Peru's isolated Mashco-Piro tribe 'asks for food' | Indigenous Peoples |Axisoflogic.com

Editor's Note: The BBC report says the Peruvian government forbids outside contact with uncontacted tribes for fear of introducing illness for which they have no immunity. This is certainly a valid and critical concern. Saul Puerta Pena, Director of AIDESEP concurs in a video interview, speaking of the dangers that outside contact brings and of their hunger due to depletion of their habitat. But he adds something more than published by the BBC about a negative relationship that exists between these indigenous folks and the Peruvian government:

"First we want to tell the government to keep in mind the existence of our indigenous brothers and to respect the right of the indigenous communities. Now the government cannot argue that our indigenous brothers don't exist because their response was always that these indigenous people who choose to live in isolation didn't exist."

The first time the Mashco-Piro people have been seen by the outside world was recorded in the video farther down this page.

- Les Blough, Editor
Axis of Logic

Members of the "uncontacted" Mashco-Piro people in the Peruvian Amazon
(photo: The Ecologist)

Members of one of the most isolated tribes on Earth have briefly emerged from the Peruvian jungle to ask for food, according to local activists.

A group from the Mashco-Piro tribe made contact with villagers, apparently sparking a tense stand-off.

The tribe, which numbers in the hundreds, has had virtually no contact with the wider world.

Campaigners say logging and urban development have diminished the area in which the tribe can live.

The Mashco-Piro are one of several tribes designated by the government as "uncontacted people".

The government forbids direct contact because the tribes' immune systems are not thought able to cope with the type of germs carried by other Peruvians.

Anthropologist Beatriz Huertas told the Associated Press news agency that the tribe could sometimes be seen migrating through the jungle during the dry season.

But it was strange to see them so close to the village across the river, she said.

"It could be they are upset by problems of others taking advantage of resources in their territories and for that reason were demanding objects and food of the population," she said.

Footage filmed late in June and released by local rainforest campaign group AIDESEP and the Fenamad federation for indigenous rights showed the tribe members crossing the river.

Saul Puerta Pena, director of AIDESEP, said the footage showed the tribe asking for bananas.

"There is a canoe sent by another remote indigenous community, which does not live in isolation, to send them food," he said.

"But the tribe cannot come into contact with the remote community still because any illness could kill them."

There are thought to be between 12,000 and 15,000 people from "uncontacted" tribes living in the jungles east of the Andes

(photo, captions and video added by Axis of Logic)

Source: BBC