I was recently having a discussion about remote tribes that still live like they did hundreds or thousands of years ago. The Arnhem Land in Australia, the deep Amazon in Brazil, etc. How likely is it that there are completely undiscovered tribes still out there, perhaps in the heart of the Amazon, or northern Canada, or Siberia, or somewhere in the Pacific?
As a bit of tangent, if we find a new tribe now, let’s say in Northern Canada in a place where there are no economically exploitable resources, how would we react? Would we make contact and try to establish some sort of exchange? Would we send anthropologists? Would we cordon off the area and make it a protected site?
I find their opprobrium of “uncontacted” or “undiscovered” a bit precious. We all understand that those terms are used with reference to our own perspective. After all, Columbus DID discover the New World, and DID discover Indians here - from his own perspective and that of the Old World. Some tribes are, in the OP’s construal of the concept, undiscovered by anthropologists, and by extension, the rest of us. (aside: I think it’s thinking like that that caused Jonah Goldberg to create the notion of “liberal fascists.”)
As Gfactor points out, it depends on what exactly you mean by “undiscovered.” It’s a virtual certainty that there are no remaining groups who are completely unaware of the outside world. Those that are not directly in touch with “civilization” are certainly in touch with others that are. So these groups know at least something about outside cultures, even if we don’t know about them.
OK, how about “discover” in the sense that we don’t even know they exist. As in, if other (known) tribes are in contact with those tribes, then it doesn’t count. I’m sure someone from the larger world (i.e. the one that has anthropologists) would have at least heard about those other tribes, from the intermediate contacts.
So, what are the odds that there are still “undiscovered” tribes, in the stricter sense of the word?
Yes, and we have to refine that term even further. Is a tribe “contacted” if they encountered some logging company (not biologists or government agents) a few times, and then purposely stayed away as much as possible? Exactly how much “contact” does a tribe have to have before it can be considered “contacted”?
As for people living in Alaska, Canada, or Siberia, no way. There are people in Alaska who don’t speak English as their first language, but even that’s pretty rare.
The other thing to think about, is that these “uncontacted” tribes live next to almost uncontacted tribes. If you’re flying over the area and spot a village in the jungle you can’t tell from the air whether they’re totally isolated or just mostly isolated.
Yeah, northern Canada is pretty well-explored, at least by air, and the Inuit traditionally travelled a lot and knew a LOT about their territory – there’s no way any groups have missed out on years of contact and very serious efforts to bring people into communities.
My anthropology professor had a rather funny story about an “uncontacted tribe.” Around the 60’s or 70’s he was doing an ethnographic study on the highland Dani of Paupa New Guniea, an argricultrualist people with stone age technology. he was called on to go provide medical attention from a member of a tribe who lived in the deep back country who had never seen a white person. He didn’t want to let my professor touch him, because he thought he might be a ghost of spirit and wasn’t sure he was human. His Dani friends insisted they knew him and that he was human, so he eventually relented, but only after conducting a thorough physical inspection to make sure he had all of the parts you would expect a human to have. A very thorough, hands-on physical inspection.
Another thing to consider is that many of the “uncontacted” so-called tribes are really merely clans or villages belonging to larger groups. They are not really tribes in and of themselves.
A case in point is the Haourani of Ecuador. Major contact with them began in 1956, although they were well aware of outsiders, often killing those that intruded into their lands. They are now largely settled and many are acculturated.
There are, however, five groups within the Huaorani that are regarded as “uncontacted:”
These people are well aware of outsiders, but choose to avoid contact. But they are small family groups/clans rather than tribes.
Incidentally, when I worked in Peru on surveys on the lower Urubamba River in 1997-98 we hired our assistants from local tribes. One of my field assistants, Federico, who was about 40, told me that he was in his 20s when the missionaries first came to his village. So he had spent almost half his life “uncontacted.”
I wonder if these tribes have incorporated aircraft into their mythologies? They see a metal bird flying overhead (and/or making a contrail)-it has to make them wonder wouldn’t it?
A few English documentary makers have to trudge down there, pretend to participate in a few rituals, eat some horrid looking food, gain the distrust of a young male hunter/warrior who comes around after a minute and then bring home some souvineirs that they trade for things like canteens or hats and then they’re offically “contacted”. Least that’s how it seems to me.
You might find the North Sentinelese interesting. Perhaps the most isolated people on Earth, these are a non-seafaring, hunter-gatherer people who live on a small tropical island who have had virtually no contact with the outside world. Virtually nothing is known of their culture or language.
That is fascinating. I remember reading that there were concerns that they might have been wiped out by the 2004 tsunami, but when a helicopter was sent to fly over and check it out, it came under fire from a volley of arrows from the islanders.
Sorry for the double post. Google Maps has fairly good imagery of North Sentinel Island. Doesn’t look like the islanders have had much impact on the environment there!
