Unknown Amazonian Tribe Photographed

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Dramatic photographs of previously unfound Amazon Indians have highlighted the precariousness of the few remaining "lost" tribes and the dangers they face from contact with outsiders.
In this image made available Thursday May 29, 2008, from Survival International, showing 'uncontacted Indians' of the Envira, who have never before had any contact with the outside world, photographed during an overflight in May 2008, as they camp in the Terra Indigena Kampa e Isolados do Envira, Acre state, Brazil, close to the border with Peru. 'We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist,' said uncontacted tribes expert Jos
(AP Photo / Gleison Miranda, Funai)
Survival International estimates that there are over 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide, and says that uncontacted tribes in the region are under increasing threat from illegal logging over the border in Peru.
"The right answer is to have the kind of contact and change that the tribes themselves manage the pace of it."
Jose Carlos Meirelles, an official with Brazil's Indian protection agency who was on the helicopter that overflew the tribe, said they should be left alone as much as possible.
"While we are getting arrows in the face, it's fine," he told Brazil's Globo newspaper. "The day that they are well-behaved, they are finished."
Contact with outsiders has historically been disastrous for Brazil's Indians, who now number about 350,000 compared to up to 5 million when the first Europeans arrived.
"In 508 years of history, out of the thousands of tribes that exist none have adapted well to society in Brazil," said Sydney Possuelo, a former official with Brazil's Indian protection agency who founded its isolated tribes department.
The bow-and-arrow wielding Indians in the pictures released on Thursday are likely the remnants of a larger tribe who were forced deeper into the forest by encroaching settlement, experts said.
Rather than being "lost," they have likely had plenty of contact with other indigenous groups over the years, said Thomas Lovejoy, an Amazon expert who is president of The Heinz Center in Washington.
"I think there is an ethical question whether you can in the end keep them from any contact and I think the answer to that is no," Lovejoy said.