there in their forest and that the authorities must respect their right to live there.” The Yanomami are calling on the government to evict the illegal gold miners who are putting the uncontacted Yanomami’s lives at risk in their forest home.
Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable societies on the planet. All face catastrophe unless their land is protected. In the letter, the organizations call on Robert Walker and Kim Hill to “support tribal peoples’ rights to remain on their lands without the intrusion of outsiders.”
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As a descendant of the Indigenous people of the America, I support the organizations, who are protected the rights of these people of the land. My ancestors were decimated by contact and suffered cultural and physical genocide from Colonization. They are on the land creator provided for them and no human is above creator. I support this movement to protect the people of the land and their resources.
Judging from the cloth they are wearing and the material in their hammock, they have already been contacted and from the skin and bones I am seeing in this photograph they are in need of greater contact for care.
To not help them is like saying people who are lost at sea and find their way to survive on an island are supposed to live the rest of their lives in malnutrition, illness, poverty and worst of all ignorance all because someone wants to pretend they are supposed to be that way? Good grief, Americans will stop their cars and endanger traffic flow to help ducks cross the street or to pick up puppies abandoned by the road; however we question whether or not we should help our fellow man? We all go back to Adam and Eve and we all go back to Noah. God our creator never intended for us to live in isolation. Some of humanity just got lost along the way from natural disasters, ice ages, etc.
Personally, I am very proud of my Native American heritage and it hurts to know what happened to them and most importantly what happened to Opechancanough and Pocahontas too because he was kidnapped and held captive for ten years and then was shot in the back for simply defending his land and she was kidnapped, held captive for a year and then most likely forced to marry not out of love however out of forging peace and yet still knowing the good that came to the world via America in the end from two peoples merging was far better for humanity. The Powhantan Confederacy was only a nation of 5 to 6 tribes before the white people arrived. It is was their conflict when Pocahontas was kidnapped that forced first Powhantan to sue for peace and later Opechancanough to forge a nation 32 tribes strong and over that time the natives and colonists met and married sometimes in love and sometimes not however the merging of bloodlines in the end is what brought about the world’s first free nation. We learned from each other. Who knows what potential these people have to help themselves and to help the world if no one makes contact with them?
Did you miss the part where 38% of the last major tribe contacted are now dead, mostly of infectious disease?
Do you think they live on the moon? They know about the outside world. They talk to and trade with other indigenous groups who are in contact with the outside world.
They aren’t in contact with it *by choice*. They understand that the modern world is out here, and they know how to float a canoe down river.
The people wasting away in ratty t-shirts in that picture are people who *have* been contacted. That’s what life becomes after contact.