Here's an interesting news story about "uncontacted tribes," also called isolated tribes. It seems some people in South America took some pictures of one tribe to prove its existence and call attention to the threat these tribes face from illegal logging.It's fascinating to think that despite how small the world seems, there are still tribes out there who have had no contact with modern civilization.
About half of the estimated number of isolated tribes are from the Amazon basin while the other half are from West Papua (aka Irian Jaya) in Indonesia. There are parts of West Papua that haven't even been explored yet. That is amazing.
I lived in Indonesia for a while and I remember seeing occasional news reports of tribe wars in West Papua where they were still using bows and arrows. I recall one picture in the paper of a guy with an arrow through his arm. I remember another story of a tribe discovered to be suffering from famine. It took several days just to hike in to their village as it was not accessible by helicopter. In the 21st Century, even!
Luckily for us, we have things like GPS
units. I love these things. I have a couple of them. I just downloaded a new program called EasyGPS that lets me download waypoints from the computer directly into my GPS. I downloaded all the waypoints for the C&O Bike path in anticipation of the epic journey.I've also just discovered a sport called geocaching. It's where you use your GPS to hide and find little boxes of stuff around the world. You post the coordinates online and then other people try to go find it.
Amazing, all this technology in the hands of common people and there are still groups of people out there who've never seen it.
I actually read this article today as well. And how they may be pushed over the border where other tribes have been pushed by this logging and create wars between the tribes... Then down at the bottom of the article I see where they are looking for people to send money so that they can help these people. My thought was Does that pic show people that want us to send money to help them? No they want everyone to leave them alone. Not sure what they plan on doing with that money they are wanting to raise except maybe try to stop the logging? any thoughts on that? ( Not trying to start and arguement , as I usually do lol, Just wondering thoughts)
ReplyDeleteThe people in the picture are probably Liberal preforming art students! Just kidding, lets just hope these people are left alone and left to live a happy life away from liberals (just kidding again). I kill myself (not yet).
ReplyDeleteSeriously, these people need left to be so as our f'ed up world will stay inviable to them
It's funny to hear you say that, most of the tribal nation of West Papua had the message Leave us alone.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately it is the United States that has been mining West Papua for its gold & copper, and the US which forced the Dutch to sell West Papua like cattle to Indonesia via the 1962 New York Agreement.
Kennedy was told by his National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy that America had to betray its Pacific war ally to save America from the Cold War; Bundy had been appointed on advise of Robert Lovett a director of Freeport which is mining West Papua today.
Bundy, Lovett and GW Bush were all members of the stupid Order of the Skull & Bones; now guess why Americans don't know they own the world's largest dirtiest gold mine. Guess why the US Congress attempt to ask question about West Papua in 2005 was defeated by the US Indonesia Society lobby after its privileged access to lie to the Senators.
The reports I read today said that logging was pushing these people out and after looking into the mine I couldn't find where the two were connected Yes after all my readings the large mine is owned by a US comany no where did I find this conected to the tribes being pushed off their lands by illegal logging. I do see the problems with this mine as it is messing with the glaciers and polluting the waters and killing the fish and the wildlife.. Yes this is a problem. Just not sure how the two of them are combined Someone please enlighten me as I found this so interesting that I have been reading for 2 hours on it Thanks Birdie
ReplyDeleteWow, I had no idea this would generate so much interest.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I would assume the group Survival International is collecting money to fund their programs and projects, like photographing the tribes to raise awareness. Planes cost money.
And yes, the United States has seriously screwed over West Papua on multiple occasions. The major mining operation there is run by PT Freeport, a subsidiary of a US-based copper and gold mining company. The largest gold mine in the world is located there.
The Indonesian government gets their largest share of tax money from Freeport. But the deal Freeport negotiated with the Indonesians gives the Indonesians far less than they deserve (likely the result of US political pressure).
The mine in West Papua is not really related to the people in Brazil other than both Brazil and Papua have the largest number of isolated tribes.
These isolated tribes in both the Amazon basin and West Papua likely have no idea what country they are in. That's how isolated they are. I find that intriguing.
I also read that, the Indonesian government own almost 14% of the mine ( no not a lot compaired to the 67% of Freeport.
ReplyDeleteLooking through all of the info last night I found that they don't want to send anyone in to check out the tribes as a common cold could kill them along with any other germs that anyone going in would carry. It goes on to say that it is not safe for anyone to come close to the tribes as they will attack first and ask no questions, I say leave them alone do we really need pictures of them in the first place Yeah maybe for records but and for inquiring people who want to know more than they do now and to pass it on to future generations. But if they are not able to come close to stopping the Illegal logging which is estimated the lost of $2 million a year in in indoneasia alone then the thought of me considering sending money would be out the window.
And Yes m3 you picked a good one here thanks for making me use my brain and learning something new oh and andrew too..
Nothing lasts forever, I don't know much about these tribes people but I to hope they get left alone. I bet they share a freedom that we'll never know. A simple, productive life. What more could you want.
ReplyDeleteToo bad we couldn't join them.
By the way, Randy got a GPS unit to. I don't know what you guys are going to do with them while following a path but hey. It sounds like a fun tool.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeletethe device will start searching for the accurate software that requires to be installed on the device
Select your time zone hit Save in the top-right corner, and then tap the back arrow in the top-left corner