"Uncontacted" Amazon Tribe - What Is Right?

If you click on the title above you will come to the website for survival-international, which has been featured lately in the news because of photos of "an uncontacted tribe" living in the Amazon.

Did any of you see this? Deep in the Brazilian forest at the Peruvian border, live people who point their bows and arrows at a plane flying (for the second time) overhead, and paint their bodies red and black to show their aggression..Their houses look almost like termite mounds. Something about it makes me so sad that my stomach brain and heart ache.

I don’t know how I feel about preserving these indigenous tribes. Why? So a few select scientists can get PHds, or daredevil adventurers can plow through the jungle and, mingle and breed and photograph, making their money writing books about it? Loggers in Peru are moving closer and closer, not caring and not able to care about such primitive Indian tribes. Human nature being what it is, the natives will be exploited in the most insidious fashion one way or another as they die out forever. What does "protecting" them really mean?

Have these people erected astrologically significant structures,cathedrals, produced literature or music that speaks to the grandest reaches of human endeavor? Doesn't look like it, when you examine the photos. Do they sit around at night upon a vein of emerald, diamond, sapphire, gold, or valuable oil? Have they developed a language or a religion which could solve the world's problems? Are they heirs, through hope, of an everlasting kingdom? Sure could be.

But I see frightened people living in abyssmal poverty. Fascinating beyond belief, fragile beyond belief, vulnerable beyond belief. I went to the website and nearly signed up, nearly wrote a letter to the Peruvian president to stop the loggers, protect the native people and preserve their environment. But why? Is that what's best here? Leave them alone, put a barrier around them, so they can die out in peace?

Why not assimilate and integrate them gently, gradually, lovingly over several generations, with the hope that we can learn from them, comfort them, honor them, cherish them, save them and help them become part of, and enrich, the larger blended human community? Is it possible? We've all seen the trials and tribulations of assimilation and even of affirmative action, and we know it takes generations even under the best of circumstances. Can we start from scratch and only show them the best of what we've achieved? Maybe send them a revised edition of the Voyager Golden Record? Introduce them to opera? Rembrandt's most soothing art? Honey-Nut Cheerios? I doubt we have any drugs that are better than theirs, so skip that. Why contaminate?

My heart is in shreds when I think about these people. I would love to go there and be with them, feel and touch and warm with them around a fire, share their meals, stare and cascade into their faces. But that would never work or do a bit of good. They wouldn't be afraid of me after they got to know me, nor I of them, that I know. If I could do it, and survive to tell the tale, and adopt one of their children, Madonna-style, sure that would be a thrill of some sort. I would be enlightened by them no doubt, their survival skills, their nimble limbic structures, their crazy godliness.

Should we leave them alone because they may be superior to us in some ways? Who do we think we are? Do we have anything to offer them? From the looks of things, I'd say we probably do. But they should decide what they want to do about the world, and then we could help if they want help.

They have to have the same problems the rest of us have. They are no doubt slaves to their hormones and their appetites- they must have leaders who have developed based on physical qualities of strength, attractiveness,or less tangible qualities such as wit or wisdom. They must have birth defects, addictions, mental illness, anger, grief, insecurities, betrayals, successes, joys. They may be brutal, apparently we don't know yet. But they're only human.

And so, flying out of Brazil with my thrill, back to the "developed" world, my heart would be heavier than ever. Wouldn't yours? Because there is no answer. It's all just going to happen. Someone will take charge, laws and human nature will click into action, and what will be will be.

Many of us know or have encountered people whose ancestors a few centuries back were "indigenous peoples." Many American Indians are enjoying life in the world as we know it, contributing to the arts, culture, and business. They may wish at times, as most of us do, that they could turn back the clock to a more pure and authentic age. But we all learn eventually that time stops for no one. Honor your ancestors, whatever bits and pieces you can salvage of their goodness. Carry on.