In the documentary First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon, José Carlos Meirelles, a Sertanista (backwoodsman), who worked for the Brazilian government’s National Indian Institute (FUNAI) for 40 years and is part of the leadership of the FUNAI’s Isolated Indians group (Índios Isolados da FUNAI) and coordinator of the Ethnoenvironmental Protection Front of the Envira River (Frente de Proteção Etnoambiental do Rio Envira (FPERE)) , in Acre, makes “contact” with a ”Lost Tribe”. The documentary primarily focuses on 35 “uncontacted” indigenous people, the “Tsapanawas” or “Sapanahuas”, who were filmed in June 2014 at a village in Brazil’s Amazon near the border with Peru and two groups of “Mashco-Piro”, as they are widely-known, in south-east Peru. While Meirelles and documentary director Angus MacQueen may have had the “best intentions” in documenting the plight of these indigenous people, they omitted crucial information, used misleading language, and made numerous factual errors. This can lead to only one conclusion. There is a separate (hidden?) agenda and a target specific audience this “documentary” was aimed at.
The documentary claims that the Mashco-Piros had been “invading” a “town”, actually an indigenous community, called Monte Salvado. If anyone can be said to have “invaded” anyone, it’s the indigenous Yines living in Monte Salvado, who have “invaded” the Mashco-Piros. The Yines arrived from the River Urubamba, a different watershed, and settled at what is today Monte Salvado on the River Las Piedras in the early-to-mid 1990s. That was upriver from any other indigenous community, in territory that had long been regarded as the Mashco-Piros’, and within the area that was subsequently proposed for the supposedly off-limits Madre de Dios Reserve for them and other indigenous peoples in isolation. The Yines repeatedly attempted to contact the Mashco-Piros, travelling deeper into their territory to leave them pots, pans, machetes and knives, among other things. They also repeatedly entered deeper into Mashco-Piro territory to log valuable tree species, and in the 2000s, during a mahogany and cedar boom, charged other loggers to do the same. This boom involved frequent violence between the Mashco-Piros and loggers with deaths on both sides.
But why did the Yines move? There are many reasons including escaping Peru’s civil war and access to otherwise inaccessible timber in the surrounding forest. But why try so hard to contact the Mashco-Piros? Part of the answer might be Christian Evangelism. The Yines are Protestant “Evangelicos”, as they’re called in Peru, and looking for converts. Also “Big Corporate Oil” may have played a role. The Yines moved to Monte Salvado around the same time that Mobil turned up in Madre de Dios, before signing a contract, in 1996, to explore 1.5 million hectares which included the Las Piedras basin. Mobil established a base just upriver from Monte Salvado, even deeper in Mashco-Piro territory, and employed many Yines. Were the Yines moved there to “pacify” the Mashco-Piros and facilitate operations with missionaries playing an intermediary role? It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened in the Amazon.
While the documentary makes some attempt to explain why the Tsapanawas turned up at Simpatía and why the Mashco-Piros are making “contact”, it almost entirely fails to explain just how seriously Peru’s government is failing to protect the territories of indigenous peoples and how consistently such territories have been invaded in recent decades by loggers, narco-traffickers and coca farmers. What Meirelles and MacQueen should have made clear is that the supposedly off-limits Murunahua Reserve in Peru, used by the Tsapanawas and mentioned by Meirelles, has never been properly protected and has been the scene of rampant illegal logging, facilitated by extreme violence and corruption, for years. Meirelles and MacQueen also fail to mention that both the Alto Purus National Park, used by the Tsapanawas and the Mashco-Piro Reserve have been regularly invaded by illegal loggers as well, and that the government has established numerous “legal” logging concessions in Mashco-Piro territory in areas that were proposed as part of the Madre de Dios Reserve but were excluded when the reserve was established. In addition to problems with logging, there is the added issue of narcotic production and trafficking affecting the indigenous people. Peru competes with Colombia as the world’s top coca producer and one of the ways cocaine and/or cocaine paste is exported is through Peru’s southeastern Amazon to Brazil and beyond. This can mean crossing Tsapanawa and Mashco-Piro territory. The River Envira, where Simpatía is located, is acknowledged to be one of those routes. This too has resulted in extreme corruption and violence directed towards the Tsapanawa and Mashco-Piro.
The documentary highlights the support provided to the Tsapanawas by FUNAI, described as Brazil’s “federation for indigenous peoples” (actually a government institute within the Justice Ministry) but fails to acknowledge FUNAI’s serious errors before and immediately after the Simpatía encounter which put the Tsapanawas and other people’s lives gravely at risk. FUNAI was warned months in advance that contact was likely but failed to provide 1) an interpreter who could communicate with the Tsapanawas; 2) a specialist doctor to provide appropriate medical attention because of their lack of immunological defenses and extreme vulnerability to colds and flu; 3) essential equipment to store vaccines; 4) emergency food for the Tsapanawas; and 5) experienced FUNAI staff. The consequences of these failed actions? One was the misunderstandings captured in the Simpatía encounter footage. The documentary correctly recognizes that this situation was “fraught with risk”, but doesn’t acknowledge how easily that risk could have been reduced if FUNAI had reacted differently and ensured someone was there who could understand what the Tsapanawas were saying and communicate constructively back to them.
Though Meirelles never said these tribes were unknown or “uncontacted”, many in the world press were led to initially portray the group as such. In fact, like many indigenous tribes, these group’s existence had long been known about. Their presence had been detected either by frontiersmen or by satellite imagery. Indeed, it is highly likely that many of these tribes had already experienced some form of fleeting “contact” with outsiders over the years. The reason these tribes are classified as “uncontacted” is because they have retreated into the jungle and consciously avoid any interaction with settlers. The documentary calls the Tsapanawas, Mashco-Piros and/or other indigenous peoples in isolation “uncontacted”, “lost”, “hidden”, “untouched by modern civilization”, “untouched, indeed uncorrupted by our modern world”, “the tribes that time forgot”, “people who show us what we once were”, and living, or previously living, in “total isolation” and “complete isolation.” It even calls the Mashco-Piros “warriors”, features a shot of a YouTube clip about the Tsapanawas titled “Amazon Tribe Makes Touching Contact with Outside World FIRST TIME”, and describes the Simpatía encounter as “the moment these isolated men and women first seek to join the outside world.” All that is ridiculous and highly offensive. Calling the Tsapanawas et al “uncontacted” distorts the reality of their lives and the history of the western Amazon. All the peoples described as “isolated” have had some kind of contact with the outside world. What they don’t have is regular contact. But they’ve been using axes, machetes and iron pots for at least 100 years.
One final thought. Towards the end of First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon the narrator claims that “the reality of the Tsapanawas” existence ends our romantic dreams of noble savages still living in the Garden of Eden.” Whose “romantic dreams”? Is that really how Meirelles and MacQueen assume their audience is thinking? If anyone can be said to be “romanticizing” the Tsapanawas and other indigenous peoples in isolation, it is Meirelles and MacQueen. Especially when they use phrasing like “uncontacted”, “untouched’ and “uncorrupted.” This kind of language, the lack of medical foresight in contacting indigenous who may be vulnerable to infection and disease and the omitting of factual information all lead to one conclusion. There is a separate (hidden?) agenda and a target specific audience this “documentary” was aimed at. What that agenda and target specific audience is we may never know; but I feel comfortable saying that First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon isn’t about “Anthropology”, it’s about exploitation and nothing more.
One final thought. Towards the end of First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon the narrator claims that “the reality of the Tsapanawas” existence ends our romantic dreams of noble savages still living in the Garden of Eden.” Whose “romantic dreams”? Is that really how Meirelles and MacQueen assume their audience is thinking? If anyone can be said to be “romanticizing” the Tsapanawas and other indigenous peoples in isolation, it is Meirelles and MacQueen. Especially when they use phrasing like “uncontacted”, “untouched’ and “uncorrupted.” This kind of language, the lack of medical foresight in contacting indigenous who may be vulnerable to infection and disease and the omitting of factual information all lead to one conclusion. There is a separate (hidden?) agenda and a target specific audience this “documentary” was aimed at. What that agenda and target specific audience is we may never know; but I feel comfortable saying that First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon isn’t about “Anthropology”, it’s about exploitation and nothing more.
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