Uncontacted Tribes in the Modern World.

There are more than one hundred uncontacted tribes around the world.

Who are they?

Uncontacted tribes are Indigenous peoples who avoid all contact with outsiders.

They’re not backward and primitive relics of a remote past, they are our contemporaries and a vitally important part of humankind’s diversity.

Where their rights are respected, they continue to thrive. But their survival is constantly under threat from violence, disease, and racism.

Where are they?

Uncontacted tribes can be found in various parts of the world, such as the Amazon rainforest, Papua New Guinea, and the Andaman Islands.

According to Survival International somewhere around 100 so-called uncontacted people still exist. The estimates for how many such people there are can vary dramatically.

For example, Brazil claims to have 77 uncontacted peoples living in the Amazon Rainforest, while National Geographic claims there are 84.

When the estimates of uncontacted peoples are taken together and compared, around 100 tribes worldwide is a reasonable answer to give, though the real number is likely higher.

Sources for these numbers include observations from aircraft flying over the isolated regions and accounts by contacted peoples living nearby.

“Uncontacted” is a bit of a misnomer, as it’s likely that even the most isolated tribe in the world has interacted with outsiders in some way, whether face to face or by exposure to modern artifacts such as planes flying overhead and inter-tribal trading.

However, they are unintegrated into global civilization, retain their own cultures and customs, and can have little interest in communication with the outside world—or too much fear.

“They know far more about the outside world than most people think,” Fiona Watson, research director for Survival International, told BBC.

“They are experts at living in the forest and are well aware of the presence of outsiders.”

Below are five uncontacted and recently contacted tribes.

They were selected for geographic diversity and on the availability of information. Much of this information can be taken with a grain of salt, as it is partly based on distant observation.

The Sentinelese

The Sentinelese are the most isolated tribe in the world and have captured the imagination of millions.

They live on their own small, forested island called North Sentinel, which is approximately the size of Manhattan. They continue to resist all contact with outsiders, attacking anyone who comes near.

In November 2018, John Allen Chau, an American man, was killed by members of the Sentinelese tribe.

In 2006, two Indian fishermen, who had moored their boat near North Sentinel to sleep after poaching in the waters around the island, were killed when their boat broke loose and drifted onto the shore.

Poachers are known to fish illegally in the waters around the island, catching turtles and diving for lobsters and sea cucumbers.

The tribe have made it clear that they do not want contact. It is a wise choice. Neighboring tribes were wiped out after the British colonized their islands, and they lack immunity to common diseases like flu or measles, which would decimate their population.

Most of what is known about the Sentinelese has been gathered by viewing them from boats, more than an arrows distance from the shore and a few brief periods where the Sentinelese allowed the authorities to get close enough to hand over some coconuts. Even what they call themselves is unknown.

The Sentinelese hunt and gather in the forest, and fish in the coastal waters.

Unlike the neighbouring Jarawa tribe, they make boats – these are very narrow outrigger canoes, described as ‘too narrow to fit two feet in’. These can only be used in shallow waters as they are steered and propelled with a pole like a punt.

It is thought that the Sentinelese live in three small bands.

They have two different types of houses; large communal huts with several hearths for a number of families, and more temporary shelters, with no sides, which can sometimes be seen on the beach, with space for one nuclear family.

The women wear fiber strings tied around their waists, necks, and heads. The men also wear necklaces and headbands, but with a thicker waist belt. The men carry spears, bows, and arrows.

Also, from what can be seen from a distance, the Sentinelese islanders are clearly extremely healthy and thriving, in marked contrast to the Great Andamanese tribes to whom the British attempted to bring ‘civilization’.

The people who are seen on the shores of North Sentinel look proud, strong, and healthy and at any one-time observers have noted many children and pregnant women.

Missionaries has made attempt to get in contact with this tribe but the only one verified officially is an attempt by John Allen Chau around November 2018 and he didn’t make it back, also till date his dead body is not recovered.

According to Survival International “John Chau was likely killed on 16 Nov. If any pathogens he was carrying have affected Sentinelese, they would likely have manifested by now.

Of course, we don’t know how they would react if they were ill.

Would they come to the beach and ask for help, in which case the Indian authorities should have specialist teams waiting offshore but on standby, or would they simply retreat to the interior – probably more likely – in which case they will be out of reach? We don’t know, we have to wait.” And this was in 2018.

According to History of yesterday “John was able to make it back out into the ocean before being fatally wounded by an arrow shot at close range.

His body was never recovered from North Sentinel Island, but his death is believed to have been caused by being killed and eaten by its inhabitants”

The Jarawa

The tribes of the Andaman Islands – the Jarawa, Great Andamanese, Onge and Sentinelese – are believed to have lived in their Indian Ocean home for up to 55,000 years.

Today, approximately 400 members of the nomadic Jarawa tribe live in groups of 40-50 people in chaddhas – as they call their homes.

Like most tribal peoples who live self-sufficiently on their ancestral lands, the Jarawa continue to thrive, and their numbers are steadily growing.

They hunt pigs and turtles and fish with bows and arrows in the coral-fringed reefs for crabs and fish, including striped catfish-eel and the toothed pony fish.

They also gather fruits, wild roots, tubers, and honey. The bows are made from chooi wood, which does not grow throughout the Jarawa territory. The Jarawa often have to travel long distances to Baratang Island to collect it.

Both Jarawa men and women collect wild honey from lofty trees. During the honey collection the members of the group will sing songs to express their delight.

The honey-collector will chew the sap of leaves of a bee-repellant plant, such as Ooyekwalin, which they will then spray with their mouths at the bees to keep them away.

Once the bees have gone the Jarawa can cut the bee’s nest, which they will put in a wooden bucket on their back. The Jarawa always bathe after consuming honey.

A study of their nutrition and health found their ‘nutritional status’ was ‘optimal’. They have detailed knowledge of more than 150 plant and 350 animal species.

However, the jarawa face many threats:

-The road that cuts through their territory brings thousands of outsiders, including tourists, into their land. The tourists treat the Jarawa like animals in a safari park.

-Outsiders, both local settlers and international poachers enter their rich forest reserve to steal the game the tribe needs to survive.

-They remain vulnerable to outside diseases to which they have little or no immunity. In 1999 and 2006, the Jarawa suffered outbreaks of measles – a disease that has wiped out many tribes worldwide following contact with outsiders. An epidemic could devastate the tribe.

Jarawa women have been sexually abused by poachers, settlers, bus drivers and others.

Vale do Javari

The Javari Valley in Brazil is an area the size of Austria which is home to approximately 20 indigenous tribes. Of the 3,000 persons estimated to live there around 2,000 of them are thought to be “uncontacted”.

The information on these tribes is fleeting, but evidence suggests they utilize some agriculture alongside hunting. They have metal tools as well as metal pots they acquired by trade.

In the 1970s and ’80s, it was the policy of the Brazilian government to contact isolated tribes for their benefit.

The story of the Matis tribe of this region stands out. As a result of the diseases they were introduced to, the tribe saw three of its five villages wiped out, and their population dropped drastically. The Brazilian government no longer engages in this behavior.

The Congo

Many of the forest-dwelling peoples in the Congo have been contacted infrequently over the last century.

However, it is supposed that many uncontacted tribes still exist. The Mbuti, a ‘pygmy’ people, a contacted but isolated case which can give us an idea of how the uncontacted tribes may live.

The Mbuti are hunter-gatherers who see the forest as a parental figure that provides them with everything they require. They live in small, egalitarian villages. They are largely self-sufficient, but they do engage in trade with outside groups.

However, their way of life is at risk due to deforestation, illegal mining, and genocide being carried out against pygmies.

These are few of the known uncontacted tribes around the globe. There are more that are still unknown and uncontacted.