Encounters with uncontacted Amazon tribes

David Hill

Peru's uncontacted Indians are increasingly in danger as oil companies, encouraged by the government, move in.

ONE MINUTE I had been fast asleep, then came the yapping of the dogs, rising to a frenzy. What I didn't know then was what had set them off: people from one of world's last uncontacted Indian tribes had just entered the village on Peru's Curanja river, where I was staying.

On that occasion, before dawn in one of the most remote parts of the Peruvian Amazon, the Indians left as mysteriously as they came. But, later that day, they returned, and on our arrival from a hunting trip further up river, one of the villagers, Hipa, was shouting excitedly. "He's saying one of his wives just saw some uncontacted Indians in the village," said Octavio, one of my three Cashinahua Indian guides.

"How many?"

"Three. They were armed with bows and arrows."

"Where were they?"

"At the far end of the village, picking bananas from one of the gardens."

"And what happened?"

"Hipa called out to them and they ran off immediately."

We spent that night barricaded in our huts and, next morning, speculated about what had happened. According to Hipa, they were from one of three uncontacted tribes living deep in that part of the jungle, possibly moving backwards and forwards across the border with Brazil. This wasn't the first time he had seen them, but their presence in that part of the jungle was unusual. Their distinctive hairstyle, shaven around the temples but longer at the back, suggested that they, like Hipa himself, spoke a language related to Cashinahua.

Sent to the Peruvian Amazon by Survival International, my aim was to gather as much information as possible about the uncontacted tribes living there: whereabouts, numbers, names, ways of life, and, most important, the threats that risk sending them to extinction. The tribes Hipa spoke of are just three of an estimated 15 uncontacted tribes in Peru, all of them living in the jungle in the most remote, inaccessible regions. At least two of these tribes live in the northern Peruvian Amazon, near the frontier with Ecuador, but the majority are in Peru's south-east. Although some may never have had contact with outsiders at all, it is believed that many are the descendants of tribes contacted more than 100 years ago during the "rubber boom" and who fled the atrocities committed against them by rubber magnates and their employees: enslavement, massacres, and decimation by new diseases.

"First just one came out, then two, then three, four, five, six, seven, but there were more than that in total," says a Yine Indian man called Jose on the Las Piedras river, where members of an uncontacted tribe known as the Mashco-Piro have been seen on numerous occasions in recent years.

The nature of these encounters has varied — from brief sightings to exchanges of conversation or even gifts such as meat and metal goods.

"We had a dozen machetes, a dozen knives and some axes and pots with us," Jose says. "We gave these to them. Not by hand, but by leaving them on the beach. We said to them: `Come closer.' But they didn't want to. They said to us: `Go further back, further back.' So we did. We went further downstream and, after that, they crossed the river, picked up the goods we left for them, and they started cheering. They were all very happy."

Although the Mashco-Piro are the largest of all the uncontacted tribes, numbering an estimated 600 people, they are under threat from illegal loggers invading their territory to cut down mahogany trees. Mahogany is one of the world's most valuable hardwoods, and south-east Peru is home to some of the last commercially viable stands. More than 80 per cent of the timber is exported to the United States. The loggers' presence there brings them into contact with the uncontacted tribes, often leading to violence, and sometimes deaths.

"The loggers want to kill the Mashco-Piro," says one Yine man, who asked not to be named. "And they have done, although the police come here and say it's the uncontacted Indians who kill the loggers. But that's not the case."

The other major threat is oil. Earlier this year the Peruvian government opened up 70 per cent of its jungle to oil companies for exploration, and the vast majority of areas inhabited by uncontacted Indians now face an invasion of oil workers.

Currently, the most critical area is near the border with Ecuador, where American oil company Barrett Resources has discovered huge oil deposits. Now awaiting the green light from Peru's Ministry of Mines and Energy, the production phase of the project will involve further seismic testing and the construction of platforms, wells, roads, pipelines and a processing facility.

But Barrett's find is in the middle of at least two uncontacted tribes' territories. The company recognises this, declaring in its environmental impact assessment that "during seismic activities in lot 67, workers will probably meet these uncontacted peoples..."

Government's role

What makes the tribes' situation more vulnerable is that the Peruvian Government almost totally disregards its uncontacted peoples. The chairman of Perupetro, the government body charged with granting oil exploration licences to companies, recently questioned the existence of any uncontacted tribes. "It's absurd to say there are uncontacted peoples when no one has seen them," said Perupetro's chairman, Daniel Saba, speaking on Peruvian television. "This is a tragic little game that we don't want to play."

Mr. Saba was apparently unaware that not only oil companies such as Barrett but even his own government have repeatedly confirmed the existence of these tribes in northern and south-east Peru, to say nothing of the huge amount of evidence collected by Survival International and many other organisations.

"Doubtless, Mr. Saba would much rather there were no uncontacted Indians in the areas where he wants to explore for oil,'' says Survival's director, Stephen Corry. "Declaring they don't exist at all, however, is a shameful self-fulfilling prophecy. If Perupetro allows companies to go in, it's likely to destroy the Indians completely — and then they really won't exist." —

(David Hill is a researcher and campaigner at Survival International. More information about uncontacted tribes, and how to get involved with Survival's campaign, at survival-international.org)

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006