This boom involved frequent violence between the Mashco-Piros and loggers - with deaths on both sides. 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. 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. That was way, way, way upriver from any other indigenous community, right 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 arrived from the River Urubamba, in a different watershed, and settled at what is today Monte Salvado on the River Las Piedras in the early-to-mid 1990s. If anyone can be said to have “invaded” anyone, it’s the people living in Monte Salvado, indigenous Yines, who have “invaded” the Mashco-Piros. In recent years such incursions have been reported by the mainstream media, including the Guardian, BBC and AFP, but they’ve all got it backwards. Here are eight things worth highlighting:ġ The documentary states the Mashco-Piros have been “invading” a “town” – actually an indigenous community – called Monte Salvado. Nevertheless, the documentary omitted some crucial information, used some extremely misleading language, and made numerous factual errors. Their verdict on Meirelles’ and others’ singing during the now notorious Simpatía encounter? According to the documentary’s translation: “What shit singing.” “Listen to them. There was some fascinating footage of one Tsapanawa man hunting and other Tsapanawas in their village - and some comic moments too. No doubt about it, it was excellent that Channel 4 was able to broadcast it and draw attention to the Tsapanawas and Mashco-Piros - just two of more than possibly 100 indigenous groups or peoples in Brazil and Peru living in what the law in both countries calls “isolation” and who are among the most vulnerable indigenous peoples in the world.
It also focuses on other “uncontacted” people, two groups of “Mashco-Piro”, as they are widely-known, in south-east Peru.įirst Contact was directed by Angus MacQueen, who also wrote an article about the film in The Observer, and narrated by actor Robert Lindsay. The documentary follows José Carlos Meirelles, a “ sertanista” who worked for the Brazilian government’s National Indian Institute (FUNAI) for 40 years and was in Simpatía when contact was made, returning to the Tsapanawas nine months later. The Tsapanawas’ arrival at the village, Simpatía, attracted mass media coverage and Youtube interest. It focused on a group of 35 “uncontacted” indigenous people, the “Tsapanawas” or “Sapanahuas”, who were filmed in June 2014 turning up at a village in Brazil’s Amazon near the border with Peru.
The UK’s Channel 4 broadcast a documentary on 23 February titled First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon.
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