RSSFriday B.S.: Vacation to Ipixuna
May 30
I thought this week we would take an adventure trip down to the rainforests of Brazil to meet some tribal Indians. These natives were recently photographed trying to shoot down the airplane that photographed them with bows and arrows, courtesy of Survival International.
I find this image fascinating for its the implications, the least of which is that civilization has never contacted members of this particular tribe. Buried deep along the Brazil-Peru border, they have never met an errant explorer, don’t know anything about the Clinton-Obama race, haven’t heard that the aftershocks in China or Sharon Stone, and aren’t worrying about applying for a voucher to switch their analog television to digital in February 2009.
The images are startling, that is definite. The tribal members are painted from head to toe in bright red. The shacks are barely more than a roof made of branches propped open like a tent. The scene looks straight out of a Hollywood movie.
But to say they have never been touched by civilization is a bit melodramatic and disingenuous. Upon seeing an airplane fly over head, the Indians raised their bows and arrows and attempted to shoot it down. I find it hard to believe, even ensconced in the rainforest away from iPods and SUVs and Windows Vista, that the Indians don’t on some level understand the implications of a plane flying overhead. One, it seems unlikely they think it’s a bird or a pterodactyl -- a product of nature. Two, it probably scared the shit out of them (and I suppose to what extent would depend on whether they had ever seen one before -- something I have to guess even in the remote region of Brazil they probably have experienced once or twice from a distance.) Three, you mean to tell me that Man vs. Wild hasn’t filmed there yet?
Out of these photographs comes the plea to save the tribal lands which are being eaten away by logging, whose tribe members are being exposed to diseases of the civilized world (no doubt this the polite way of saying they are building a McDonald’s nearby) and otherwise forced to leave their tribal homes and move into a AmeriSuites while their huts are demolished to build timeshares. (Come stay at the Ipixuna Grand Vacation Club just 350 kilómetros to biodiverse Peru! Free shuttle!)
It’s amazing, but according to Survival International, there are “upwards of 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide.” How on earth these tribes managed to survive without a poker room and a buffet is beyond me. The organization works to keep the tribal lands in the hands of the tribes, rather than being razed in the name of industry and profit. It raises an interesting question, though. How does a group work to save these tribal lands without ever interacting with the tribe? It just seems kind of unlikely.
It’s fascinating to read about the different tribes of the world, many of which do have contact with the outside world. It’s really amazing that they can continue to subsist without WIFI and FIFA, and I don’t mean to say that people can’t live without television and sports. But the world community (the effect of so-called globalization) is so invasive, that even surviving this long with your traditions and culture intact seems remarkable. The Akuntsu are down to six people (not even enough diners for mandatory gratuity to be added to their bill) but how long before a developer comes in, puts his arm around the tribal leader and says, “How ’bout you let me build a hotel on your lands and I’ll make you a rich man.” It’s not just industry, but technology, economy and politics are slowly glossing over what makes each of our regions unique and homogenizing the entire human race. Even if we save the Akuntsu, how long before they’re sitting on a couch in their condo on Lake Uruapiára, flipping through cable channels to find something better than Where’s My Mortgage Gone?, eating Cheetos and texting votes for David Archuleta on their Samsung F700?
Melodramatic? Maybe. Disingenuous? I’m not so sure. The photographs may show a native tribe as yet untouched by civilization, but the reality is whether we save them or not, it’s hard to believe their tribe will be intact 50 years from now. Maybe by then, they will just be Brazilians, or even Americans. The true implication of those photographs is that sooner or later, we won’t even remember what it is our world has lost.
