Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Isolated tribes live all over the planet, humans who have NO IDEA what YouTube is, and have never seen an iPhone, or a metal knife. How come they're still out there?

  • Everybody, Trace here reporting for DNews. In late June a previously isolated tribe in Brazil walked out of the Amazon rainforest and peacefully approached a team of government scientists.

  • This was the first time in 20 years they'd done so!

  • The Brazilian Indian Affairs Department or FUNAI, said it wasn't a normal approach and they were worried.

  • They believe illegal logging forced these people from their ancestral homes.

  • There are humans all over this planet who still live like our ancient ancestors.

  • There may be 100 different isolated groups across the Amazon and New Guinea, on islands off the coast of India, and even in Malaysia and central Africa.

  • Even the most isolated made contact with OTHER tribes usually and some of those secondary tribes contact the local government regularly.

  • Not to mention, anthropologists attempt to photograph these people from the air, and missionaries attempt to evangelize on the ground -- so even if they don't understand what that giant metal bird is, they know other humans are around.

  • The largest isolated tribal area on earth is in South America.

  • The Peruvian and Brazilian governments have laws reserving land for these tribes to live on.

  • Brazil used to forcibly assimilate tribes, but now they have a policy of non-interference, similar to Star Trek's Prime Directive.

  • Which sounds great on paper, but most reserves end up being ravaged by illegal oil, logging, mining and drug-trafficking practices, driving the tribes away or killing them.

  • There are stories of tribes who fight back being killed in all sorts of gruesome ways.

  • Brazil has confirmed that 67 isolated tribes live in its territory, and Peru has 15 -- numbering more than 500 people overall.

  • The smallest known isolated tribe on our planet is difficult to pinpoint.

  • There are tribes of only a handful of individuals, down all the way to just one.

  • A man in his 40s living in the Brazilian state of Rondônia (HONduonia) is the last survivor of his tribe, the rest likely being killed by modern humans.

  • No one knows his name or his lost tribe.

  • In 2010, he was on the run from locals trying to chase him off his land so that they can develop it.

  • His huts were bulldozed, and he was alone. He killed an encroaching man by shooting an arrow into his chest. Yikes.

  • He's still out there somewhere.

  • The most isolated tribe in the world is a tough one to guess, but there are two known tribes on the Andaman Islands off the coast of India.

  • The most famous of the two are the Sentinelese who were described in 1290 by Marco Polo, as "a most violent and cruel generation."

  • They have no desire to join modern society.

  • They've fought off National Geographic and police helicopters with bows and arrows, and kill fisherman who land on their island.

  • Estimates say there may be as few as 40, but we can't get close enough to tell. There are probably more.

  • The dangers to these isolated tribes are many, and it's not just loggers with chainsaws or drug traffickers with guns.

  • In 1980, a mission trip from Florida set up camp in Colombia near the isolated Nukak tribe hoping to evangelize them.

  • Since these tribes are mainly living hunter-gatherer lifestyles, the missionaries brought metal tools to gain their trust.

  • But because of the Nukak's lack of immunity to modern viruses and bacteria, they brought axes, machetes and disease.

  • The Nukaks were stricken with respiratory infections and other diseases before being treated.

  • Most of them now live in poverty in a city near their old land.

  • A study in Nature of 238 indigenous populations in South America found declines averaged 43 percent after contact with outsiders.

  • Even simply contacting the tribes directly completely changes their chosen way of life.

  • A month after they came out to talk to the scientists, they emerged again.

  • This time they had the flu, which brings to mind a whole OTHER consideration.

  • Should we leave these people be? Or should we find a way to contact them?

  • We've got a comments section down below, so go use it.

  • Thanks for watching DNews! Subscribe for more videos, seven days a week. We'll see you soon!

Isolated tribes live all over the planet, humans who have NO IDEA what YouTube is, and have never seen an iPhone, or a metal knife. How come they're still out there?

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it