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Unknown Amazonian tribe with no contact with civilization captured in stunning drone footage

In the footage, a tribesman is seen walking with a bow and arrow. It also records an ancestral long house known as a maloca, along with a "manioc" plantation
UPDATED APR 10, 2020
(Source:Getty Images)
(Source:Getty Images)

A previously unknown and uncontacted indigenous tribe living in the inner parts of the Brazilian jungle has been spotted for the first time in a dramatic drone footage. The drone captured a vast area of the dense Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil.

The group of 16 indigenous people belonging to the unknown tribe has never had any contact with the outside world, according to FUNAI, the Brazilian agency for native tribes.

Although the footage was captured during an expedition in 2017, the material was only recently released. According to the footage, a tribesman is seen walking with a bow and arrow. It also records an ancestral long house known as a maloca, along with a "manioc" plantation.

According to FUNAI, the group has never been seen before and no contact has ever been made with them, making the name and ethnicity of the tribe hard to determine. After receiving reports that illegal hunters were threatening tribes, agency experts trekked for more than 190 miles into the 53,000-square-mile Vale do Javari reservation on the border with Colombia and Peru.

During the expedition last year, the group found items which confirmed the presence of unknown tribes in the region. Among the findings were a horn made from tree bark, dugout canoes, and an abandoned stone ax tied together with vegetable fiber.

While FUNAI previously recorded that there were six known tribes in the region, at least 16 other tribes are now believed to be living in the forest with no prior contact with civilization.

FUNAI's isolated indigenous people's coordinator, Bruno Pereira, said the five drones they sent out to film the Indians went undetected by members of the tribe during the expedition.

He said: "The use of drones provided safety both for the indigenous people and for the FUNAI team. 

"The idea is to share these scenes in order to confirm the existence of these Indians and the importance of protecting them. 

"We need to strengthen our work in the region."


Having said that, the team reportedly also found evidence of illegal hunters and poachers in the region. They are believed to be capturing exotic species in the Amazon after traps set up in tributaries of the Juruazinho river were discovered in the footage.

A spokesman informed that a number of animals were subsequently released from the traps. "These images have the power to make society and the government reflect on the importance of protecting these groups," said Wallace Bastos, FUNAI's president.

But according to Pereira, no attempt will be made to contact this one or rather any of Brazil's several uncontacted tribespeoples. He said: "We respect their isolation. Their isolation will remain until the day they decide against it, or until an extreme situation requires the State to make contact."

"If they wanted contact with the outside world, they would seek out ways to communicate with us," he added. 

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