JAKE CLELAND

dihard:

This blows my mind. For three reasons. First, and obvious, the Envira is one of 100 uncontacted tribes in the world. Amazing.

Second, though “first contact is almost completely catastrophic for uncontacted tribes,” they flew the plane not once, but twice over the village. Imagine the confusion and terror at the sight of the plane, what some articles say the tribe likely thought was “a spirit of a large bird.” Isn’t that just the beginning? Check out the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, a silly film where the Sho tribe becomes corrupted when a pilot in a passing airplane discards a glass Coca Cola bottle out the window. Initially the bottle is another gift from the gods, as the Sho find many uses for it. But since there is only one, the tribe finds themselves feeling jealousy, anger, envy, and violence, feelings they had never before felt.. Though to SI’s defense (the non profit org that took the photos), their motive to ensure the territory is protected so this group and others like it are not made extinct was noble.

And third, it made me wonder if they’re better off than we are.

I saw that film about the Coke bottle, it was amazing.

I brought up the news about this tribe in class the day after the news reported it, and I was met with choruses of “Faaaaaake”. Is that really how cynical we’ve become? Or is it just arrogance, the assumption that we cannot conceive of something undiscovered on our own Earth, as if the only thing left to discover here is how long we can go on polluting the water.