There's a new documentary on Netflix, First Contact, Lost Tribe of The Amazon. (Correction. The Documentary is on Netflix, not Amazon TV as I originally wrote.)
It's well worth watching. We learn that these uncontacted indigenous people have learned to see gifts offered by "whites" as lures used to kill them.
The reason the indigenous tribal people have made contact with the "white" world is they were attacked, possibly by Peruvian soldiers, or loggers, drug runners or coca growers.
This has been the way of western conquest and destruction of indigenous people. Lure them with baubles, blankets, machetes, clothing, pots and pans. Then enslave them, convert them or kill them. Some are massacred with weapons. Some are killed by the contagious diseases transferred by clothing or blankets. So they have no immunity to western diseases.
Laws are in place aimed at preventing contact with the "isolated" peoples. But sometimes the isolated peoples steal from villagers. They've been displaced by loggers or the others I listed, so they are desperate-- hungry, without their usual resources.
But there are no laws to protect those who are the prey of corporate hunters, who are lured by the baubles of consumer society. OR maybe, prey and hunter is the wrong analogy. Yes, there are billions lured by baubles, including TV, movies, electronics. But those people are more like domesticated animals, tamed and "milked" by their domesticators? Are we among them?
The "expert" on uncontacteds says it's fine for the uncontacted to change, and in a generation or two to be going to college. I disagree. Their lives may be hard, in ways that are different than the billions of poor people who live in cities, disconnected from nature and from the earth. But it is only a different kind of hardness, not a worse kind. They lived without metal tools, or clothing. They didn't need modern drugs because the drugs mainly protect them from the infectious diseases their contact with "Whites" causes.
The laws aimed at preventing contact with the "uncontacted" are a very smart, good thing. When I decided to watch the documentary I wondered how they could do such a documentary without corrupting and destroying the culture of the uncontacted. I was right. They couldn't. Like the Heisenberg principal, the observation and contact produced massive, irreversible changes.
The documentary ends with one of the found, no longer "uncontacted" saying he doesn't want to go back to his naked ways. "We are ashamed of our nakedness."
Of course, the nakedness is a symbol of their life in the jungle. The shame is part of what they are given by the westerners, part of the way they are "tamed."
While I watched and learned from this documentary, I would encourage Amazon, Netflix and other content providers NOT to support such projects. While they are fascinating the price, in terms of ending cultures and killing a way of life is far too high.
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