The Real Story Behind ‘Lost Tribe’ Photos Revealed
So, let me see if I have this straight …
The good-hearted, well-meaning, environmentally friendly, Brazilian Indian Protection Agency shit-head guy decides it’s okay to get a plane, buzz an isolated village of primitive people and scare the living shit out of them for a few days … until they hold their war ritual, paint themselves red, sharpen their spears, and run out into the open to fight off the terrible Pterodactyls … just so he can snag a few pictures to wave under the logging industry’s nose.
How very … oh, I dunno … fucking LIBERAL!
Gee-zuss! The ass-clown is damn lucky the tribe didn’t decide it was the end of the world and commit tribal mass suicide …
Too damn bad he didn’t fall out of the plane, roast slowly over a pit for a couple days, and end up in the village slit-trenches …
It wasn’t so much a hoax as a publicity stunt. The famous photos of the “lost tribe” in the Amazon forest are real, but the remarkable story behind them is not.
Last month, Jose Carlos Meirelles claimed that the Amazon warriors painted in red with arrows pointed at his aircraft were from an “undiscovered tribe” along the Brazilian-Peruvian border that had never been in contact with other humans.
The Observer on Sunday reported that Meirelles confessed that his group, the Brazilian Indian Protection Agency, otherwise known as Funai, had known the whereabouts of the tribe, flew over the group to take pictures and published the photos to bolster a campaign to protect endangered tribes in the area from the logging industry.
“When we think we might have found an isolated tribe,” he told al-Jazeera, “a sertanista like me walks in the forest for two or three years to gather evidence and we mark it in our [global positioning system]. We then map the territory the Indians occupy and we draw that protected territory without making contact with them. And finally we set up a small outpost where we can monitor their protection.”
Meirelles said he borrowed a plane for a few days and flew over a 150-kilometer area where he thought the tribe may be, based off GPS data he had about the tribe as well as Google Earth co-ordinates that showed clearings in the forest. After seeing only huts for two days, he finally spotted the Indians hours before he had to return the plane.
“When I saw them painted red, I was satisfied, I was happy,” he said. “Because painted red means they are ready for war, which to me says they are happy and healthy defending their territory.”
The existence of the tribe had actually been known for about a century. Funai learned about this small group of Indians about 20 years ago.
Though many are likely to criticize Meirelles, Survival International and Funai for the flyover – clearly disturbing the tribe – they all defend their decision to take the photos and publish them, claiming the media coverage over the photos last month forced Peru to re-examine its logging policy near where the tribe lives.
Meirelles says he has no regrets and plans to keep the tribe’s location secret. “They can decide when they want contact, not me or anyone else.”
(AP)
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I just think its crazy that these people have been so untouched after all of these years that they thought a bow and arrow could bring down a plane.
and yeah drill, the real story behind this is truly messed up when you think about it. very mean just to provoke these people to get them to come out in a way that suited their little story. yeah piss them off, scare them until they got their tribal paint on and get into a war footing.
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:32 pmJust looking for a way to get them drivers licenses…pretty soon they’ll all be registered voters!
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:47 pm“When I saw them painted red, I was satisfied, I was happy,” he said. “Because painted red means they are ready for war, which to me says they are happy and healthy defending their territory.”
I love how he treats fellow human beings like children, or animals.
and yeah drill, the real story behind this is truly messed up when you think about it. very mean just to provoke these people to get them to come out in a way that suited their little story. yeah piss them off, scare them until they got their tribal paint on and get into a war footing.
I also love how the primitive tribe showed more common sense than the guy in the plane…
“When we think we might have found an isolated tribe,” he told al-Jazeera, “a sertanista like me walks in the forest for two or three years to gather evidence and we mark it in our [global positioning system]. We then map the territory the Indians occupy and we draw that protected territory without making contact with them. And finally we set up a small outpost where we can monitor their protection.”
Animals, it is, then. This the the dividing line between self-righteous wingnuts like him and real scientists, who decide to treat them like human beings; making contact, saying hello, and living with them to experience their culture. In the sanctimonious haze of his worldview, it never occurs to him that he’s treating them like a giant ant farm.
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:49 pmIsn’t this a scene from Survivor?
Hells-bells, these guys may be the last true nationalists on the face of the Earth…
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm_________________
Exactly
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:26 pm“…it never occurs to him that he’s treating them like a giant ant farm.”
That’s how ‘liberals’ treat everyone.
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:58 pmI’d bet alot that Urkelbama had one as a kid.
“The ass-clown is damn lucky the tribe didn’t decide it was the end of the world and commit tribal mass suicide …”
impossible, they are too little numerous by now ; they need all the members alive to perpetuate their line, anyway, it’s a good thing that they protect their environnement against the “voyeurs” that want to make a scoop
“I’d bet alot that Urkelbama had one as a kid.”
(you really embody the balkanised communauties syndrome)
my Rio brazilian friends, whose father (and or father in law) used to be the big boss of Rio hospital. When he retired (also living alone, his wife left him, he took a young indian in sponsorship, that means the boy lives in his house in Rio, the former medic professor is paying for his studies (that are not gratuitous in Brazil).
This boy comes from the Amazon river shores and was chosen by the indian village chief among the children communauty where the “big doctor” used to go on summer vacation as a volonteer doctor.
I remember this story cause my friends were a bit jalous that their”father” didn’t take that much attention to them and was amazed on the indian progresses.
now, my friends were spoiled children from the upper Rio class, that used to have lot of money and servitors till the eighties, now they are like everyone in the westerny world, if they want something they have to gain it.
Well I find very “moral” the father’s attitude
June 23rd, 2008 at 1:45 am(who has in his private life such a bad temper, that he seems to amend with the indian boy)
Juggernuts take on the tribe:
http://www.juggernuts.com/archives/1971
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:24 am“(you really embody the balkanised communauties syndrome)”
“..now, my friends were spoiled children from the upper Rio class…”
Tell the truth. You don’t have any friends.
“who has in his private life such a bad temper”
WTF do you know about my “private life”?
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:05 amJust stopping by for your morning ‘poke the silly Americans in the eye’ are ya?
You really are a dumbass. Stating fact. Not rumor or innuendo and matter of factly without “temper”, bad or good.
sully , I thought you were a “right” brained man,
WTF, did it occur to you that I wasn’t quoting your life ?
as far my Brazilian friends I put their photos on my blog once :
Da Silva is the father’s name, not sulli…(expletive deleted)!
http://mysoupis.blogspot.com/2008/04/recreation-brazil-mode.html
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:38 am“Just stopping by for your morning ‘poke the silly Americans in the eye’ are ya?”
no, just you because of that sentence :
“I’d bet alot that Urkelbama had one as a kid.”
that I found rather not respectuous
“WTF do you know about my “private life”?”
what has your private life to do ? your not a medic as far as you let us know here ; yeah, I remember “aesthetic… philosophy… cultivation”…
pour la philo, can’t say your perception is neutral and raisonable
“You really are a dumbass. Stating fact. Not rumor or innuendo and matter of factly without “temper”, bad or good.”
yeah, your allowed to call me dumbass, but not me (?)
these are facts, if there is a person who doesn’t lie here, it’s me, can’t say the same for you (at least as far as I am concerned)
about “temper” bad or good, you also gave me a great pannel of yours… also concerning mine, you happened to read about it on my place (that’s why you quoted it anyway), though I was not hiding that I get easily on the punching response when I feel aggressivity on the other hand.
did you get up on your bad foot, and was your glass filled with past milk ?
should I write like in a movie generic that the “events or the persons I quote have nothing to be related with the board readers”
I have the feeling you dissect all what I say and find a personnal attack ; I wish the things were more simple for you.
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm