New aerial footage provides a rare glimpse into the existence of an isolated tribe in the Brazilian Amazon, showing 16 people marching through the jungle and a deforested area with a crop in it.
In a clip released on Tuesday evening, one of the tribesmen can be seen carrying a bow and arrow.
Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency Funai said it took the drone images during an expedition to monitor isolated communities last year, but only released them now to protect the study.
The researchers observed the tribe in Vale do Javari, an indigenous area in the southwest of the state of Amazonas. There are 11 confirmed isolated groups in this area – more than anywhere else in Brazil.
The agency has been investigating the community through images for years, but this was the first time it managed to get its members in front of the camera.
“These images have the power to make society and the government think about the importance of protecting these groups,” said Wallace Bastos, president of Funai.
Bruno Pereira, who coordinates the FUNAI study on isolated groups in the region, said these documentaries would also help researchers study their culture.
The agency has not yet been able to determine the name of the tribe, but it has guesses about its ethnicity and the language it speaks.
“The more we know about the way of life of isolated communities, the better we can protect them,” he said.
In total, the agency has registered 107 isolated tribes in Latin America’s largest country. Although Funai sometimes takes photos and videos, it has not had any contact with them for over 30 years.
Pereira told the Associated Press that these communities are aware of the towns and farms around them, but often choose to isolate themselves due to traumatic experiences with the outside world.
Contact with the outside world can often be fatal, leading to massacres or epidemics that wipe out tribes. Last year, a group of illegal gold miners reportedly killed ten people in an isolated community.
“If they wanted contact with the outside world, they would look for ways to communicate with us,” Pereira said.
