Deep in Brazil's Amazon forest, the single surviving member of a secluded Indian tribe roams alone on his own 8000-hectare reserve. His story – featured in the fascinating book, Rooksignalen (smoke signals), by the Dutch journalist Ineke Holtwijk – illustrates the ends to which Brazil has gone to protect its most isolated peoples. For the past 20 years, Brazil, home to many of the world's remaining so-called “lost tribes”, has adhered to a policy of leaving them alone, even if that means setting aside vast areas of forest. Not surprisingly, this has attracted increasing hostility from pro-development groups, both within and outside the country. Even the president of neighboring Peru, Alan Garcia, has accused environmentalists of “inventing” the lost tribes, as a ruse to block development of the Amazon. Earlier this year, the clash of interests spilled into the news, with the publication of a series of dramatic photos of furious, red-painted warriors, wielding bows and arrows to defend their straw-thatched huts. Some reports mistakenly described the pictures as the first evidence of an undiscovered tribe; in fact, Brazilian officials have known about the group, near the border with Peru, for at least two decades. Jose Carlos Meirelles, a Brazilian Indian affairs official, says he released the pictures to prove the existence of the secluded community to critics like Garcia. Survival International, a London-based, non-profit champion of tribal peoples, estimates that there are over 100 never-before-contacted groups located throughout the world, with more than half living in the Amazon forest. Some anthropologists dispute this estimate, noting that lost people are, by definition, hard to count. Modern folk have romanticized indigenous people for centuries. The 17th century British poet, John Dryden, coined the phrase “noble savage”, while the 18th century French philosopher and painter, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, famously theorized that man is essentially good, but is corrupted by civilization. In our own stressed-out age, it's especially tempting to lionize, or at least protect, people who've never seen a lightbulb, yet preserve ancient knowledge of lifesaving medicinal plants. Americans and Brazilians, who share a recent pioneer history, also understand the perils of contacting isolated Indians, who may be vulnerable to devastating diseases, alcoholism, and poverty. Brazil's hands-off policy is the legacy of Sydney Possuelo, a cranky Amazon explorer who looks like he just walked off the set of an Indiana Jones movie. I interviewed him in Brazil's capital, Brasilia, in 1998, when he was still director of Brazil's Department of Isolated Indians, several years before he was fired for criticizing his boss. Possuelo has made it his life's work to travel deep into the Amazon to document previously uncontacted tribes, giving them the chance to join the modern world if they want, but working to preserve their isolation if they don't. “The government isn't giving the Indians land; it is simply recognizing their rights to it”, he told me back then, while chain-smoking Marlboros in an office adorned with feathered spears. “It's not a matter of being nice. We have a historical and moral duty.” The tribes have shown little appreciation for Possuelo's efforts in recent years, killing hundreds of government employees and, on one occasion, holding Possuelo himself hostage for 23 days, during negotiations for more land. Possuelo doesn't take any of this personally, but he worries that the fast pace of Amazon destruction will make the Indians' aspirations, and the government's best intentions, moot within the next decade. Loggers, miners, cattle ranchers, and desperate subsistence farmers are pressing into the Amazon, at the cost of frequent violent clashes with the tribal peoples living there. Brazil's federal Indian affairs beaurocracy, the Fundaça¯o Nacional do Índio, better known by its acronym FUNAI, is understaffed, underfunded, and subject to constant political attacks from critics who argue that the country is already investing too many resources in too small a segment of its population. The ideal of the “noble savage” is a favored target of Brazilian journalists, who've written exposés of tribes such as the Kayapo, whose wealthy chiefs have illegally sold permits to mine gold and log endangered mahogany trees in their Amazon Basin reserve. For now, Meirelles' photographs appear to have achieved his purpose, forcing Peru to back down from its claim that the isolated Indians don't exist, and buying the lost tribe and their forest a little more time. Maybe that time will be enough for the world at large to come to its senses and work harder to protect the Amazon, the life it shelters, and the services it provides. More likely, however, Brazil will need to determine the point at which saving the Indians' culture means risking their lives.
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Jun 23, 2024
Ryan A Musto 
Open Access
