An Unwanted Discovery; Tribes in the Amazon
While frantically searching the Google database in search of more sources for an already doomed research paper in my Latin America class, I came across an a website about a subject that had apparently been causing quite a buzz recently.
The article was about a recently discovered tribe in the Amazon Basin. These people’s bodies were painted various shades of red and yellow, their only clothing a small loincloth. They crouched behind their low grass huts while taking aim with bows of arrows at the camera men gawking and snapping photos from where they sat comfortably in helicopters, making it clear they did not wish to be disturbed or investigated. The whole thing was just weird. What really struck me though, was (prepare yourself for the literary term) the anachronism of it all. There seemed such a divide between these instinctive, primitive people and the gum-snapping, equipment-hefting cameramen, dreaming of all the money they would earn for their photos.
For a while, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what the right way for everyone to handle that situation would have been: leave them alone. But the fact is, it’s really not that simple. A growing number of indigenous Amazonian tribes have begun to demand their rights as citizens, with the privacy of their culture paying the price. This is the dilemma. By doing this, tribes gain recognition of their causes, as well as allow them to develop through trade and keep their land. Publicity gives these groups access to resources they would not otherwise have had, such as pharmaceutical medicines, fabrics, etc. On the other hand, this exposure will without a doubt dilute the purity of these ancient cultures.
The biggest question to me is, what is really best for these people? Is it isolation and preservation, or assimilation and progress?
Photo Credit: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_p1E7cWHNfIU/SGn-J4MIwRI/AAAAAAAAAdA/NWYqU4yJyZU/s400/uncontacted-tribes+amazon.jpg