Executing Possuelo's plan, however, means identifying the indigenous groups before miners, loggers and others find them--encounters that could lead to long-lasting, deadly skirmishes, as in the case of the Korubo people of the Javari Valley, which lies near the Peruvian border. First contacted in 1972, they violently resisted intruders and over the decades had clubbed to death many who ventured into their territories. In 1996 Possuelo managed to establish peaceful encounters with one Korubo clan, in part by singing aloud (enemies come in silence) and by offering gifts. Despite having known the clan for many years now, Possuelo still considers them unpredictable; he has kept anthropologists away, he has said, for their own safety. He himself will not bother to contact a larger Korubo group deeper in the jungle, feeling that they are remote enough that they will not meet outsiders.
The noninterference strategy has gained worldwide approval. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2006, incorporates the right to nonassimilation. Despite that, the policy faces critics in Brazil, who see such protection as an additional burden to taxpayers that only postpones inevitable integration. "Of course, you're buying time," says Márcio Santilli, head of Brasília's Socio-Environmental Institute and a former president of FUNAI. "But buying time is central to mitigating the impacts of contact."
And time is running out for those Indians. Brazil has demarcated less than a dozen lands with isolated peoples. Possuelo and his colleagues have identified 22 isolated groups in the Amazon, although FUNAI believes that the true number might be closer to 68, based on aerial surveys and witness accounts. Some live in previously protected indigenous lands, some in areas that are right in the range of agricultural expansion.
In the other six South American countries with isolated peoples--Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Colombia and Venezuela--the prospect is even bleaker. "The issue is all but unknown to them," Possuelo states. "And it is no use to undertake protection policies here if indigenous peoples are not protected across the border and get killed on the other side."
In 2005, before leaving FUNAI, Possuelo organized a meeting in the Amazon city of Belém that gave birth to an alliance for the protection of isolated peoples in the seven countries. The alliance, consisting of state attorneys, environmental defense groups, anthropologists and indigenous organizations, called on their governments to identify and protect their indigenous charges. "The idea here is to raise public consciousness in the first place," he says. "Then we'll be able to talk about public policy." The alliance has been facing an unexpected challenge, though--from indigenous peoples themselves. "In Ecuador last year, contacted Indians killed 20 isolated Indians," says Marcelo dos Santos, who took over Possuelo's old FUNAI post.
Possuelo agrees that the isolated groups may not last much longer. But pointing at several figurines of Don Quixote that he keeps in his living room, he says he has not given up. "The fate of those peoples will depend ultimately on our choices," he argues. "Those peoples are the last Americans. We are indebted to them."
This article was originally published with the title Prime Directive for the Last Americans.
Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.
See what we're tweeting about
3 Comments
Add CommentThese tribes are doomed to die out because they fail to learn that killing strnagers is wrong. By killing others they isolate themselves and are shunned by the larger society and thus miss out on education and jobs. In New Zealand the Maori in the 19th century resorted to violence to sdolve their problems and as a result they almost died out at the beginning of 20th century. But then they started to change their ways and dropped violence as a solutions and learnt to work together to adapted better health and educational practices. They have thrived and still retain much of their unique culture. This is want is needed not isolation but a step by step approach to help these ones to see that violence cannot protect their way of life but rather non violence and better health and education... only this way can their culture survive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese tribes are doomed to die out because they fail to learn that killing strnagers is wrong. By killing others they isolate themselves and are shunned by the larger society and thus miss out on education and jobs. In New Zealand the Maori in the 19th century resorted to violence to sdolve their problems and as a result they almost died out at the beginning of 20th century. But then they started to change their ways and dropped violence as a solutions and learnt to work together to adapted better health and educational practices. They have thrived and still retain much of their unique culture. This is want is needed not isolation but a step by step approach to help these ones to see that violence cannot protect their way of life but rather non violence and better health and education... only this way can their culture survive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's bollocks, rna8arnold. The right strategy is to leave those tribes in isolation. Leave them alone. Once they are interfered with they cannot go back. They are permanently cut off from their past, usually so greedy people can cut down their trees or mine their lands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBring them into the outside world and they will be broken alcoholic beggars within a year or dead. Their unique cultures lost forever.